Glory & Grit : Season 2, Episode 12 - When You're Afraid to Hope Again
Show Notes:
Summary
Sometimes we're so busy protecting ourselves from disappointment that we forget we're also allowed to experience joy.
When Stephanie began looking for a house, she imagined bay windows, possibilities, and the excitement of finally having a place of her own. But after several disappointments, she made herself a promise: no excitement until the papers were signed.
It seemed sensible at the time. Looking back, she wonders whether she was protecting herself from more than disappointment.
This episode explores what happens when we begin requiring certainty before allowing ourselves to hope—and how hope anchored in Jesus Christ can remain even when circumstances don't turn out as expected.
In This Episode
How repeated disappointment can change our willingness to hope
The difference between caution and fear
Why hope and certainty are not interchangeable
What Romans 5:3–5 teaches about hope growing through difficulty
The image of hope as an anchor in Ether 12:4
The difference between genuine peace and emotional detachment
The surprising ending to Stephanie's house search
Key Takeaways
You can trust God and still grieve an outcome you wanted.
Being realistic doesn't require shutting down every hopeful possibility.
Acceptance doesn't mean you must stop caring.
Hope in Christ can remain steady even when a particular hope goes unfulfilled.
You don't need to know the ending to appreciate the possibilities along the way.
Continue the Conversation
The episode is only the beginning. Visit the Companion Page for a fresh reflection, a Truth to Carry, a Prayer Prompt, and one small Grit Practice to help you make room for hope in everyday life.
Glory & Grit — where faith meets real life.
Transcript:
Stephanie (00:02)
I remember a time when I was looking to buy a house. And honey, let me tell you, when I started that process, I was so excited. I was looking at houses, thinking about the possibilities, looking at these beautiful bay windows, and then imagining what it would be like to finally have a place of my own. OWNNNN...
I was doing all the things right i was searching for houses putting in offers getting my finances and my loans all lined up and ready to go and every time something looked promising and there was this little extra spark of excitement maybe this is the one. Maybe this is finally going to happen. But then comes the disappointment. And after a couple of those, something started changing.
I was still looking for a house. I mean, I still wanted one and I was still doing what I needed to do to make that happen.
But I wasn't enjoying the process anymore. Because somewhere along the way, I started telling myself something. I'm not getting my hopes up, not this time. Until I sign those papers, I'm not getting excited about anything.
Because why get excited about something that might not happen? Why let myself imagine and look forward to it and get all happy about it only to be disappointed again?
At that time, that seemed to make good sense to me, right?
I thought I was protecting myself.
But looking back...
I wonder if I was also protecting myself from joy.
Welcome to Glory and Grit, where faith meets real life.
I'm your host, Stephanie, and I'm really glad you're here. And today we're talking about something I suspect more than a few of us have experienced. When you're afraid to hope again.
And not because you don't believe in not because you've given up on everything, but because you've been disappointed enough times that getting excited about something starts to feel a little dangerous. And you begin to wonder whether it's safer just not to hope at all.
You know, I think there's something interesting about the phrase, I'm not gonna get my hopes up. And we say it so casually, right? Somebody tells you about an opportunity and we say, well, we'll see. I'm not gonna get my hopes up.
We're waiting to hear about a job. We're waiting for medical results. We're hoping for a relationship to improve. We're praying, praying that something we've been working towards will finally come together.
and sometimes before we even know what's gonna happen, we've already start preparing ourselves for disappointment.
Now I understand being realistic. I do. I understand not wanting to assume something is gonna happen just because we want it to.
But there's always a but. I wonder if sometimes we take that a little further, right? We stop letting ourselves look forward to things. We stop imagining good possibilities. We even stop talking about what we're hoping for because saying it out loud somehow.
Makes the possibility of disappointment feel bigger. I don't know how that works, but we do it. And the strange thing is we can still be doing everything we're supposed to do. Still applying, still searching, still praying, still showing up, but somewhere inside we've decided that we're not gonna let ourselves feel too much.
Right? Because if we don't get excited, then maybe it won't hurt so bad when things don't work out.
Really???
Does that actually work? Does refusing to hope make disappointment hurt?
Or, or does it mean we've started experiencing the disappointment before anything has even happened?
I don't know that the answer is the same for everybody. and I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with being cautious after you've been hurt. Sometimes our heart needs time to heal. Sometimes we're exhausted. Sometimes we genuinely don't have the emotional energy to get excited about one more possibility.
I get that. I do. I really do. But I think it's worth asking ourselves whether we're being careful.
Or whether fear has quietly started making some of our decisions.
Because those two things can look an awful lot.
One of the things I think we sometimes struggle with is that we want hope to come with a guarantee. We want to know that if we allow ourselves to believe something good is gonna happen or might happen, it actually will.
And wouldn't that be wonderful? I mean, wouldn't it be nice if every time we felt hopeful, God handed us a little confirmation slip that says,
Yes, Stephanie, go ahead, get excited. This was gonna work out.
I would appreciate that. But that's not generally how life works. And it's not how faith works either. In Romans chapter five, verse three through five, Paul talks about tribulation, patience, experience, and hope.
And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. And I find the order interesting, right? He doesn't start with everything working out perfectly. He starts with tribulation, with difficulty, with things that test us. And then he describes a process through which patience and experience lead toward hope.
Now, I don't believe that means every painful experience automatically makes us more hopeful. Sometimes disappointment makes us angry, sometimes it makes us tired, sometimes it makes us question things that we thought we understood. And I don't think that we need to pretend otherwise. I mean, really.
But what I hear in Paul's words is that hope can grow even in the middle of difficult experiences.
It doesn't have to wait until every difficulty is resolved. And that matters.
Because if I can only hope when I'm certain of the outcome,
Then what I'm really waiting for isn't hope.
It's certainty.
And those are not the same thing.
Hope leaves room for possibility. Certainty wants the answer.
And sometimes when we've been disappointed, we start demanding certainty before we'll give ourselves permission to hope. And I think that's what I was doing during my house search. I wasn't willing to get excited until everything was signed, sealed, and delivered, settled.
And I can completely understand why I did that. But looking back on that, I can also see how much of the joy of that experience I'd stopped allowing myself to feel. Not because I didn't want a home anymore, but because I didn't want to be disappointed again, right?
There's another scripture that I love for this conversation. It's Ether chapter 12, verse 4. And it describes hope as something that becomes an anchor to the souls of men, right?
Wherefore whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God. Which hope cometh of faith maketh an anchor to the souls of men. Which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to Glorify God.
An anchor. Think about that image for a minute. An anchor doesn't stop the wind from blowing.
It doesn't keep the waves from coming. And it certainly doesn't promise that the weather is always going to be pleasant.
What it does is help keep something steady when the conditions around it are changing.
I think that's an important distinction, right? Because sometimes we treat hope like it means believing that everything is going to turn out exactly the way we want. But hope in Christ is bigger than one particular outcome. I can hope for a job. I can hope for healing. I can hope for my relationship to improve. I can hope for an opportunity to open up. Those are real hopes. And there's nothing wrong with having them.
But my hope in Jesus Christ can't depend entirely on whether those particular things happen. Because sometimes they don't. Sometimes we pray and pray, and the answer isn't what we wanted. Sometimes we do everything we know how to do, and the opportunity still doesn't come. Sometimes the door closes.
And sometimes we don't even understand why. A lot of the times we don't even understand why. So what happens to our hope then?
I think that's where we have to ask ourselves what our hope is anchored to. Is it anchored to a particular outcome? Or is it anchored to the Savior who remains faithful even when the outcome is uncertain? Now, I don't want to make that sound easier than it is, because it's one thing to say, I trust God.
It's another thing entirely to keep trusting him when something you really want doesn't happen. Especially when you prayed about it over and over, especially when you thought you were doing all the right things and moving in all the right directions. And especially when you had already been disappointed before.
And I don't believe trusting God means we don't feel disappointed. We can trust Him and still grieve for what didn't happen. We can believe that He loves us and still wonder why something didn't work out the way we wanted it to. We can have faith and still need a little time.
Those feelings don't automatically cancel each other out. Okay. Maybe part of learning to hope again is allowing them to exist together. there's something else I've been thinking about. Sometimes when we've been disappointed enough, we reach a place where we say, I'm fine either way.
And sometimes we really are. Sometimes we prayed, considered our options, and genuinely reached a place of acceptance. And that's a beautiful thing when you can do it. But sometimes I'm fine either way means a little something different. Sometimes it means I'm not letting myself
care anymore.
Because caring feels too risky. And if I don't care, maybe I can't be hurt.
But I don't think those are necessarily the same thing. Peace doesn't always mean that we've stopped wanting something, and acceptance doesn't have to mean that we've stopped caring. We can want something deeply and still trust God with the outcome. We can look forward to something while acknowledging that it might not happen.
We can be excited about the possibilities without treating it as a promise. And perhaps that's one of the hardest things to learn.
How to hold something with open hands not so tightly that we fall apart if we lose it, but not so loosely that we refuse to enjoy it while it's there.
I wonder how many moments of joy we've talked ourselves out of because we're afraid of what might come next.
How many times have we received good news and immediately started listing all the reasons it might not last?
How many times have we refused to celebrate a small step forward because we hadn't reached the finish line yet?
And how many times have we confused that with being wise.
Now I'm not suggesting that we ignore warning signs. I am not saying that. I'm not suggesting that we pretend everything is wonderful when it isn't. And I am certainly not suggesting that we put ourselves back in a harmful situation because we want to be hopeful.
Sometimes wisdom tells us to stop. Sometimes it tells us to change directions. And sometimes it tells us that something we've been pursuing is no longer good for us. Stop it.
But when there is a genuine possibility of something good, I wonder whether we can learn to let ourselves appreciate that possibility without demanding a guarantee.
Maybe we don't have to choose between being realistic and being hopeful.
Maybe there's room for both.
So what does that look like in everyday life? How do we begin hoping again when we've gotten used to protecting ourselves from disappointment?
I don't think there's one simple answer.
And I don't think it's as easy as telling ourselves to be more positive. Because sometimes the reason we're afraid to hope is because we've experienced real loss, real disappointment, real heartbreak, and those experiences matter.
We don't have to pretend they didn't happen
But maybe we can start by noticing what we're telling ourselves. When something promising comes along, what is our first response? Do we immediately imagine everything that could go wrong? Do we remind ourselves of every time something similar didn't work out?
Do we shoot down our excitement before we even had a chance to feel it?
And if we do, maybe we can stop for a moment and ask why. Why do I do that?
Not criticize ourselves, not force ourselves to feel differently, but simply to recognize what's happening. Maybe we can say, yeah, I've been disappointed before, and yes, this might not work out, but I'm allowed to look forward to something good. I'm allowed to be happy about an opportunity. I'm allowed to celebrate a little progress. I'm allowed to imagine a possibility. And if that doesn't work out, I'll deal with that disappointment when it comes. I don't have to live through it ahead of time, right?
That doesn't mean that disappointment won't hurt. It might. It might hurt a lot. But refusing to hope doesn't guarantee that we'll escape that hurt.
And I wonder whether sometimes the price we pay for trying to avoid disappointment is giving up joy. We didn't have to surrender. Maybe learning to hope begins with something small, not a grand declaration, not convincing ourselves that everything is going to be wonderful. Just allowing ourselves to say,
I'm looking forward to this. I would really love for this to happen. I'm excited about the possibility.
And then letting those words be true without immediately adding a warning. Without following them with, but I'm not gonna get my hopes up.
Maybe that's a small act of courage. And maybe for some of us, it's a pretty big one. Now, I started this conversation by telling you about my search for a house. All those searches, the offers, the biddings, the financing, the disappointments,
how I finally reached a point where I decided I wasn't gonna get excited until I had signed the papers.
Well, there's something I haven't told you.
I never bought the house.
After all that searching, all the preparation, all the possibilities, I never ended up buying one.
And you might be thinking, well, Steph, that doesn't exactly sound like an encouraging story about hope. I know, I know, I know. But stay with me. Okay. Because something interesting happened later. I got married. And looking back now, I'm actually glad I hadn't bought a house because when Marty and I got married.
We didn't have two houses to figure out what to do with. Now, I want to be careful about what I'm about to say. And I want you to listen carefully to what I'm about to say. I am not going to tell you that God made every offer fall through because He knew I was going to get married.
And I don't want to claim to know God's reason for every disappointment in my life. But what I can tell you.
That something I found disappointing at the time looks very different to me now.
I couldn't see the future while I was looking for a house. I couldn't know how my circumstances would change.
And I certainly couldn't know that one day I'd be grateful I hadn't purchased.
But here's what I've been thinking about. Even though I'm grateful for how things turned out, that doesn't mean I had to lose the joy of searching while I was going through it. I didn't have to know the ending to appreciate all those possibilities along the way. And maybe.
That's what I wish I'd understood.
I didn't need a guarantee to give myself permission to hope.
And I wonder how many times we do that in other areas of our lives. We tell ourselves, we'll be happy when something is certain, when the contract's signed, when the answer comes, when the situation is resolved, when everything finally falls into place.
But what if you don't have to wait till the end of the story to experience some joy along with it?
What if we can appreciate the possibility of something good even when we don't know whether it will happen? And what if the ending looks nothing like what we imagined? Does that mean the hope was wasted? I don't think so. I don't think so. Because maybe hope isn't only about getting where we thought we were going.
Maybe sometimes it's about remaining open to the good things we can't see.
My friend, I don't know what you've been hoping for. Maybe it's something you've prayed about for years. Maybe it's something you've been working toward, and every time you think you're getting close, something happens. Maybe you've had enough disappointment that you've stopped talking about what you want. Or maybe you haven't stopped hoping altogether. You've just gotten
A lot quieter about it, more cautious, less willing to get a little excited. And I understand that. I really do. I I really do.
But I wanna leave you with something to consider.
What if you don't have to know how the story ends before you let yourself hope again?
What if you can acknowledge the possibility of disappointment without allowing it to take over the whole experience?
And what if trusting God doesn't mean pretending that everything will work out the way you want, but believing that He'll be with you regardless of how it turns
Because that's the kind of hope I want to keep learning. Not a hope that demands a particular answer, not a hope that pretends disappointment doesn't hurt, but a hope that's anchored in Jesus Christ. A hope that allows me to keep moving forward even when I don't know what's coming. A hope that makes room for joy without requiring certainty.
And maybe that's where some of us need to begin. Not by making ourselves believe that everything is going to turn out perfectly, but by allowing ourselves to believe that something good is still possible.
Because hope is not a promise that you'll get what you want. It's permission to believe that disappointment doesn't get the final word.
That was a Mic Thumper.
And sometimes that permission is exactly what we need to take the next step.
Yes, yes. Before we finish, I want to leave you with this thought. You don't have to know how the story ends to allow yourself to hope while you're living it. and maybe for some of us, that's where learning to hope again begins. If today's conversation resonated with you, I invite you to visit.
The companion page for this episode at GloryangritPodcast dot com
There we'll take this conversation a little further with scripture, personal reflection, and a small grit practice you can carry into your week. It's not a repeat of what was said here in the podcast. So
Go check it out. Let me know what you think. I'm Stephanie. Thank you so much for spending this time with me today. And keep walking. Even when you're uncertain, even when you've been disappointed, and even when you're learning how to hope again.
Until next time, my friend, keep looking for glory and keep walking with grit.
Bye now.
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