There are some things in my relationship with Jesus I enjoy writing about more than others. God winks. “Trash talk.” (When I pick up trash and discover a message in the words, because He can use anything to converse with us.) All the cool little ways He speaks if we will quiet our souls and listen and learn to hear Him.
And then there are the things I don’t so much like to talk about. Like suicidal thoughts, and struggles with feeling misunderstood, and how Jesus has and still does help me through some very difficult thoughts and emotions.
These are the subjects that MOST need shared though, I believe. Because more people struggle with them than care to admit it. Even Christians, because while we are not of this world any longer we are still in this world- and this is a messy, emotionally charged, worry-filled, but also breathtakingly beautiful at times world. It’s so much up and down that sometimes we can feel disoriented, and we need something- SomeONE to reorient us.
I read just now when I googled it that suicide is the 12th leading cause of death in the US. That in 2020, 45,979 Americans died by suicide and there were an estimated 1.20M suicide attempts.
Those numbers are HEARTBREAKING 💔 to me.
Each and every one of them undoubtedly had reached a place where they felt like they couldn’t go on.
And it’s embarrassing to admit, though Jesus has removed my shame, that I have been there before.
It’s even harder for me to share that from time to time I can still struggle with these feelings.
I have heard lots of testimonies from believers about how Jesus has delivered them in their past from thoughts or even attempts of suicide. But I haven’t seen many sharing their ongoing battles with it, or the way Jesus has taught them to get out of that stronghold when they wrestle with those thoughts.
And maybe some are delivered once and never have those struggles again.
But I know there are others- because I have dealt with it in my own life- who the enemy still comes after with those thoughts, and yet it’s hard to share that because we also can feel like a failure in our faith if we don’t always FEEL joyful, hopeful, forgiving, or confident.
I know I’m not alone in this.
And I know that someone who will read this-
today or in the future-
will benefit from seeing that they’re not alone,
and that they’re not stuck.
There IS a better way out, than suicide.
And His name is JESUS.
In John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way and the truth and the life!”
And today I want to share what it looks like, particularly in the battle of these I’ve-got-nothing-left-to-give, can’t-keep-on-keeping-on thoughts, to take HIS way out.
So if anyone is reading this that has been considering taking the other way out, I urge you to give this a try instead. As many times as you need to. (It’s not shameful to need His help over and over and over, it’s exactly why He came and why He offers us His Holy Spirit. He KNOWS we need help. We were not designed to do life or battle the demons of depression, anxiety, or suicidal or even just discouraging thoughts alone!)
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❤️ YOU DON’T WANT TO DIE.
YOU ARE JUST STRUGGLING TO KEEP ON LIVING- with a situation, an emotion, something.
You have hit a place where you feel like you can’t go on.
And honestly- if you have been here before, and find yourself here again, with each time the enemy may increase his lies saying “What’s the point? The feelings will just come back.”
Friend- it’s time to hear some Truth.
The Truth is- not only is there a God but there’s also a devil. Not only are there angels but there are demons. And those thoughts do NOT come from our own selves, they come from the enemy of our souls. Robbers do not break into empty, worthless houses. They break into the places with VALUABLES. And the devil is trying to break into your mind because YOU ARE INFINITELY VALUABLE TO GOD, and to more people than you probably feel like in this moment.
And yes- even if you defeat these thoughts, they may try to attack again. (Do you think most criminals try to steal something once and then give up?) BUT GOD DOESN’T GIVE UP ON YOU EITHER! And HE IS STRONGER! And the more times you turn to Him, to wrestle out of this attempted stronghold, the more quickly you will learn to recognize it for what it is, recognize that it’s beyond your own capacity to handle, and call on Him for His help, encouragement, and grace-power, instead of trying to muster up more will-power, when your will is so depleted that it’s even having a hard time just staying alive.
There’s an acronym for hope that I love-
Hold
On
Pain
Ends.
It does!
It also may come back too.
This life is full of challenges.
But guess what?
Whenever it does-
EVERY SINGLE TIME-
Jesus is willing to be there for you,
if you will call on Him!
He never ever EVER gets tired of helping you,
never hits his limit of love for you.
He is the only limitless!
And He WANTS to walk this out with you!
So don’t just “hold on”,
don’t just wait for things to get better.
Don’t just hold on to your horses, your big girl panties, or anything else.
HOLD ON TO HIM!
HE IS THE ONLY ONE STRONG ENOUGH TO WRESTLE OFF THESE LIES AND DEMONS.
And He never expects you to get to a place of not needing His help!
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❤️ FAITH IS A DECISION, NOT AN EMOTION.
Regarding this topic, it’s a decision to call upon Jesus to get you through a situation or an emotional attack, instead of giving up or trying to go it alone.
The emotions often follow!
Once He gets you through, and this wave of pain ends, you will undoubtedly hit a BEAUTIFUL moment in life (because those come around too! And even moreso when we look for them, and make it a point to create those moments for others too.)
When this happens, your joy and your love and gratitude for Jesus will be even more intense than they would have been if you didn’t go through trials! (Imagine the flood of emotions, finishing a marathon that you wanted to give up in a million times but a friend didn’t let you, kept coming back for you, kept helping you press on! You got the medal at the end- the beautiful moment! When on your own you didn’t deserve it, couldn’t have earned it. You just want to wrap that person up in a giant hug because they saw and called out something in you that you couldn’t have! That’s what Jesus does! He SEES the ability to persist in us because He PLACED it there! It’s not of our own selves but His Holy Spirit that abides in us if we invite Him in!)
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❤️ SALVATION IS THE OTHER “WAY OUT”-
THE BETTER WAY OUT.
IT IS THE FLIP-SIDE OF SUICIDE.
Listen-
you can’t go on, I know.
I’m not telling you to carry on.
I’m here to share the salvation opportunity with you- the opportunity to BE CARRIED ON.
Salvation is BOTH a one-time thing, and also a daily thing, just like marriage is a one-time commitment but also a daily persisting and commitment.
Salvation is coming into relationship with Jesus and not just doing life next to eachother but depending on Him as a partner, and particularly THE STRONG ONE. The only partner where it doesn’t have to be 50/50, or 80/20. He wants us to depend on Him for EVERYTHING that we need! And He truly means that and never reaches His limit to provide that emotional support! And anything we have to give – all the love we serve with- THIS is where that generates from! THIS is where the keeping-on power is found, when we allow ourselves to be “kept” in Him!
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❤️ YOU AREN’T DESIGNED TO BE SELF-EMPOWERED OR SELF-SUFFICIENT
I have come to recognize, in my walk with Jesus, that when I get to this can’t-go-on place, I am NEVER desiring to actually die.
And I feel like it’s so important to share this because others need to know it and understand it, so that if they ever get to this place they can see the way out of that trap too!
What this feeling is, is an indicator that I have simply hit my emotional capacity to handle the weight of something on my own. (I wasn’t designed to, but this alert reminds me that I must have inadvertently been trying to, and I’ve strained my “motor” and need to get back to being empowered by Him, not trying to push myself onward.)
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📖 This morning I was drawn to read Luke 23.
For the first time I read the events leading up to Jesus’s resurrection (Him walking through death and out of the grave!) in a new way!
Verse 1-3:
“Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king.” So Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the king of the Jews?” “You have said so,” Jesus replied.”
So it began with lies. Accusations.
And what was different about Jesus?
He didn’t get out of this situation by defending himself, explaining himself, running away, turning it on them or throwing anyone else under the bus.
He waited on God to get him through.
Verse 4-5:
“Then Pilate announced to the chief priests and the crowd, “I find no basis for a charge against this man.” But they insisted, “He stirs up the people all over Judea by his teaching. He started in Galilee and has come all the way here.””
So then, even with someone defending Him, someone declaring his innocence, even with a not-guilty judgment, the lies didn’t stop. The attacks kept coming. They weren’t justified but they didn’t care. You can’t reason with demons, or with people bent on believing the worst.
Jesus didn’t try to reason.
He waited on God to deliver Him.
It got worse.
The attacks became physical, but were still also emotional.
They beat him.
They nailed him to a cross.
They mocked him.
As he was dying for them, they were killing him.
(Ever feel that way? I’m giving you my all and you don’t even see it, you don’t even care. And not only that but you’re killing me (not literally but it can feel like it.) You’re starving me of my needs. Or you’re talking badly about me. Or you’re acting like I don’t matter. Or you’re accusing me of not giving my all and you don’t even know how much that’s not true. JESUS WENT THROUGH ALL OF THIS! HE CAN RELATE! Take it to him!)
Finally- Jesus reached His “limit.”
He gave all that His body could give,
(He had a human body that could only take so much, but now He has on His heavenly body that is invincible)
and yet He didn’t give up on His mission-
Instead, this is what He did:
Verse 34:
“Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”
Verse 44-47:
“It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.
Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
When he had said this, he breathed his last. The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.”
So here I believe He shows us TWO KEYS,
to spiritually pressing on PAST the things that feel like they’re emotionally or even physically killing us-
1️⃣PRE-FORGIVENESS:
He decided ahead of time to forgive people, and to ask God to forgive them, thus releasing any bitterness that would hold him down. When we forgive, it releases us from the pain.
When we decide to pre-forgive, it prepares us to get through any possible pain even faster. When someone hurts us, pain exists.
There’s no way around it, we have to get through it. But we don’t have to get through it alone. We can ask for His help to forgive. And instead of dragging it out each time, trying to decide if each offense is forgivable or not, when we pre-forgive it keeps us from wasting that precious time and also “gets us through” that dark tunnel faster.
2️⃣PLACING OUR SPIRITS INTO HIS HANDS:
In this Bible passage, Jesus’s spirit was leaving His body. It was His time. He didn’t decide his time, God did. When the enemy tries to get us to think suicidal thoughts, what he is doing is attempting to get our spirits to take our physical lives into our own hands, and to choose our time to “be done” on our own. But — we are freed from spiritual torment when we follow Jesus’s example— placing our spiritual well-being into God’s hands.
I don’t have to be okay on my own, I go to God for my okayness.
I don’t have to be able to forgive on my own, I go to God and ask for him to give me the capacity to forgive.
I don’t have to be able to suck it up and carry on on my own, I can ask for my heavenly Father to carry me. To lift my spirit!
Jesus Christ did even more than die on the cross for us. He momentarily took on our other punishment- spiritual separation from God- (it’s why He cried out “My God my God why have you forsaken me?)— so that we would NEVER have to have that! So that there’d NEVER be a time when we call out to God that He is not willing to hear us.
So there’s a tragedy that exists beyond some choosing not to trust in Jesus for their eternal salvation, and missing out on heaven.
There’s also a tragedy even amongst Christians— that we sometimes leave the gift of His presence on the table— and we try to go it alone, in all situations or just some of them, when we don’t have to! We try to save ourselves or we believe that we are done-beyond saving from these emotions, this situation- when He offers us- as many times as we need it, in every circumstance and every emotion— the opportunity to “get away” from those unbearable emotions by taking cover spiritually in Him.
So I’m sharing this today as it crossed my mind again, in hopes that it will help someone press through- not in their own selves but by pressing into Him! ❤️
Life can be HARD.
But God is GOOD!
If it’s an emotion you’re struggling with, a lie, attacks on your mind- use the gift of Jesus’s authority that He gave you over your own mind. Ask Him to come in and fill your mind with Truth, and tell the enemy and those lies to leave you in Jesus’s name!
If it’s a circumstance, “go to the bottom of the pool” and press up. Admit that you CAN’T change it, handle it, do it, but also remind yourself that GOD CAN. He can deliver you physically or He can strengthen you emotionally to persevere until this season has past!
Go “where two or more are gathered in His name.” Find a group of Spirit-filled believers and ask them to pray over you. We weren’t made to battle alone.
Practice pre-forgiveness. This one is hard. I am FAR from perfecting it. I hate having to practice it. As a words girl I can even take things personally that people don’t intend to be hurtful. Or even the lack of words at times can be hurtful. If we are looking for opportunities to be offended, we can always find them. But if we are looking to follow Jesus’s example and decide “they know not what they do”.
Even when it seems that they do,
even when they REALLY do –
there’s another level of “knowing”
they don’t understand because they don’t have the same love languages as us,
or because their spiritual eyes haven’t been opened,
or their souls have become calloused.
And humility helps too- there have been times I have hurt people when I truly and honestly didn’t mean to. And there have been times where I regret it, but I did say something hurtful, and at the time I did mean to. If I am thankful to have been forgiven, I need to decide I’m willing to forgive too.
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Sharing these things and my real human struggles and flaws is never easy, but I want to be obedient when prompted. Praying if you are struggling with any of these things, that now you don’t feel alone – and that it helps you. ❤️
From Full 
You’re so right and more people need to hear this!🙏
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