For years i suffered in the pit. For years i was angry like you. For years i wanted to die and for years i begged my wife to let me go and raged at her for not letting me. For years i blamed God for my pain, for years i raged at Him.
i understand a little where you are - i used to reason just like you. Until i read in the bible one day that these three remain - love, faith and hope - 1 Cor 13:13 - i had none - and straight after what you sow you shall harvest! How true had this been. i had sown my depressed negativity right throughout my life and reaped bad life by the bucket load. My guilt, shame, sadness, bitterness, anger, rage, envies.
Now i have a depressive illness which i will have all my life - an illness which can only be partially medicated but bouts of severe depression will always remain. Yet i repented of eating from bad life and for being loveless, faithless and hopeless - not once but for years - all the time exercising love, kindness, gentleness, self control and all the other gifts of the holy Spirit.
Honest brother life has become so much better. My anger and rage are gone, so are my suicidal needs. i can praise God deepest deep now and have grown strong against the lies of depression. Sure i'm still depressed but no i'm no longer in the pit. I grew good life with Jesus for 14 years before my desire to die disappeared. Just to give you some perspective off the suffering that still went on growing good life. Yet i left suicide behind after just over 3 years. It sure is a battle to gain God's good life but so incredibly worth it.
Wishing you much good life and lots of love for God, self and neighbour.
Peace.
'Your depression is caused by your own depression'. Not a sentence i haven't heard before. All i can think about, is what a vicious cycle it is.
I'm not always like this. There was a time i was a happy kid, a person who truly believes what's been taught and maybe a bit too carefree but i enjoy life and the card i'm dealt, even if they're not always good.
If this love faith and hope you're talking about truly exist, then that kid should also still exist. The fact is, that kid died a horrible death, in the weight of betrayal, weight of rejection and manipulation, abuse and now, all that kid wanted is isolation.
'But that's point' i can hear you say, in the voice not unlike an old out of touch priest in this one church i came to before, 'the world is not good, you can only find true happiness and salvation in christ'.
I will tell you as i told that out of touch priest, the first thing i was told when the deluge that is the misfortunes in my life started, when i began to realize the sheer meaninglessness of all, was that i should pray. Pray for protection, for strength for patience, etc.
Fast forward to now.
Do you see me now? Does it look like those prayers worked?
'You're just not praying hard enough', i can hear someone say again, in the same voice of that haughty madam in my parent's church, who always thought of herself better than everyone and was probably the very first who introduce me to the concept that being religious does not equal being a good person, 'god always listens, but maybe you're just not serious enough in your prayer, or you've sinned so you're being punished'.
Short of buying a sheep and disemboweling it as a sacrifice, i don't see how my prayers haven't been serious enough. I prayed myself, i asked my evangelist father to lead the prayer because my words never seem to be adequate, i listen in church, listen, listen, until all of those words ended up only being nothing but a white noise, because i've reached a point when i realize nothing will ever came out of the same rehashed messages that through my life has been proven wrong.
And ha, sin. I'm pretty sure now everything i'm doing, even down to my mental state is a sin. How dare you not revel in the beauty of this created world? Not enjoy the life you're given.
Good on you for leaving suicide behind, and now can talk about it being your past. My own conviction for death aside, i truly am glad.
And what a beautiful story. If only it also said that there are other beggars who receive the same kindness, because lets face it, that story will resonate with people who had receive that shed of light. How about the other beggars, worse, the dead beggars, who never get to taste that salvation despite their pleas and thus cannot tell their side of the story? What they wouldn't do or give because no one truly wanted to die, but in the end, that help never comes.
'It would've come if they had waited' Something, something god knows the right time. And don't dare answer that they're non-christians because i have seen christians who ended their lives, abandoned by their faith. Maybe i don't truly know what's going on their lives, but i know myself and that's the one story that matters to me.
These last few paragraphs sounds like i'm trying to put words int your mouth. I'm not. I'm showing just how many times i've heard the same thing over and over, and not a single thing has moved me. Not a single thing has changed my mind.
My battle now is not with suicidal thoughts, that's something i lost to a long time ago. My battle now is with my courage to do it, and the fear of nothing but more pain because that's what i've been forced to belief since young. I'm stuck in this deep abyss of just absolute meaninglessness, and i'v lost both of my arms from all those years trying to stop myself from falling down. I no longer have the means to climb up.
