I watched this video earlier, was somewhat fascinated by it, wondering how it was going to end. And also because some years ago, it could have been written by me. Thought about posting it at first as an encouragement to the survivors of abuse, as it struck me perhaps it was written from that angle. The girl in the video, who wrote the poem or text, keeps talking about how people always care, lots and lots of them, and how you don’t have to cope alone. That is not always true, its not been true for me for a very long time now, though I have friends, they are far away. But, there is also another common hyperbole in this poem or text, that the person considering suicide has low self-esteem, and a low opinion of themselves. Actually, that is not true, it is what we have been led to understand in by the psychiactric movement all pervading our lives as far as us knowing the diagnoses and causes of so-called mental illness, it is one of the great myths of our age. Yet, people considering or about to take their own life, are actually experiencing the very opposite of low self-esteem. They are hurting, without a doubt, but the reason they are considering taking their own life, is because they believe they deserve better in life than they have; better from people, or just better from life in general, which actually indicates quite high-self esteem, that they think more or themselves than perhaps other people do, and they think they deserve better.
Friends, you, I, and everyone is deserving of hell. Anything we have above that, is a manifold blessing and a reason to praise God in thankfulness.
I could understand where the author was coming from, having felt every thing she wrote at one time or another. Yet, the thing I have disagreed with in this post are still true.
Of course, some of us are dying a long, agonizingly painful death alone; albeit slowly. And when you have no loved ones or dependants, a perfect scenario has been made for euthanasia. And yes, in the last few year at times that has seemed a viable option, perhaps the only option, open to me. But no: yes, I feel my aloneness deeply at times, till it cut like a knife and pierces my heart and till it feel so tortuous while so sick, that it feels like a knife in my heart and that I can’t stand it another moment; but, friends are the answer as the video suggests? Well, friends and loved ones are a blessing, and are part of the solution and answer no doubt, as we all need people, none of us are an island. But the only lasting answer, or complete answer, is the love of Jesus Christ.
My days are hard at times, when my illness increases and the isolation in such phsyical suffering feels like it will send me insane. And at those times, I do not in all honesty, know how to not feel all I feel, not yet at least. Yet, at any other time but those times, when still suffering beyond what most people can imagine, in illness, and still all alone, except for my cat, depite the gravity of the suffering, through the love of Christ and the power of His Spirit, I have honestly been enabled to say at any other times, and mean it with my whole heart, that HIS grace is sufficient, the Lord is my portion, and that I have learned to be content whatsoever my condition. All except those times above, I would say this is true for me.
Yes, Euthansia or self-murder has seemed an option at times, who wouldn’t it do to anyone in a similar boat? But, if you learn to be content whatsoever one’s condition, then no matter one’s condition, you can say along with Paul, also, that to live is Christ, to die is gain. [2 Cor 12:9; Phil. 4:11; Psalm 73:26; Phil. 1:19-23; Phil. 3:8-9;]

To close this post with another video, yet unlike the first one, this one is through the eyes of faith:

Almighty  God, Thou showest Thy glory for us to see, not only in heaven and earth but also in the law, the prophets and the gospel; And hast so intimately revealed Thyself in Thine only begotten Son that we cannot excuse ourselves outo of ignorance.
Grant that we may advance in this teaching, wherewith Thou so kindly invitest us to Thyself, and may thus steadfastly cleave to Thee that no errors of the world may lead us astray; But may stand firmly fixed in Thy Word, which cannot deceive us: at last reaching heavenly blessedness, where we may enjoy Thy glory face to face, conformed completely to Thee in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen

Matthew 4:19 And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

Christians are the followers of Christ, and they should follow him… We see from what we have heard, how great the labour and travail of Christ’s soul was for others’ salvation, and what earnest and strong cries to God accompanied his labours. Here he hath set us an example. Herein he hath set an example for ministers, who should as co-workers with Christ, travail in birth with them till Christ be found in them; “My little children, of whom I travail in birth against until Christ be formed in you” (Galatians 4:19). They should be willing to spend and be spent for them. They should not only labour for them, and pray earnestly for them, but should, if occasion required, be ready to suffer for them, and to spend not only their strength, but their blood for them: “And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved” (2 Corinthians 12:15). Here is an example for parents, showing how they ought to labour to cry to God for the spiritual good of their children. You see how Christ laboured and strove and cried to God for the salvation of his spiritual children; and will you not earnestly seek and cry to God for your natural children?
—Jonathan Edwards

Any of you relate to the genie in the bottle of grief?

You can go on for weeks, months, and barely give the source of the grief a thought; you make a deliberate choice to not dwell on it, not think about it, so that you can just get on with your life to the glory of God, as best as you can. But then, its brought to  mind one way or another, and the wound once re-opened is like the genie in the bottle you can’t stop back up.

If the understanding be clear in its apprehension of truth, and the will sincere, vigorous, and fixed in its purposes for that which is holy and good, then he is a strong Christian… Satan comes as a serpent in the persons of false teachers, [or] as a lion in the persons of bloody persecutors… To defend us against this, we need to have truth girt about us, so that with a holy resolution we may maintain our profession in the face of death and danger.
—William Gurnall “The Christian in complete Armour”

A much needed message the church needs to hear today:

When we read, God speaks to us, because we read his Word. But when we pray, we speak to God… “The prayers of the saints…” are called “incense” because when they ascend to heaven God seems to smell a sweet savour like incense.
Whoever fell into error, or into apostasy, or into despair, before he fell from prayer, the preservative of the soul? If prayer had been here, these evils had not happened. This is the “holy water” which drives away unclean spirit (Matt. 17:21)… It is a good thing to preach, and yet you see we do not presume to preach before we pray, because Paul plants, Apollos waters, but God gives the increase.
—Henry Smith “The Ladder of peace”

As the eyelid is made to open and shut, to save the eye, so patience is set to keep the soul and save the heart whole, to cheer the body again. Therefore if you note when you can go by an offence and take little wrong, and suffer trouble quietly, you have a kind of peace and joy in your heart, as if you had gotten the victory. The greater is your patience, the less is your pain…. “In all things,” says Paul, “we are more than conquerors” (Rom. 8:37)… As the tree which Moses cast into the spring seasoned the bitterness of the waters, so patience, cast into our troubles, seasons the bitterness of the cross… This power has God given to patience, the medicinable virtue, that it should be like a wholesome herb in the world, or a general physician for all persons and diseases.
—Henry Smith–”The Trial of the Righteous”

Thou hast done for me all things well,
hast remembered, distinguished, indulged me.
All my desires have not been gratified,
but Thy love denied them to me
when fulfillment of my wishes would have
proved my ruin or injury.
My trials have been fewer than my sins,
and when I have kissed the rod it has fallen
from thy hands.
Thou hast often wiped away my tears,
restored peace to my mourning heart,
chastened me for my profit.
All thy work for me is perfect,
and I praise Thee.
–From Valley of Vision puritan prayers

Let us walking in love and in the fear of Thy Name, be nourished  by Thy goodness, and do Thou minister all things to us which are necessary and expedient for us to eat our bread in peace.

–Prayer of John Calvin

True prayer is born first from our own sense of need, then from faith in God’s promises. Here will the readers be best awakened to sense their ills, and, as well, to seek remedies for them Whatever can stimulate us when we are about to pray to God, this book teaches. Not only are God’s promises presented to us there, but often there is shown to us, someone girding himself for prayer, caught between God’s invitation and the hindrance of the flesh thus are we taught how, if at any time, we are plagued with various doubts, to fight against them, until the mind freed, rises to God.
–John Calvin, “Piety of John Calvin” pp. 70

In praying for spiritual things, we must be absolute. When we pray for pardon of sin, and the favour of God, and the sanctifying graces of the Spirit, these are indispensably necessary to salvation, and here we must take no denial. But when we pray for temporal things, here our prayers must be limited, we must pray conditionally so far as God sees them good for us. God sometimes sees cause to withhold temporal things from us: they may be snares and draw our hearts from God, therefore we must pray for these things with submission to God’s will.
—Thomas Watson “Practical Divinity.”

Another glorious effect of acquaintance with God, is that it makes a man like God… Company is of an assimilating nature. He that before was unholy, and like the devil, by conversion to God and converse with him is made holy like God… A full and perfect conformity and likeness to God is the very glory of glory… Be acquainted with him, and you shall be like him. Keep much in his company by faith, secret prayer, and meditation, and you will be more holy, divine and spiritual. The last effect of this acquaintance with God: it will make a man better, far more excellent in all states and relations. All his friends will have the better life with him, the whole family… will fare the better with him.
—-James Janeway “Heaven upon Earth: Jesus the best friend of man.”

The fifth petition in the Lord’s prayer is this…”And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors” (Matt 6:12)… Though we have daily bread, yet it will do us no good unless sins be forgiven… Daily bread may satisfy our appetite, but forgiveness satisfies the conscience
Forgiveness is the sauce that would make our bread relish the sweeter.
Daily bread may make us live comfortably, but forgiveness of sins will make us die comfortably…. Besides daily bread, get pardon of sin.
—Thomas Watson, “Practical Divinity”

The Ten Commandments are the rule of our life, the creed is the sum of our faith, and the Lord’s prayer is the pattern of our prayer…So let all your petitions agree and symbolize with the things contained in the Lord’s Prayer calls it breviary and compendium of the Gospel …Never was there prayer so admirably composed as this.
The prayer begins with ] a preface: “Our Father, which art in heaven”….We must address ourselves in prayer to God alone: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost…
—Thomas Watson “Practical Divinity”

Lord, our heavenly Father, almighty and everlasting God, which hast safely brought us to to the beignning of this day: Defend us in the same with thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger, but that all our doings maybe ordered by thy governance, to do always what is righteous in thy sight: through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
From the 1549 book of common prayer, authored by Thomas Cramner.

(modernized language by blog owner)

Lord! as every action of the day is a step to heaven, or hell–Oh! save me from ever turning my face away from the path, into which thy word would guide me. Enable me to avail myself of its light, in the constant exercise of faith, prudence and simplicity.
—Charles Bridges– “An Exposition of Psalm 119″ pp. 265

O God of my Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of all glory, grant me the spirit of wisdom and revelation, that I may know you. Let the eyes of my understanding be enlightened so that I may know the hope of your calling, the riches of the glory of your inheritance for the saints, and the exceeding greatness of your power to us who believe—all of which you wrought in Christ when raising from the dead and setting him at your right hand in the heavenly realms.
—Meditation of Jean Taffin on Eph 1:17-20