Rescue

"...I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." 
~Isaiah 46:4

A day or two after my son's youth leader died last month, we were looking through photos of the youth retreat last June, to see him, to reflect on what was such a happy time for my son.  I saw this one and caught my breath.  

That is Shamus, sitting at the table, right under that banner.  What a comfort that verse has become. What a hope.  I have grieved that this young man suffered so much and we didn't know.  My heart is wrenched to think of the suffering he experienced alone.  I truly do not believe anyone actually WANTS to die.  They want the pain to stop.  They want to stop feeling so utterly hopeless and alone.  I believe, in the midst of his pain, that promise was there for Shamus.

I believe this because I've lived it.  I have felt the intensity of wishing for pain and loneliness and isolation to end.  I grew up in a time and place where it was taught that suicide is the unforgivable sin. My gracious God is more merciful than that.  I think a person whose life reflects the glory of God and whose heart is wholly His, is in Paradise with Jesus, even if suicide ends up being, what they consider, their only option.  

They say to speak out when you feel that kind of depression or desperation.  They say to reach out to someone.  I think that's important, but it's difficult.  What if there is no one to reach out to?  What if you're told that it's "too exhausting" to constantly listen to someone who's depressed?  What if you're told how much worse off others are, that you shouldn't feel so sorry for yourself, that you just need to think positive, that you need to be more grateful, that you should do more acts of service for others and stop thinking of yourself so much?  Or what if you're just ignored?

It's easier to suffer alone, sometimes.  Safer maybe.  I am clinging to the promise in Isaiah 46.  My Maker sustains me, and carries me, and will rescue me.  He has rescued me many other times in my life.  He gave me 3 people who need me, and I will never leave them of my own volition.

But it's hard.  And I struggle.  Some seasons of struggle are worse than others.  The relentlessness of single parenting, going to school when I don't really want to, wanting a partner in my life, to share with, to walk alongside.  And sometimes there is no particular reason for my depression.  It's just there.  It has been since I was a teenager.  It is hard at the best of times, and unbearable at the worst.  But He sustains me.  He carries me.  He rescues me. 

I believe.