"To me it always seems like God likes to torment me or something. I'm only 14 (soon to be 15) years old, and I've lost all hope in life. I've considered suicide, but reconsidered after seeing your site... (I found this dialog on a site, with site manager response below)
...I don't mean to belittle what you are going through, but you have to get your eyes focused on the right things. If you look at this life with eyes focused on being happy, you never will be."
http://www.behindthebadge.net/suicide/s6...The full article above is a good read, and is quite revealing...
...it represents to a large degree where people find themselves... and the patent answers they may encounter. I find the question in this post a very honest one... it is not accusatory nor is it assuming; it is simply trying to understand. This person in the article is honestly seeking an answer... they are not living on another's claims or biases... this person is going directly to the source (God) and wants an answer. What follows is someones best attempt to help them understand.
I met with a group of men last night, for the first time some of these guys' lives they went to a "mens group" that included a look into the Bible. The motivating factors why some showed up really impressed me. One man said that it was the "greyness" in society over every issue that prompted him to come, look, challenge and seek to understand. Another, said he was a Christian, and that he had been doing to much drugs and alcohol... and just wanted to be a better person; being inspired by another in the group that was trying to do the same. It was great... some of these guys will never set foot in a "church" but are all-over-God!
I love the human element... the way we can be so adamant about a particular point of view, only to be down the road a few steps and be transformed into a greater person or greater mess. What I got from the article, in one of the rebutting statements, was the thought that the guy giving the advice, could have done better by giving some love and understanding. What these guys had at the "mens group" last night was just that... comradery!
I think that being transparent about their own personal encounters with or without God, bears greater weight than just assuming there is no God... or that there is, and not personally trying to find out. There is a level of honesty sharing ones experience instead of ones opinion. Anytime we humble ourselves to seek the answer to gnawing questions, that seem to drain the hope out of us... we break apart and allow a healing to start where have been guarded... or explore the real painful possibility that God may not help us,
and why.
As to the answer to the question "Why won't God help me?" ...it is best answered by whom it is directed. Yet discovering answers in the midst of a crisis, may not be the best approach without an objective helper or confidant that actually cares. I really appreciate those who were around me when I sank to the depths of despair...
only now I can "see" the point of the trials that I went through.
I think it best though, to get to know the one who I am asking or demanding help of...
it makes it easier to accept the response... and if we are willing, we just might be the healing that some other broken soul needs... "in giving we receive".
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen. ~The Prayer of Saint Francis~