National Month of Hope was first recognized in 2018. Created by Mothers in Crisis, Inc. it was founded to spread hope around the world.

 

Mothers in Crisis, Inc. supports women and families who are in need by bringing them hope and empowering them to find a new path.

 

Their acronym for HOPE is Helping Others Practice Empowerment. It is through helping others that we often help ourselves.

 

Research indicates that those who consistently help other people experience less depression, greater calm, fewer pains and better health.

 

It’s not just for adults. Studies show that students who performed five acts of kindness a day increased their happiness as well.

 

We can find hope in the everyday. From watching a sunrise to seeing the bud on a new bloom, there is newness of life all around us.

 

Desmond Tutu once famously said, Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.

A recent Harvard study showed that 51% of young Americans said that at least several days in the previous two weeks they had felt down, depressed or hopeless. 

 

Laynee Gibbs knew that feeling when her best friend committed suicide in junior high. Sharing her story at a recent Rapides Parish School Board meeting, she told how she found hope through her school’s JAG program which gave her the much needed push to persevere.

 

Sometimes all it takes is a little ray in sunshine in the darkness, a little sprig of green on an otherwise dead tree.

 

Driving around the property with my dad last weekend to count marked trees destined for the wood chipper, I spotted one with green sprouting from its dead branches.

 

“There’s hope; there’s hope,” I’d wailed ripping the ribbon off and whispering to the tree that it was now safe.

 

My dad rolled his eyes at his dramatic overgrown child while my daughter’s husband watched from his kitchen window, undoubtedly thinking that he now had to add tree-hugger to the list of all the things he’d known his mother-in-law to be.

 

I was unapologetic.

 

Hope springs eternal and people need hope now more than ever.

 

So do trees.