Serious stuff. I'm trying to phrase myself carefully. I want to help, while also knowing there's just so much I can do from out here. I remember when I was at my lowest point, it was very hard to let things through. Many wanted to help me, and I got good advice, but either they didn't phrase themselves exactly the way I wanted/needed, or I had just built too many walls around me and all of it seemed useless and angering. I felt like nobody understood me, and at the same time I did everything I could to not let them understand me. I'm not saying this is you, but I just want you to know that I'm taking you seriously.
Suicide and fear. I might have gotten this wrong, but in case I did not: it seems like you feel you're trapped no matter what you do. You're trapped in a cage of fear, so that you wouldn't step into another cage, which you are also afraid of. It's becoming increasingly hard to imagine reality without either one of those cages, isn't it? Believe me, dear: you don't need those cages. You know them, and there's familiarity to them, and in a way probably a sense of twisted comfort too.
We are not given the spirit of fear. This doesn't mean that you are worthless, or that you need to take extreme actions just because you are afraid. We are fallible, we stumble, and we all have weaknesses. We are all afraid of something, and at the lowest points when it seems we can't cope, we are definitely in fear and desperation. This doesn't mean that God has abandoned us, or that He is making us suffer. It just goes to show the difference between man and God. His love is perfect, and His hope is true. So when we fear, and when we see only darkness, we know where to put out hopes. Like Paul said: we don't hope what we already have. So we put our hopes and fears in front of Christ, because He has won everything. He did the job we just couldn't do, and cannot to this very day. He took our sins for Himself to carry, for us.
If we start to shut out everything, it can become a punishment we assign for ourselves, thinking that by our own works and punishments we can achieve some "good enough for God" status, as if we are not all sinners, as if His love isn't given, but earned. We start to bind ourselves with rules, estranging ourselves from almost anything we can think of. Is there hope in these rules? It can feel comfortable in a weird way, and it can give us the illusion that we are in control.
Christ didn't come to put more chains on us. He came to set us free. The more we believe it, the more we understand that there is really nothing we can do, because it's already been done. It's the opposite of chains of fear: when we truly surrender to His grace and stop thinking our own sins or shortcomings somehow have more power than Him, we become thankful. We can feel the...sense of freedom that is hard to describe. And here comes the good part. We stop thinking about what we MUST do, and start thinking about what we want to do, what we want to give. Not out of rules, not out of obligations of fear, but out of gratitude and hope and love. That is true freedom.
I don't even need to ask what your hobbies are. If you enjoy them, and if they don't hurt anyone, do it. Get back to living your life. There's plenty of politics and sects in religion. Plenty of rules. But they all fail: just like people before Christ failed in front of the law. The law shows the sin, but it doesn't set anyone free. If you enjoy something, and you know that you are not hurting anyone or yourself, it's alright. I do plenty of stuff that is very unchristian to many. I watch some pretty gritty and violent movies, my favorite band is Nirvana, I play videogames, sometimes I'm an a-hole with my friends, like we tend to be in a weird funny way. This is not to say that you are the same as me, of course you aren't. You are your own person. I'll try to illustrate my point with a bible passage (Romans):
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14 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2 One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. 8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. 11 It is written:
“‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord,
‘every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will acknowledge God.’”
12 So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister. 14 I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus, that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. 15 If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your eating destroy someone for whom Christ died. 16 Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil.
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Paul wasn't talking about just food. It's about habits, actions and several things. Someone may be like you and abstaining from the same things you are, but they don't do it for fear and rules, it's just a natural way to live for them, and they might be happy. And like the passage said, I shouldn't judge them just because my faith is a little different, we all have the same God. What about you? What about those things you want to do? You can do all of it. I'm sure they're just a way to experience life, have fun and express yourself, not to rebel against God. Look through your feelings of fear, you'll know how it is. No matter the differences in our behaviors, we all serve God the way we do. Someone might devote his/her entire life, every breathing moment consciously for God. Someone else reserves a place and time for that, and the differences amongst us can vary in a million ways. So do what you want, and don't think of God as someone who likes to put countless traps before out feet just to laugh at our misery. We have a saviour, dear, not a torturer.
God doesn't want you feeling miserable and shutting everything else out. His grace is for you too, always. We can run, we can do every little ritual, we can punish ourselves, we can sacrifice a lot - but in the end, we are reaching for a love that is already given to us, and we are reaching for that love with our works. That love was and is given freely, we don't have to achieve anything. It's both the hardest and easiest thing to do: to just surrender and accept that grace. It's hard to stop trying to barricade our doors from it, while at the same time trying to do anything in our power to feel that grace, because God's pure love is something wondrous. We people treat love often as currency. God does not.
And no matter what we do, that grace is still there. We can fail, we will fail, but He did not. I hope I didn't ramble too much, and I hope that I got my point across. Said a little prayer for you, for guidance, patience and love to come your way. It's alright, you can breathe. Life isn't a cage, even though we build them for ourselves every once in a while, especially when we're ill and depressed.
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I'll end with my favorite words from Jesus Christ (Matthew 11):
25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
