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Well friends I decided to start my first blog. I wasn't sure exactly what to write about. I could do something funny or mundane. I could comment on the world, or what I've been reading. Instead I decided to take the advice of Mrs W and talk about what I know and some of what I've been through.
What do I know you ask? Well what I knew was pain. The pain of being without friends. The pain of being without hope. The pain of being the outcast. The pain of wanting to give up and die.
There I said it. Yep, I've been to the brink of suicide. More that just the thought of it, but to the point of having the gun in my hand, madly searching around for the bullets and the pin to hold the cylinder in the gun.
What could possilby bring on these feeling you say? Despare. Loneliness. Loss. Let me explain. Growing up I was always a loner and never thought that I would ever find anyone for me. Actually I never really expected to make it to 30, never really saw the point when I was younger. So I let these thoughts control my life until the day the internet showed up at my place. Welcome to the world of chatrooms and internet "relationships". Finally a place where I could be accepted without being judged by how I looked/dressed/acted. Being an unbeliever I had found my place.
Unfortunately my "place" had its problems too. After getting to know someone online I actually took the next step and went to meet her. She lived in Texas and I was living in Kansas so I took a bus down and spent 3 days there. After I got back she wouldn't talk to me anymore. 3 months later she was married. This did not help my inferiority complex. I'm sure the devil had a nice laugh at that one. It of course got worse.
As torn up as I was I managed to find someone else. Things were great (or so I thought) and then I found out a secret. She was married. Remember now that at the time I was not only unsaved, but I had no intrest in being saved. Not a good place for anyone to be. So instead of walking away from it we kept the relationship going. Even to the point of me, once again, going from Kansas to Georgia to meet her. Once again the bottom fell out shortly after I got back home.
This time I was crushed. Sobbing uncontrolably I went looking for the gun that I, ironicly enough, had taken from someone else who was thinking about killing themselves a year earlier. All I could do was cry out to God to take the pain away. Me, the guy who wouldn't even set foot in a church for Easter or Christmas service. But cry out I did. And a sense of calm started to overtake me. At the time I thought I was just getting a grip on myself, but now I can say it was Him helping me fight the pain I was feeling.
I look back at that time and can realize all the things that I would have missed had I found the pin. I never would have known the love and mercy of Jesus. I never would have experienced the joy of getting and being married and having a family. I never would have know what it was like to belong somewhere. I never would have known true friendship. I never would have been there to comfort my mother as she lay dying. I never would have known hope. I never would have known that I have a destiny in Jesus Christ.
We all go through trials in this life. There may be times that it seems that nothing matters and the whole world is against you, and it may be. But God is always for you. Anytime we are faced with crisis we have two choices, push on or give up. I could have given up that day, but instead I cried out to a God that I didn't even believe in at the time. And He answered that cry. He loved me that much, even though I didn't even care about Him. That is pure love. That is the God we serve.
Pain is only temporary, no matter what kind it is, but Gods love is eternal and if we will just push through and be faithful to God we will have the victory.
40:29 He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. 40:30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; 40:31 but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.
Grace to you,
Shawn |
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