Please don’t give up. I know you’re hurting. I know it’s hard. But please, don’t check out. Not yet.
Yes, I realize you have every reason to quit. Yes, I know you’d be totally justified in giving up. Your child has stage-four cancer. Your son was murdered in a home invasion. Your daughter died in a car accident on Interstate 65.
Your dad is dying of liver failure. Your girlfriend broke up with you because you’re both, quote, “going different directions.”
Your wife was diagnosed with glioblastoma. Your mother has pulmonary fibrosis. Your child is going blind. You have an auto-immune disease the doctors can’t figure out. You are a caregiver for your parents/sibling/spouse/family member.
Your foster child hates you. You are on a waiting list for a kidney. You are filing bankruptcy. You are in federal prison.
You are an addict in recovery; each day is an obstacle. Your teenage daughter is pregnant. Your dad has ALS. Your husband of 21 years decided he wanted a 23-year-old girl.
You are contemplating ending your own life; you even bought a
handgun last week.
The circumstances don’t matter. What matters is that you’re a mess right now. A real mess. You don’t know where life is going. All you know is that you’re experiencing hard times.
Every day, life gets a little harder. Each morning, you awake waiting for life to reset itself, but it never does. And it’s so frustrating. Because this isn’t how it’s supposed to be, dammit.
What’s going on here? Why is everything so hard?
When you were a kid, nothing bad ever lasted. Suffering was always brief. You fell down and got a boo-boo, and after 48 hours, the boo-boo was healed. No big deal.
But these days nothing bad ever goes away quickly. Hard times just linger outside your front door. Bad things keep coming, like artillery from a celestial machine gun.
Your prayers remain…