Every morning, I would wake up and ask myself, "Will I make it through today without crying?" One day, I got fed up with it all. With my sadness, with being ignored, everything. I wrote a suicide note, prepared to take my life. That's when everything flashed before my eyes. I should talk to someone, I thought.

I found this website, and was prepared to wait in a long line to speak to someone. As soon as I clicked the, "Chat now!" button, someone spoke to me. For the first time in a few years, someone spoke to me. I told them everything. They told me what I could do to help myself, and they prayed with me. I told them as soon as the chat was done, "Please know that you have saved a life." I would have taken my own life if it hadn't been for this. I made a deal with them. If I ever needed to talk, I would come on here, and talk, in exchange for them helping more and more people.

Thank you for the experience that I had. I know that suicide is not a thing to play around with, but from experience, it's something that can be stopped. Keep helping people!
~Adeline

If you or a friend need support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, for free confidential, 24/7 help. For a list of crisis centers around the world and additional help, please visit the suicide prevention resource page.

Have you gotten close to writing a suicide note?  Do you have thoughts that you are not sure if you can make it through one more day?  TheHopeLine has a free eBook for you. 

The Enemy is Fighting to Defeat You

If you were not on this earth, life for everyone else who is still here would never be the same. When everything feels hopeless, it helps to be reminded of your true value to everyone in your life.

Last week I was at a coffee shop with the intention to write, but I made a friend instead. They shared their wisdom about life with me. This person shared parts of their testimony. Despite having a HARD life, they choose to remain positive. I shared about the first time that Satan had a spirit of death, depression, and suicidal thoughts over me.

How they responded to me is relevant to anyone struggling with suicidal thoughts past or present. I was told, "The enemy does not want you here because he knows how special you are, what you have done and are going to do here on this earth for the glory of God." That statement has so much truth in it.

Don't Lessen Your Mark on the World

If I had died the first time I desperately wanted to, I would not have been able to make the small mark on the world that I have made. I wouldn’t have the honor of helping those whom I have gotten the chance to help, and Lama Leah wouldn’t be what it is and my thoughts and wisdom would not have reached around the world. In my wildest dreams I never thought that my life would change for the better, but against my contrary belief, it did! I have been able to do some things and help some people that I would have never have thought was possible.

The Enemy is intimidated by those who are going to do great things for the kingdom! When he sees something great that comes from God his instincts are to destroy it and prevent it from doing its work. The most rewarding thing that you can do is overcome the devil through the blood of Christ. 

When I personally choose to fight for life, my depression did not end, nor was I always content with my decision. In the small moments of hope that’s when I knew that it was worth it. For me, it was giving a friend a hug who is hurting, snuggles with my dog, drinking peppermint tea, late nights focused on art projects, and writing a blog post that others enjoy or learn from.  Life is worth fighting for!

If you die from suicide, you take the mark that you have and will put on the world and make it significantly lighter because if you continue to live the possibilities that you have to make your mark are endless. The world will absolutely never be the same without you because you bring something unique and individual to the world. If you are suicidal, I am truly begging you to give this life another chance.

Choosing Life Is Worth It

Life may not become instantly better, but it can and will change eventually. God could be allowing you to go through this season as an opportunity to grow. Maybe God will use the season that you are in now to give you wisdom for a different season. I promise you that choosing life will be worth it!

Two years ago, in the car, when my best friend was pleading for me to fight, she told me this, “You can’t take your life, think about how great the day will be when you are able to say, ‘I made it through this hell and look where I am now.’ Things can only get better from here.” What she said was true. If you are suicidal from a bully in your life (any kind of bully, a physical person, depression, current life circumstances, the DEVIL, etc.), how will you be able to prove them wrong if you’re not alive to do so? From my experience, the rewarding part of various struggles in life is when you can overcome them.

Victory Is Possible

Those who have the hardest life become the strongest people. If you are currently suicidal, please be encouraged. The battles that you are in are worth fighting. It is impossible to achieve victory if you give up, and you can be victorious. I promise you that life will change, and when it does, you will be grateful that you did not act on your plan. Think about what a great day it will be when you are able to see the beauty in your hardships. Suicide eliminates the chances of life becoming better because it stops your journey in this world.

If you choose life let me, tell you this, it will not always be an easy battle to overcome, but it is worth every hardship and tear. Jesus is here to walk with you, by your side, every step of the way. Everything will be okay in the end, if it’s not okay now, remember it simply isn’t the end.

If you or a friend need support right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, for free confidential, 24/7 help. Head here for a list of crisis centers around the world. For additional help, please visit the suicide prevention resource page.

Lama Leah is a blogger, and supporter of the arts, social change, and God’s chosen people. Read more from her on her blog: Lama-Leah!

Almost 10 years ago, I had first heard Dawson McAllister on the radio when I was on tour throughout Tennessee. I was only 16 or 17 at the time, now I'm 27. I have 2 beautiful daughters and in a much happier place. Mostly because of the conversation I had with Dawson McAllister on the air while I was driving and it was late. I was considering just turning the wheel and going off the road and doing whatever I could to just end it. But after the talk we had, I changed my mind.

I just wanted to thank you, my friend, Dawson. Without God, and without you... I wouldn't have my two beautiful girls to wake me up and drive me nuts every morning. And I wouldn't change that for the world. Thank you.
~Matt

If you are ready to give up and need someone to help you, connect with a HopeCoach. Or if this is an emergency and you or a friend needs support, right now, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 for free confidential, 24/7 help. For a list of crisis centers around the world and additional help, please visit the suicide prevention resource page. 

We had a death in the family...my little sister Bailey passed away recently.

Can you relate to Katy's story about a death in the family?

She was everything to me, we would play together and do whatever we could think of. When Bailey started complaining her stomach hurt, my mom brought her to Children's Memorial Hospital. Bailey had a cancerous brain tumor and her appendix was taken out.

A year and a half later she passed away. I went back to public school and struggled becoming social and being happy. I was brought to TheHopeLine for guidance and support.

Morgan, who spoke with me listened to me for a hour and a half and helped me through.

I made a lot of new friends in the last couple of days! Bailey might not be with us today, but thanks to Morgan I know she is with me. I learned how to trust in the Lord and I know that Bailey isn't suffering anymore and she's having princess parties. Thank you TheHopeLine for believing in me and helping me become happy!

~Katy

Have you lost someone you love?  Does your heart ache with grief?

No matter what, in life three things are certain: we will be born, we will live life, and then we will die. Unfortunately, sometimes death plays a role way too early in life and we are left to bear the marks of that. Yet sometimes, life simply extinguishes due to time being done on this earth and it’s time to go home.

Some of us have lost friends, family members, co-workers and acquaintances to death in one form or fashion. Some have gone early and some have gone after living life to it’s fullest. Some by accident, some self-caused, some due to life circumstances, and some by the fortune of a life fully lived.

And I too, have lost friends. When I was in kindergarten or first grade, my friend TJ got hit by a train as he was crossing the tracks back to his home. And the way I dealt with it at that tender young age was to jump into my mother’s arms and cry and cry when she told me. It’s strange because at the age of six, I knew I would never get to play with TJ again and had an understanding of what death was. I used to think TJ got it lucky, he never had to experience the pains of life and the cruelty of the world. And yet I realize how selfish this was of me, because TJ didn’t live many of the experiences we will all have. His family never got to experience the joys of watching him play sports, graduate from high school, have a family, and all the other wonderful blessings that life has to offer.

During my freshman year of college, I was at a keg party when I got a call from one of my friends that our mutual friend Brian had passed away. The news hit me like a ton of bricks. I was 19 years old, and on my first spring break fixing to have a blast…. and this happens. I don’t remember a ton from that week, except numbing the pain with a bottle of Jack Daniels and sitting at a friend’s farmhouse playing cards, each of us remembering Brian in our own way. This was my first real experience with death where I had to process what happened and I didn’t know what to do, so I got drunk. And sure, it numbed the pain, the hurt. Man, did it hurt. Death very much became a reality after that and I even lost a couple more friends in college, but none of those instances really prepared me for what it was like to lose someone that was family. Someone that had the same blood running through their veins as mine.

A year ago today, I lost someone that close to me for the first time in my life. I consider that a huge blessing, being 28 years old and having never lost a family member, but inevitably, death caught up to me and took my first grandparent.

I remember getting the call from my dad a few days earlier that my grandpa, Jay Dee, had gone to the hospital with jaundice and they were running tests, and that things looked optimistic but were serious. My dad kept me in the loop and passed along my well wishes to him. I knew there was a ton of family there, so I didn’t call him that day, because honestly I figured between having to deal with the entire family and being in the hospital he was exhausted and I didn’t want to be the guy to call and wake him up while resting and recovering.

It was the single dumbest decision that has haunted me for the past year.

I woke up the next day and got to work a few minutes early and decided to check Facebook. The first thing I see is a note from my aunt that says her father has died. Instinctively I rushed to call my father because I knew why he hadn’t called and my first thought was, “I have to check on my dad.”  He told me how late it was, and I knew he was in the room as his father left this world, so it was something I have never held against him for not calling me that late in the night to tell me the news. I also knew how hard that phone call would have been, and bad news is something no one wants to deliver, so in a way, I’m thankful I found out the way I did rather than having to hear my dad say his father had passed away.

Perhaps the hardest thing for me has been the grieving process. It, honestly, was something I never did until a few weeks ago.

My dad had called to remind me to call my grandmother on my grandfather’s birthday and for the first time, it really sunk in he was gone. Even after a family Christmas where he wasn’t there, I never really took the time to grieve. I pushed it down. I didn’t know how to deal with it. For the past year, I’ve held onto nothing but regrets. Why didn’t I spend more time with him? Why didn’t I go out on the boat one last time? Why didn’t I call more often? Why didn’t I stay for dinner that one time? Why, why, why…all questions rooted in something to keep me from seeing the beauty and celebrating life.

I’m not going to lie, it does suck having those regrets, because they were things I could have done. But, no matter what, there’s always going to be something we could have done or wanted to do. We’re never going to escape the ways we think, and regret is part of that.

But what about the good? There seems to come a time, when we lose interest in the bad memories, and instead see the good. I’m a people pleaser and hate disappointment, and I realized I had lived in the disappointment for far too long, mostly because I thought I deserved it. For every phone call I didn’t make or dinner I didn’t stay for that barraged my thought process there were also golf outings, fishing together on the lake, great conversations, surprise visits to graduations, and so many great moments that outweighed the regrets that ultimately brought me so much peace.

I was talking to my mom the other day about all of this, and wanting to check on my dad as well during this time. We ended up sharing so many laughs that evening remembering the things grandpa did and so many smiles at the man he was and the things he instilled in all of his children and grandchildren. To work hard, to take care of others, to love God, to treat others better than ourselves, and that kindness is better than anger. We also both remarked how crazy it seems that he’s been gone a year, when it feels like he’s barely been gone a day. I honestly see that as something so beautiful, that while my grandpa has been gone for a year, it feels more like I’m just on a delay until I see him again. There’s more beauty in that view of death than taking the long road of regret.

We have so many choices when dealing with grief. We all deal with it differently too. My hope and prayer for anybody reading this is that we cling to the goodness that was life and fondly remember the great times.

So this is for anyone dealing with grief and for everyone that will deal with grief upon losing someone we love. Do not live in the regret, but instead, see the beauty of times you have spent with that person and cling hard to those. They can literally be the difference in a years worth of pain or a years worth of happiness. We aren’t meant to live unhappy, and it’s ok to deal with the sadness of death. It sucks and it hurts. But no matter what, you’ve got to see the beauty in life, no matter how it was lost. I’ve lost friends to suicide, car wrecks, and cancer. None of those are pretty, but their lives were all beautiful and for that I remember that they brought greatness, if only for a brief moment, in a world that can be full of ugliness. I choose to remember TJ and his smile, Christian and his goofiness and love, Brian and his unshakable faith and leading me to Jesus, Justin and his love for wanting to tell people about the real love of Jesus, Jack, Kelli, Ted, Erin, and many others that for a blip on my life’s radar, brought me beauty, joy, laughter, and strength, all things I can choose to cling to when I remember them.

This is the end of my grieving process. I choose to remember my grandpa as a man who loved my grandmother to his last day, who impacted countless lives through coaching and teaching, and who instilled a love and reverence for God in his children and grandchildren. I’ll never be able to watch a basketball game without seeing some player with his elbow out and hear the words of my grandpa telling me “Get your elbow in”. I’ll never go on a lake or play a game of golf without having fond memories of him and the goodness he brought into my life and those of everyone he impacted.

I know I’ll see you again Grandpa, but until that time comes, thanks for all you did for me and for helping form the man I am today. I’ll always remember the great times and the love you so selflessly gave to me, no matter what. I’ll never forget you. I miss you. I love you.

Do you have good memories of the times you spent with the people you loved and then lost?  Share them with TheHopeLine in the comments below!

Want to know more about a God who brings peace in times of loss? Lean More About God

We also have a partner, GriefShare, who is a caring support group of people who will walk alongside you through one of life's most difficult experiences.

Guest blog is written by Jordan Zehr. He is part of HeartSupport's blog team!  Jordan Zehr's first love is God and then his family and friends. He graduated from Oklahoma State University in 2009 and is a self-proclaimed fanatic. He enjoys writing, music, and anything to do with baseball.

Do You Believe There Can Be Beauty in Pain?

The choices that we make every day don’t (always) solely affect us individually. They can affect our friends, children, spouses, the planet, and sometimes strangers who live across town or strangers across the world. Newton’s third law states that for every action there is an equal or opposite reaction and this can apply to many aspects of life. Some of these reactions can be positive; while some have negative consequences.

In life we all experience joys and sorrows. Some are fortunate to have few sorrows (at least from the outside), while others are not as blessed. Some are born into one parent, one small paycheck, and households where abuse lingers in the walls. Children grow up and make their own choices and write their own stories and testimonies. They live life from a new perspective because for the first time the lifestyle that they choose is in their hands. I’m not referring to social class but I’m referring to the fact that they can choose a lifestyle of love or hate.

Their own children will either grow up being cared for in every way, or they become victims.

When considering religion, the question is often asked, “How can I believe in a God who let’s horrible events happen?” I have asked myself this question in the midst of the storm when God seems to be so far away. I have walked through my fair share of storms. I have pondered the lie, “How can anything good happen through my brokenness? I think that God turned His head away the times I was a victim.”

God has been teaching me about this lie that I believed for years. Yes, I was a follower of Christ but I did not understand and am still learning just how God works and there is beauty in the utter brokenness, sorrow, and pain of life. The first time I had a glimpse of how my brokenness has beauty in it was about two years ago. I was with my best friend at a church gathering and one of our other friends came in and she was hysterical. About anything bad that could’ve happened to a 16-year-old girl had and her day was miserable; it was one of those days that had pushed her over the edge. She had expressed to us that she was suicidal. All three of us went into the bathroom to talk things out. As we talked, I learned that this girl and I had similarities in our stories and I did the best I possibly could to encourage her that things could and will become better. I’m not sure how much my words would have meant to her if I hadn’t walked through storms. That night, I started to see a small bit of beauty through my pain. Yet I have had a hard time believing that God was with me through every season and that He has never turned His face on war, poverty, world hunger, sexual assault, and abuse.

I’ve been learning that beauty in the pain can be as simple as being able to have empathy towards others who have been in the same situation as you. In my own walk, the times that I’ve had the most emotional healing were not when I was sitting in a therapist's office (I’m not saying that therapy isn’t important because it is) or sitting in church. God has done the most healing when I’m doing something as simple as having coffee with a fellow Christian and they are sharing their own story of walking in the storm. I have a connection of pain with them when they share about life after the storm.

• It’s the priceless feeling of knowing, “I’m not alone.”

Yes, we have Jesus but sometimes we need a friend here on earth to share our journey with. Having the honor to be a friend guiding and loving on the one who is still walking in the exact same rainstorm that you were once in is beautiful. THAT is when I know that God had never left me. I am beyond grateful for those He has given me to hold my hand while I’ve been in and out of the storms we have all walked through.

Newton’s third law states that for every action there’s an equal or opposite reaction. As we walk this life and deal with more storms than sunny days, how are you going to react? When others hurt you, you have the choice to do the same to someone else. Or you can use that exact pain that you have to empower you to help someone who has gone through the same or similar experience. THIS is how you can find beauty in pain.

Lama Leah is a blogger, and supporter of the arts, social change, and God’s chosen people. Read more from her on her blog: Lama-Leah!

If you have been through some struggles and were able to find beauty in the pain, you can share your story to help and encourage others who might be struggling. SHARE YOUR STORY!

My name is Jasman and this is my story:

When I was about 7 years old my parents got divorced, but as far back as I can remember they were always fighting and arguing. I started to self-harm when I was 12.  I thought that there was no one out there who cared, knew what I was going through, even knew I was alive.

I was going through a hard breakup, and instead of cutting like I normally would I decided to take a notebook and write in it. Now instead of cutting, I grab my notebook, and I write in it. One day I realized:

• I have friends who care about me.
• My mom and dad care about me.
• My grandparents care about me.

I had a blade in my pocket one day, and a friend of mine emailed the school counselor, I got kind of upset at her, but then later that day, when I was home, I realized, that if she would not have emailed the school counselor, I would of cut myself really badly.

"People out there care about you, even though you may not realize it."

I wrote this in one of my notebooks today, "Blades help me release the monster on the inside, they can cut deep, or they can just skim the skin, they have always been there through all the rough times, but what I didn't realize is that so were my friends. I have friends that have always been there. They didn't have to make a single scar on my body, like a blade, they helped let the monster out through my words, not my cuts. Cuts make scars, then people ask 'How did you get those?' then you have to make up some lie, so you do not get in trouble." ~Jasman

The green-eyed monster is an expression that depicts jealousy negatively. Over 77% of women have admitted to being jealous in their relationships. Jealousy is natural in a relationship, but whereas men must have that emotion triggered by an action, women seem to experience it without any real indication at all.
Thankfully, there are countless ways to combat this jealousy, regain confidence within oneself, and to grow from the experience in a way that will subdue that green-eyed monster forever.

Understand the Consequences: It Is Insulting

Ladies, it is understandable that this emotion cannot be controlled much of the time. However, the actions that ensue from this emotion are able to be controlled. One of the most effective ways to subdue this emotion is to realize just how insulting it is for your partner. Chances are, your partner did not provide you with a reason to feel insecure nor jealous, so it is best to understand the emotional toll this is taking on them.

Embrace Your Originality: Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

When you compare yourself to others in terms of physical looks, humor, affluence, and success, you are detracting from all of the wonderful things that you are.  Being original is the greatest thing that you can be and though you might not believe this, there are people who desire to be just like you as well.

Fear Is Okay-- You Will Survive

Being afraid to lose the person you are with is normal but try to simply live for the day and enjoy the blessings it brings rather than worry about the future. Additionally, this jealousy that leads to anxiety and negativity might prematurely end the relationship, so it is best to be mindful of that.

Distinguish Between Fiction and Reality

The human mind is very convincing and endlessly tricky. Oftentimes, you are able to believe the things that you are the most fearful of. Essentially, if you imagine that your partner is unfaithful, your brain's natural reaction is to make sense of the overproduction of the fear and stress hormones by creating scenarios in your mind that are untrue. Understand that what you imagine is not reality and remain aware of that fact each day.

Love Yourself by Understanding What You Offer

Once you realize the positive attributes about yourself, an understanding will be created that you are special and worthy enough for anyone, let alone your partner. Compile a list of what you enjoy about yourself and even enlist the help of your family or friends. Doing this will allow you to realize your worth and you will be surprised about how many qualities there are to appreciate about you.

Assess the Relationship: Why Did It Start?

Much like determining the positive characteristics of yourself, you should repeat the same process with your relationship. Answer the questions:

• Why did the relationship start?
• What makes it so special?
• Why did you and your partner choose one another over anyone else?

Answering these questions will strengthen both of you as a couple while concurrently abolishing your jealousy that has stemmed from uncertainty.

Talk About It to Determine the Cause of Jealousy

Hiding your jealousy will only weaken the relationship and put you in a dangerous spiral of self-dislike, sadness, and continual envy. The best route to take is to share your feelings with your partner. From there, assess where your jealousy could be coming from:

• Does your partner have a lot of female friends?
• Did they once give you a reason to feel protective?
• Are you battling low self-esteem?

All of these questions should be answered together, and solutions should be proposed that will abate this problem.

Shift Your Focus to Something More Positive

Despite your efforts, jealousy sometimes continues to linger in your mind. This natural reaction is nothing to be ashamed of, but shifting your focus is of the utmost importance for when you feel as if you are in a losing battle. Consider taking up a hobby or really concentrating on being happy with your partner. Do more activities together, talk more together, and just share an honest policy in all that you do. Changing your environment is often the best way to form these life-changing habits.

Beyond a shadow of a doubt, relationships are difficult. Beware of negative habits which result in irregular brain patterns that will only further contribute to an unfavorable lifestyle. Being mindful of yourself is always of the utmost importance while being open with your partner is crucial in abolishing certain mindsets entirely. Welcoming your individuality and what you have to offer is the most advantageous action. And focusing on the positive will lift the concerns if all else fails.

Jealousy is natural and often inevitable, but it does not need to be a life sentence if you make necessary changes and accept it for what it simply is. You are not a green-eyed monster but are instead a woman in tune with her feelings, a factor that is more admirable than unfavorable.

Sonya struggled for many years in finding 'the one' for her and went through many difficult relationships as a result. After nearly giving up, she met Greg to whom she is now happily married. She runs a blog at HerAspiration.com in which she recalls some of the bad experiences she had while dating, and hopes that by sharing her experiences she is able to make the journey for love a little bit easier for other women out there.

How do we explain what we see in this world?

Terrorist attacks, sex slavery, racism, world hunger?

Subconsciously, we probably ask ourselves questions like these quite often. But consciously we rarely do. We're so busy living our lives we rarely stop and wonder WHY?

But then something happens to wake us up. Our parents get divorced. The girl down the street gets abducted. A relative gets cancer. That wakes us up for awhile. But then we can often sink back into the denial. That is, until another tragedy hits, another incongruence. Then we're likely to think, Something isn't right here. Something is really, really wrong. This isn't how life's supposed to be!

So, WHY do bad things happen?

Why isn't this world a better place?

There is an answer to the WHY question, found in the Bible. But it's not an answer that most people like to hear: the world is the way it is because it's the world that we, in a sense, have asked for.

Sound strange?

What or who could make this world different than the way it is? What or who could guarantee that life is pain-free, for everyone, all the time?

God could. God could accomplish that. But he doesn't. At least not right now. And we're angry with him as a result. We say, "God can't be all-powerful and all-loving. If he were, this world wouldn't be the way it is!"

We say this hoping that God will then change his position on the matter. Our hope is that putting a guilt trip on him will make him change the way he's doing things.

But he doesn't seem to budge. WHY doesn't he?

God doesn't budge -- he doesn't change things right now -- because he's giving us what we asked for: a world where we get to treat him as though he is absent and unnecessary.

Remember the story of Adam and Eve? They ate the "forbidden fruit." That fruit was the idea that they could ignore what God said or gave them, and strike out on life apart from God. For Adam and Eve sort of hoped that they could become like God, without God.

They consumed the notion that there was something more valuable in existence than God himself, something more valuable than having a personal relationship with God. And this world system -- with all of its faults -- came as a result of the choice they made.

Their story is the story of all of us, isn't it? Who hasn't said -- if not audibly at least in their hearts -- God, I think I can do this without you. I'll just go this one alone. But thanks for the offer.

We've all tried to make life work without God.

Why do we do that? Probably because we've all bought the notion that there's something more valuable, more important, than God.

For different people it's different things, but the mindset is the same: God isn't what's most important in life. In fact, I'd just as soon do it without him altogether.

What is God's response to that?

He allows it. Many people experience the painful results of others' or their own choices that run contrary to God's ways...murder, sexual abuse, greed, lying/fraud, slander, adultery, kidnapping, etc.

All of these can be explained by people who have refused to give God access and influence over their lives. They are going about their lives as they see fit, and they and others suffer.

What's God view on all of this?

He's not smug. In fact, God could rightly be viewed as leaning forward, compassionate, hoping we will turn to him so that he can bring real life to us.

Jesus said, "Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."¹ But not all are willing to go to him. Jesus commented on this when he said: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing."²

Again, Jesus brings the issue back to our relationship with him. "I am the light of the world. He who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."³

But what about when life is unfair, when bad things happen to us?

What about those horrible circumstances that hit us in life, caused by someone other than ourselves? When we are feeling victimized, it's useful to realize that God himself endured horrendous treatment from others. God more than understands what you are going through.

There is nothing in life that could be more painful than what Jesus endured on our behalf, when he was deserted by his friends, ridiculed by those who would not believe in him, beaten and tortured before his crucifixion, then nailed to a cross, in shameful public display, dying of slow suffocation.

He created us, yet allowed humanity the freedom to do this, to fulfill Scripture and to set us free from our sin. This was no surprise to Jesus. He was aware of what was coming, foreknowing all the details, all the pain, all the humiliation.

"And as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside, and on the way he said to them, 'Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death, and deliver him to the Gentiles to be mocked and scourged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day."⁴

Imagine knowing something that awful was going to happen to you. Jesus understands emotional and psychological anguish. The night that Jesus knew they would arrest him, he went to pray, but took some friends with him.

"And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, 'My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here and watch [keep awake] with me. And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, 'My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will but as thou wills."⁵

Though Jesus confided in his three friends, they didn't understand the depth of his torment, and when Jesus returned from prayer he found them asleep. Jesus understands what it's like going through pain and extreme sadness alone.

Here it is summarized, as John describes in his gospel: "He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not. He came to his own home, and his own people received him not. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God."⁶ "For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life."⁷

There is no question that there is pain and intense suffering in this world.

Some of it is explained by selfish, hateful actions on the part of others. Some of it defies an explanation in this life. But God offers us himself. God gives us the knowledge that he has endured also, and is aware of our pain and needs. Jesus said to his disciples, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."⁸

There is ample reason to be afraid, troubled, but God can give us his peace, which is greater than the problem before us. He is after all, God, the Creator. The one who has always existed. The one who created a universe on the backstroke.

Yet even in his power, he's also the one who knows us intimately, even the smallest, insignificant details. And if we will trust him with our lives, relying on him, though we encounter difficulties, he will hold us securely.

Jesus said, "These things I have spoken to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."⁹ He went through our ultimate threat -- death -- and overcame it. He can take us through the difficult circumstances of this life, and then bring us into eternal life, if we will trust him.

We can either go through this life with God or without him.

Jesus prayed, "O righteous Father, although the world has not known you, yet I have known you; and these have known that you sent me; and I have made your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them."¹⁰

You might find yourself asking, "Why is life so hard?" Without God, humanity is easily drawn into hatred, racism, sexual abuse, murdering each other.

Jesus said, “I came that you might have life, and have it more abundantly."

This post was originally published here. If you have further questions about God? Please see www.everystudent.com If you have asked God into your heart please visit www.startingwithgod.com

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