Have you ever been in a dark or desolate place mentally, physically, or spiritually? Well, I have and am currently dealing with this state now. Maybe you have or currently are too?
Recently in one of my classes, we watched a video about a man’s attempted suicide and his survival. In the video, the suicide survivor laid out all the factors that led him to that choice. The survivor mentioned how hate, pain, heartache, feeling unseen, and a multitude of other negative feelings, emotions, and circumstances were the reasons for wanting to take his own life. The very things that he mentioned that lead him to that decision, are the very things we all deal with each and every day – it’s called life.
Given that Mental Health month has just ended, I thought it’s appropriate to discuss this subject. Suicide is something we as a society don’t speak enough about, given its stigma within our culture. It made me think about my own personal suicide attempt, and the video made me wonder what drove me, the man in the video, and so many others to this conclusion.
What the man explained and what I know from personal experience is that life’s punches can drive a person to this decision. Plain and simple. The Bible mentions in Job 14:1-2, “Man who is born of a woman is few days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not.”
That’s the thing the movies and no one really talks about. It is the fine print that life includes for everyone at some point or another in their lives. This fine print reads that in life, we will have issues and trials. They will try to bend and twist us every which way. But this is what we all signed up for once we were conceived. I believe this even more so when we gave our lives to Christ. Apostle Paul mentions throughout Romans 8:31-38 how there is nothing that can separate us from God’s love, but Paul mentions that for God’s sake we may go through hardships. Romans 8:35-37 states, “Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love?” Does it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, hungry, destitute, in danger, or threatened with death? As the Scriptures say, ‘For thy sake, we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”
I won’t sit here and front like these trials will feel good. Trust me, they can have you questioning God, asking, Why me? Why not Sandy from down the street? Even given the warning from scripture, these trials and hardships can leave you in a desolate place mentally or spiritually, as they’ve left me on many occasions in the past. And in that desolate place, those usual things (scripture, gospel songs, community & motivating words) that usually kept us going don’t hit like they used to. These murky periods of our lives can lead us either closer to or farther from God, it’s completely up to us.
What do I mean by this statement you might ask? I can either lean on God and have faith to trust him in these weary circumstances or rebel because of these hardships. I noticed in my own life, and maybe you have too, that when times got hard and I felt like God wasn’t hearing me, taking too long to bring me out, or my mind was asking if He could even do it, I tended to rebel, think, and act like the old me before Christ. But we all know that our old ways before Christ only lead to fleeting fulfillment, giving in to fleshly desires, and ultimately death! Just like Galatians 5:19-21 states, old keys can’t open new doors that we’re trying to open. “Sin always looks good in the windshield, more than it does in the rear-view mirror.”
However, we have to remember who God is and his character. We have to remember back to the insurmountable situations God has brought each and every one of us out of. We have to think about Psalm 31:15 which states, “My times are in your hand: Rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!”
This verse illuminates how God saves and rescues us, but it’s always in his divine timing, not ours. We just have to have faith in God’s unchanging hand, and maybe look at our situations and circumstances from a different perspective than we normally do. Ask ourselves what are these trials of tribulations trying to teach or produce in us?
All of this can be a lot, trust I understand, but we have to take a look at Isaiah 41:10 where the Bible mentions God and his presence always being with us and strengthening us along our paths, so why fret?
The question I propose to everyone, even myself, is: What do you do when the verses just don’t motivate you like they used to? Or the gospel songs of how great and sovereign God truly is just aren’t helping you live above your not-so-pleasant current circumstances? How do you find the motivation to continue? Will you continue?
Encouraging word: Faith is trusting God no matter how things look or how you feel. If you never go through anything, how can we say we’ve made it through something.
