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.
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| 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]
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