Recently I wrote to someone, "hold onto your sorrows. Treasure them. Not the debilitating stuff, the depression, but the grief that moves you to help someone, to change something, to keep something, to relate to a friend you cherish or even a stranger you despise. Grief is good."
The Bible agrees: "Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better" (Ecclesiastes 7:3).
Good advice as it may have been, it was obscenely hypocritical to come from me that one's sorrows must be used for good - for much of this year (2018) I've consciously and desperately wanted to die.
Blanket statements about mental health issues are a great hindrance to proper mental health education. One of those blanket statements is "suicide is selfish." However, I've seen this combated by another blanket statement: "suicide is not selfish - the person just wants the pain to end." What people making these ignorant statements don't realize is that both can be true: in my case, my desire for death stems from not only grief, but also from self-pity, vanity, and cowardice. I don't speak for anyone else's desire for death, but in my case, my desire to die is partly selfish. The lesson here being, for all you keyboard counselors who think a shared social media post is proper mental health education, it's counterproductive to try and fight one ignorant generalization with another.
Job wails in the book bearing his name, "My days have passed, my plans are shattered. Yet the desires of my heart turn night into day; in the face of the darkness light is near. If the only home I hope for is the grave, if I spread out my bed in the realm of darkness, if I say to corruption, 'You are my father,' and to the worm, 'My mother' or 'My sister,' where then is my hope - who can see any hope for me? Will it go down to the gates of death? Will we descend together into the dust?"
And so my heart has felt for much of the past ten months.
Today I found out a friend of mine is slowly killing herself with drugs. It saddened me to dizziness. Sorrow that literally makes you dizzy, hurts you physically, is a strangely noble feeling; you feel like you're doing right simply by being sad, simply by the fact that you feel enough for another living person that their pain gives you pain (maybe a bit self-righteous, but still slightly noble).
I prayed to God that He would save her life. "Please don't let her die," I prayed. Sometimes, though we wait for and yearn for Him to speak to us, it can be a frightening blow to one's ego and self-assuredness when God answers us.
The Holy Spirit replied (not audibly, but you know what I mean), "From where did you gather the gall to ask Me to lead someone to life? Do you not pray to Me to take you away? To let you fade away and die? To be shot down by some mass shooter's bullet so your friends will hate themselves for 'forgetting you?'"
"I know," I replied sheepishly (not audibly, but you know what I mean), "but I want her to live. Just because I don't want to live doesn't mean she shouldn't want to live."
"For what? One of the things about which you cry to Me is the hideousness of the world: the idolatry, the violence, the depravity, the apathy. All of these things you to mention to Me when you ask Me to take you out of it. Why, then, do you want her to stay and suffer through it while you're taken to Abraham's Bosom?"
There's no sense in lying to God or using lawyer language to evade His questions. So I had to be honest and answer, "because I'm selfish. Because I'm a coward. I don't have the strength to fight anymore. I don't have the strength to do this. I can't beat it. I can't beat the awful things I think and do."
"I've beaten them for you. You tell others about it all the time, about the cross at Golgotha. You've no ignorance of My blood spilled, My body broken for you. You know that you were buried with Me in death and raised with Me in resurrection. I told you beforehand: 'In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer - I have overcome the world.'"
"I'm too far gone, Lord. I'm of no use anymore. I've rendered myself useless."
"Who are you to tell Me what use you are? Was it not I who formed you, who fashioned your days, who numbered them when there were none? Am I not the One who has given you a purpose? Did I put you here by accident? Did I put you here to die? Is this your great commission - to pray for death?"
"No, Lord. 'When there was no ear to hear, You sang to me.'"
"Remember, I told you: 'Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.'"
I had no response. My argument was crushed. God continued,
"You wrote to others to use their sorrow for good. You say well. But beware of hypocrisy; I do not desire hypocrisy for you - you cannot tell these things to others while you yourself crawl under the earth. You cannot encourage others in the abundant life I give while you yourself wallow in death and misery. You cannot tell others how I save while you yourself long for the crematorium."
I felt a peace wash over me as God continued - again, not audibly, but you know what I mean,
"Choose life and you will have the right to pray that your friend will do the same. You were grateful to feel sorrow for her. To feel sorrow for her means you have love for her. There are many wicked people who feel nothing for those like her. Be glad you have a heart so heavy. The devil comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly."
And so it was that I learned it's a privilege to feel sorrow. It's a privilege to be alive and to hurt for others in pain. That's what those feelings that break our hearts are - they're life. Without them we'd be catatonic creatures, an argument in favor of the lie that we're an accidental cosmic sneeze that became slime that became walking corpses in suits.
I thank God I'm alive. And I thank God for my sorrow.
The Bible agrees: "Sorrow is better than laughter, for by a sad countenance the heart is made better" (Ecclesiastes 7:3).
Good advice as it may have been, it was obscenely hypocritical to come from me that one's sorrows must be used for good - for much of this year (2018) I've consciously and desperately wanted to die.
Blanket statements about mental health issues are a great hindrance to proper mental health education. One of those blanket statements is "suicide is selfish." However, I've seen this combated by another blanket statement: "suicide is not selfish - the person just wants the pain to end." What people making these ignorant statements don't realize is that both can be true: in my case, my desire for death stems from not only grief, but also from self-pity, vanity, and cowardice. I don't speak for anyone else's desire for death, but in my case, my desire to die is partly selfish. The lesson here being, for all you keyboard counselors who think a shared social media post is proper mental health education, it's counterproductive to try and fight one ignorant generalization with another.
Job wails in the book bearing his name, "My days have passed, my plans are shattered. Yet the desires of my heart turn night into day; in the face of the darkness light is near. If the only home I hope for is the grave, if I spread out my bed in the realm of darkness, if I say to corruption, 'You are my father,' and to the worm, 'My mother' or 'My sister,' where then is my hope - who can see any hope for me? Will it go down to the gates of death? Will we descend together into the dust?"
And so my heart has felt for much of the past ten months.
Today I found out a friend of mine is slowly killing herself with drugs. It saddened me to dizziness. Sorrow that literally makes you dizzy, hurts you physically, is a strangely noble feeling; you feel like you're doing right simply by being sad, simply by the fact that you feel enough for another living person that their pain gives you pain (maybe a bit self-righteous, but still slightly noble).
I prayed to God that He would save her life. "Please don't let her die," I prayed. Sometimes, though we wait for and yearn for Him to speak to us, it can be a frightening blow to one's ego and self-assuredness when God answers us.
The Holy Spirit replied (not audibly, but you know what I mean), "From where did you gather the gall to ask Me to lead someone to life? Do you not pray to Me to take you away? To let you fade away and die? To be shot down by some mass shooter's bullet so your friends will hate themselves for 'forgetting you?'"
"I know," I replied sheepishly (not audibly, but you know what I mean), "but I want her to live. Just because I don't want to live doesn't mean she shouldn't want to live."
"For what? One of the things about which you cry to Me is the hideousness of the world: the idolatry, the violence, the depravity, the apathy. All of these things you to mention to Me when you ask Me to take you out of it. Why, then, do you want her to stay and suffer through it while you're taken to Abraham's Bosom?"
There's no sense in lying to God or using lawyer language to evade His questions. So I had to be honest and answer, "because I'm selfish. Because I'm a coward. I don't have the strength to fight anymore. I don't have the strength to do this. I can't beat it. I can't beat the awful things I think and do."
"I've beaten them for you. You tell others about it all the time, about the cross at Golgotha. You've no ignorance of My blood spilled, My body broken for you. You know that you were buried with Me in death and raised with Me in resurrection. I told you beforehand: 'In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer - I have overcome the world.'"
"I'm too far gone, Lord. I'm of no use anymore. I've rendered myself useless."
"Who are you to tell Me what use you are? Was it not I who formed you, who fashioned your days, who numbered them when there were none? Am I not the One who has given you a purpose? Did I put you here by accident? Did I put you here to die? Is this your great commission - to pray for death?"
"No, Lord. 'When there was no ear to hear, You sang to me.'"
"Remember, I told you: 'Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; and you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy. A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.'"
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| Chris Cook - "Wrestling God" |
"You wrote to others to use their sorrow for good. You say well. But beware of hypocrisy; I do not desire hypocrisy for you - you cannot tell these things to others while you yourself crawl under the earth. You cannot encourage others in the abundant life I give while you yourself wallow in death and misery. You cannot tell others how I save while you yourself long for the crematorium."
I felt a peace wash over me as God continued - again, not audibly, but you know what I mean,
"Choose life and you will have the right to pray that your friend will do the same. You were grateful to feel sorrow for her. To feel sorrow for her means you have love for her. There are many wicked people who feel nothing for those like her. Be glad you have a heart so heavy. The devil comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly."
And so it was that I learned it's a privilege to feel sorrow. It's a privilege to be alive and to hurt for others in pain. That's what those feelings that break our hearts are - they're life. Without them we'd be catatonic creatures, an argument in favor of the lie that we're an accidental cosmic sneeze that became slime that became walking corpses in suits.
I thank God I'm alive. And I thank God for my sorrow.
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