I Am Filled with Despair and Can’t Find Hope
If you can hold onto hope, do it. Hope is a beautiful, powerful force when it comes.
But what about the times when hope just isn’t accessible?
You are allowed to feel hopeless. You are still whole, holy and worthy in your despair. Your pain is real. Yet, even here, sacred forces move within us.
When hope feels impossible, commitment can still carry you.
Love can carry you.
Care can carry you.
Anger — the fierce, righteous kind — can carry you.
The deep pull of ethical action, the stubborn insistence on right action, can carry you.
Love, rage, commitment — these are sacred forces, flowing through us even when hope falls silent.
The Danish Resistance and the Rescue of the Jews
In 1943, under Nazi occupation, the Danish people learned that the Germans planned to round up and deport Denmark’s Jewish citizens.
The Danish Resistance, ordinary neighbors, fishermen, and students, acted almost overnight.
They did not know if they would succeed.
They acted anyway — not because they were sure, but because it was right.
In a few weeks, nearly 7,200 of Denmark’s 7,800 Jews were smuggled across the sea to neutral Sweden.
Ordinary people risked prison or execution, hiding families in boats, basements, and barns.
One fisherman later said,
“We did what had to be done. It was not about bravery. It was about being human.”
Denmark’s Jewish community survived the war largely intact — a rare, shining story of mass resistance that succeeded not through certainty, but through courageous, stubborn, collective action.
Sometimes the refusal to give in to despair saves whole communities.
You do not have to feel hope to refuse the pit of despair.
Find your own way forward.
Grieve what needs grieving.
Rage where rage is welcome.
Make spaces for sorrow, and don’t silence it.
The world needs the grief and the rage as much as it needs the laughter and the healing — they are all part of the repair.
Despair is what fascism thrives on — and refusing despair is sacred resistance.
- Despair halts repair.
- Despair clouds vision.
- Despair chokes out compassion.
Despair tells you it’s already over — and that’s exactly what oppressive systems want you to believe. But we are children of the Earth, of the Sacred, of the deep, resilient mystery.
Even if all we can offer is one small action, one stubborn breath, one choice to love — that is enough to crack open the future.
Do not surrender the sacred spark within you to despair. Do not give them that victory.
Don’t give them that victory.
Even if it’s anger that fuels you at first, keep showing up.
Even if it’s stubbornness that gets you out of bed, keep showing up.
Even if you don’t believe it will work — even if you’re sure it won’t — keep showing up in the ways you can.
- The children whose food is rotting in the fields need you.
- The disabled folks whose benefits have been gutted need you.
- The immigrants and students sent to camps need you.
- The working people who can’t afford the rising prices need you.
Your family — your neighbors — all of us, who are no longer protected by food inspectors, clean air regulations, safety measures — we need each other.
Robin Wall Kimmerer shares in “Braiding Sweetgrass”:
“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.”
Repair and vision and compassion are not luxuries.
They are how we survive.
They are how we create something better — even when hope feels impossibly far away. Showing up isn’t about certainty. It is about devotion — to life, to justice, to each other, and to the sacred possibilities still unfolding.
So keep moving.
Not because you’re optimistic.
Not because you’re sure.
But because love, and justice, and humanity, are still worth the fight.
adrienne maree brown says in “Emergent Strategy:”
“What you pay attention to grows. We are all in the process of deciding every day what we will pay attention to.”
Try It: Staying in the Movement Without Hope
Even without hope, you can nourish your ability to keep moving:
1. Find connection.
Get involved with others who are already doing the work.
Look for groups like Indivisible, League of Women Voters, local organizers, people showing up to town halls, mutual aid networks. You don’t have to do this alone.
2. Join in celebration and joy.
Resistance is more sustainable with laughter, music, dance, storytelling, theater, hugs, and community. Let joy strengthen your spirit even when despair lingers at the edges.
3. Tend to your basic needs.
Check in with yourself: Are you getting decent food? Enough rest? Opportunities for learning and stimulation? Care for your body and mind so you can stay in the work.
Rev. Amy
For Further Exploration
• Solnit, Rebecca. Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities – A powerful reflection on how action, not certainty, keeps transformation possible even when the way forward feels invisible. https://bookshop.org/p/books/hope-in-the-dark-rebecca-solnit/13586561
• Hooks, Bell. All About Love: New Visions – Explores love as an active, radical force essential for healing both personal and collective wounds. https://bookshop.org/p/books/all-about-love-new-visions-bell-hooks/6222437
• Kaba, Mariame. We Do This ’Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice – Offers encouragement and practical wisdom for collective action rooted in care, even when systems seem immovable. https://bookshop.org/p/books/we-do-this-til-we-free-us-abolitionist-organizing-and-transforming-justice-mariame-kaba/15839396
See Also These Blog Posts
• You Belong Here – Exploring the Way You Can Make a Difference – Affirms each person’s unique role in collective healing and justice. https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/02/you-belong-here-your-place-in-work-of.html
• Finding Meaning in a Troubled World – Looks at how spiritual practices and discernment can ground us in purpose and resilience in the face of injustice. https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/02/finding-meaning-in-troubled-world-power.html
• Stories to Sustain Us: Building the World We Dream Of – Highlights the power of storytelling and history as tools of resistance and care. https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/01/stories-to-sustain-us-building-world-we.html
https://abeltaine.blogspot.com/2025/04/when-world-is-on-fire-why-spiritual.html
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