Hope In The Pit of Hopelessness

“Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.”[1]
Pain.
Christopher Tydeman - www.soulfulheartblog.com
Sadness.
Misery.
Anguish.
Despair.
Despondency.
Complete and utter hopelessness.
Sitting in the muck and mire, my fingers scrape across the four walls that now feel more like a hand-dug well than a home and I wonder, “How did I get here?”
For too long I’ve gone through the motions of living a normal life and acting as if everything is okay. I’ve clung to the muddy sides trying to inch my way back up, but as each day passed, I slipped lower and lower. Then today as if out of nowhere, the bottom like a bony, shriveled hand reached up, latched onto my heel and yanked.  My grip, precarious from the beginning, broke. Arms flailing, I desperately grabbed at anything to stop my fall, but hopelessness took over. I succumbed to the inevitability of my situation and plunged headlong into the blackness.
Looking up to the pinhole of light I asked, “Can anyone crawl out of a pit this deep?”
If you’re like me, you want to see a happy ending to this story. Yet, with these painful images we are reminded of the devastation and desolation of utter hopelessness.
For this sad, seemingly lost soul, their next step could be suicide. Unless God intervenes.
Recently, a cousin of a friend did just that. So again the questions surface. How much despair does it take for someone to actually end their life? What thoughts run through their mind prior to the act? Could we have done anything to stop it?
I know some situations in this world can cause us to lose hope, but that magnitude of hopelessness I cannot comprehend, nor do I want to.
Grieving families and friends are left blaming themselves, beginning their own downward spiral to hopelessness. So the vicious cycle continues.
Because of this, I am angry at sin and the enemy whose lies caused the initial pain. He dangles the bait of ecstasy and leads the lost down the broad road to destruction. With every step, light dims and their eyes adjust. It’s not until they’ve traveled many miles do they realize they’re sliding faster and faster into the darkness, confusion, and hopelessness. Along the way, they search for ways to dull the pain, looking to alcohol, drugs, sex, or endless psychotherapy that only drives them deeper into the pit. By then their minds are so confused they can’t see and instead of exposing the root of their problem and confessing sin, they cover it with temporary pleasure. However, if on the way down or when they finally hit bottom, they look up, hope is available. That pinhole of light at the top of their pit is the Lord who loves them.
I wish I could say these are only the emotions of the lost, but sadly, even some of the found have experienced them.
Yet for the lost as for the found, there is only one remedy, one hope for our pit of hopelessness.
“I will lift up my eyes to the hills…” the Psalmist says. “From whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, Who made heaven and earth.”[2] Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God.[3] He is our Blessed hope[4] for His eye is on those who fear Him [and] hope in His mercy.[5]


[1] Psalm 130:1-2
[2] Psalm 121:1-2
[3] Psalm 146:5
[4] Titus 2:13
[5] Psalm 33:18


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