When it hurts to be alive. Over the past few years I have had a few friends
that have taken their own lives. My heart is broken. I feel that I did not
do enough. That I did not care enough. I should have paid closer attention.
I know the feelings and emotions of hurting to be alive. I know intimately
the desire for the pain to end as a non believer and also as an established
believer in the church. It’s very easy to quote a bible verse to a hurting
soul and trivialize the suffering they are going through. It’s very easy to
tell a depressed person to “just look on the bright side". But when we are
choking in a swamp of pain, grief, and heartache, we need more than
cliche's and quotations from some dead guy that tell us to "buck up". The
mind set of a person who is in severe depression is not rational. I have
heard it said by people that do not have a clue of the torment, "it is a
cowards way out", but to a person who is experiencing that despair, it is a
way to escape the pain. Even if we knew that our suffering was having some
fantastic spiritual impact on someone else—so what? At bottom, we are
selfish beings. Does God honestly care about how intensely we are hurting?
Does He care about how slow the seconds tick by? Does He understand how
impossible it is for us to work up any sincere gratitude or praise when our
souls are so completely drained? Yes, He does. And when we are crawling
through life, the last thing God is going to say to us is, “Get up and
dance.” As our Creator who sustains us, God is intimately involved in every
aspect of our lives. He remembers every detail of our lives and He
experiences our lives with us. We never go through anything alone.
Physical, emotional, spiritual, psychological—it was God who created all
the elements of our being and He is carefully managing the state that each
one is in at any given moment. In life, we despair when we can no longer
see any hope. But with God, we have something far greater than a mere hope.
We have rock solid truths. God is good. He loves us beyond measure.
Everything He allows to happen to us is for our spiritual best. If you do
not know God, know Jesus, please let me know. I will help you get to know
Him intimately. If you do, ask for His help. Brethren, please pray and ask
God to open your eyes to those who are hurting. Let them know that Jesus
loves them and that you love them too! And may we all remember, *Ps 118:24
This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.*
Douglas
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