Excerpt from Appalachian Kid

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So, what does an Appalachian kid like me know about hope, anyway?

I’ve had the wrong idea about it and where it can be found … for most of my life. A short synopsis of this book would lead anyone to believe that I’ve learned the meaning of hope and where to place my hopes, the hard?way. And yes, that’s okay. After all, I didn’t plan it to go down that way; this was just my journey.

Reflecting on childhood, I didn’t think much of myself. To me, having hope seemed unnatural; hope just didn’t make sense. I knew I needed it, but I didn’t know where to look for it or how to find it. Because I didn’t go searching for hope, my hopes were oftentimes non-existent. The abuse I incurred at home certainly didn’t render me a hopeful person, either. What child would’ve been? As I grew older, what little hope I could muster, I placed it in the wrong things. When the desires of my dreams didn’t work out, I felt crushed. This perpetually frustrated me. Thus, I believed the act of hoping was simply a waste of time.

For kids who grew up under similar circumstances as mine, or as these kids I’ve written about from my hometown, it’s downright difficult for us to have hope. Why is this? C.R. Snyder, author of The Psychology of Hope, puts it this way, “Developing minds victimized by years of trauma are ‘drained of hope.’” Snyder goes on to explain that, “Low-hope children are like small boats lost in the darkness of a threatening sea.” I was just that–untethered and adrift.

After the trauma at home stopped and I was removed from that situation, I felt as though I wasn’t worthy of anything good happening to me, as though I were hard-wired this way and had been for the longest time. Sadly, I focused on all the negatives in my life; negativity followed me around like a “Charlie Brown rain cloud” well into adulthood.

I was still a dreamer. These obstacles I’ve just described didn’t stop me from being one. But honestly, I didn’t believe my dreams would come to pass during my earlier years. As a child, I thought the use of the word “dreams” meant things that were unachievable.

In the best of cases, I saw hope the way many others do; I saw it as wishful thinking. But most times, instead of being optimistic or wishful, I defaulted to being negative. Then if something good happened it was an added benefit I wasn’t expecting. As in, Surprise! Something good happened! I was wrong in this application, but that’s how I saw it. That was before I had the correct vantage point.

Previously, I mentioned that there’s one meaning of the word “hope” missing or omitted from the dictionary’s text. And, for that matter, this same meaning of the word is missing or omitted from much of society’s knowledge, understanding, and beliefs. I’d include myself in that category for three and a half decades.

This missing or omitted explanation of hope that I’m referring to can be found in the Bible. To a believer, hope is something far different than wishful thinking. Simply put, Scripture states in the book of Hebrews that, “Hope anchors the soul.” Think about that for a moment. For me, the first time I became aware of this verse, it brought with it more questions than answers. That sounds great, but what does it even mean? I know what my soul is, but why does my soul need an anchor? For that matter, how does hope anchor it?

Well, I’m neither a sailor nor a theologian, but what I’ve learned over time is when a verse is paired with a word such as “anchor,” there’s more beneath the surface than is realized.

To understand hope, one has to go back and study its origin. Hope is based on the substance of what God has done in the past and can do for us now. In the Old Testament, the word “hope” was used to express waiting, longing, desire, and expectation. The word also meant a cord or rope that was attached in safety. The “safety” it refers to comes from an attachment to God.

Hope in the New Testament meant anticipating with pleasure what one waits for referring to something that isn’t yet present or visible. In this case, what one waits for are the promises of God to come to pass. Hope, at its core, is faith (i.e., trust in God) applied to the future. Hope is the confident expectation that God’s promises are true and that they will come to those who believe and place their faith in Him. When you put your Hope in God, the Bible says, you will not be disappointed.

To a sailor, how you are anchored matters. An anchor is a device made of metal, used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The relative weight of the anchor is miniscule in comparison to the weight of the vessel it moors.

Let me illustrate. For example, the largest ship I’ve ever seen is a United States Navy aircraft carrier – it’s an impressive feat of engineering. In 2022, the most recent aircraft carrier placed into service in the US naval fleet was the USS Gerald Ford. This ship is no small affair. At a cost of $12.9 billion, it’s a sizable taxpayer investment. The ship carries a crew of 5500 sailors and seventy-five aircraft. The behemoth is 1092 feet long – approximately the length of three football fields – and weighs 100,000 tons. Now, at 100,000 tons – the equivalent of 200 million pounds – one would assume this ship would require a massive anchoring system not to be displaced. Given the extraordinary cost of the ship, I’m sure the Navy wouldn’t want it drifting.

In comparison to the ship’s size, the anchor isn’t that large at all. A little anchor goes a long way. There are two anchors equipped on the USS Gerald Ford, weighing fifteen tons apiece. That’s all, just fifteen tons. Each anchor comes complete with a 1440-inch long chain. The approximate weight of each chain that lowers and retrieves the anchor is sixty-two tons. So, basically, it takes a sixty-two-ton chain to raise a fifteen-ton anchor out of the sea bottom. The weight of both anchors and chains aboard the USS Ford, totals 154 tons. Remarkably, the ship’s anchoring system at 154 tons has the ability to moor a ship weighing more than 100,000 tons. The size of the anchor system’s weight compared to the ship’s total weight is 0.13 percent. If this doesn’t portray the effectiveness of an anchor, I don’t know what else would.

In shipping, just as in life, proper applicability of this anchoring system is dependent on key external factors. In this case, the anchors are only as effective as the sea bed they rest on. If the conditions of the seafloor are muddy or sandy, they allow the anchor flukes to nestle into the sea bed so that when force is applied, the flukes bury themselves. Therefore, these anchors will hold the ship steady from external forces. Conversely, these anchors won’t moor a vessel if the sea bed is made of rock, and thus the ship will succumb to displacement by wind and current because the flukes have nowhere to nestle.

This analogy is applicable to us because when we project our hopes from the wrong foundation, there’s a possibility we’ll be disappointed in the results. With enough disappointing outcomes, there are those who become so frustrated that they’ll stop dropping an anchor and have no hope at all. They’ll be at the complete mercy of life’s currents. We all know someone this has happened to, if it hasn’t happened to us already.

On the contrary, biblical hope is quite the opposite. Hope in this application is based on God’s promises. With God as the guarantor, hope has certainty. In this biblical sense, hope is something we can leverage, meaning that a little bit of hope can go a long way. Reliance on Him as the anchor provides a believer with the sustenance needed to bridge the abyss in challenging times and to strive to reach his or her highest potential.

That’s why hope can achieve the impossible. For nothing is impossible with God.

This doesn’t mean bad things won’t happen. When difficult times come, and they will, if you’re anchored the right way, you won’t drift in the face of hardships or challenges. You won’t drift because God will be there with you. He promises this to those who have their trust in Him.

This is how I’ve grown to understand hope.

How did I find hope? I didn’t. Hope found me when I was at a low point and my friend invited me to attend church. Actually, I didn’t experience true hope until I had a problem I couldn’t fix on my own and God answered my prayer for help breaking my addiction to alcohol.

The thing about hope is just this: To have hope, true hope, one must have faith. It’s the key ingredient. That I learned the hard way.

In my past, I’ve placed my hopes in all the wrong things. I’ve placed my hopes in my circumstances, my success, my career, in people, and even in my own abilities. All these have failed me at one time or another. And yes, this was hard. Without it being hard, it’s unlikely I would’ve changed my perspective, learned from my mistakes, or sought to acquire the true meaning of the word “hope.” If it wasn’t hard, I wouldn’t have needed God. And, without God, I wouldn’t have known the true meaning of hope.