Aedin, I'm going to tell you the words of one of my inspirations, a girl who at the time was in the midst of addiction and depression, self-injury, and was extremely suicidal. At the time, treatment centers were turning her away as they found fresh razor wounds on her arms. She could have chosen to simply give up, because all was hopeless, this was what the world was telling her. When a newfound friend asked her what she would say to people if she were to tell her story, she responded,
[SIZE="4"]"Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars...The stars are always there but we miss them in the dirt and clouds. We miss them in the storms. Tell them to remember hope. We have hope." [/SIZE]
Whenever I find myself slipping, falling back into regrets, wanting to give all my hard work up and throw it all away, I remember her words. Renee Yohe chose to make a better life out of her bad situations. All way lost, and she threw that away and chose hope. She chose to trust that Jesus was stronger, and allowed the people around her to become the church in her need, the very body of Christ. Her story became the inspiration for the non-profit movement, To Write Love on Her Arms. With her story, they have reached out to millions, saved countless lives, stopped self-injury in countless lives.
Are you going to allow one bad week to shape your entire life? My cousin posted a status on facebook today that read, "When life knocks you down on your back, you're in a better position to look up." Look up, see the stars. Know that there is hope.
Right now, I'm in the same sort of circumstance with some of my closest relationships. It feels like, like you said, that they're justifying how they hurt me, and are unwilling to see the damage they've done, and help me correct it. It's almost like they don't care about our friendship, because they're so focused elsewhere. I've come to terms that this is simply my perception, that I don't know what's in their head.
Perhaps they want to fix the hurt and break the walls between us, too, but we're all so stubborn and awkward that any time we try to get our worlds to collide long enough to do this, we've missed our shot for the day. So it's going to take time to mend the wounds, and with that, we need to wait on God's timing, because in the meantime, He's going to strengthen us to bear with the burdens of today.
Don't give up, don't lose hope. Don't be discouraged because people seem to be turning away, because God's going to use that to stretch your spiritual muscles. Some of the Bible's well known people wanted to die... (Moses - Numbers 11:14, 15; Elijah - 1 Kings 19:4) That repetition is in the Bible to be a reminder to us, because we are often so forgetful that we are not alone.
Elijah was stuck on himself and his own problems (19:10, 14) and that's when God redirected his mission, and by verse 18, showed him that he was not alone in worshiping God, as he thought he was. (Note that this is some time right after going against the prophets of Baal in chapter 18, proving that the Lord is God) There were 7,000 others that had not bowed to Baal or had kissed him. With this, God was saying, "Hey, Elijah, get up, there is still work to be done!"
And He had said the same to Moses. In Moses' case, he felt all alone in being the 'caretaker' to the people of Israel. What God did for him after he asked God to kill him, was take seventy men and gather them together to have the Holy Spirit be put on them, and to help Moses bear the burden of the people so that Moses wouldn't have to bear it all alone.
The point is, when we feel all alone, we never are. When we cry out to God, He hears, and will place people in our path to show us that we are not alone.
I'll leave some lyrics for you to chew on. I just heard this song for the first time on Friday, and then had to go home and figure out who sang it, and then upon doing that, went out and bought the cd, having learned that the main intention for the record was to bear a message of encouragement. This is Mainstay's "
Where Your Heart Belongs."
You lost yourself in finding out the wonders of the world will let you down
You gave yourself to those who never cared about your soul they only cared for their own
it seems everyone has left you
You’re not alone
I hear you call
And I‘ve been waiting here for you through it all
You’re not alone
Come to the cross
and let me show you where your heart belongs
You’ve been down the darkest roads and you know just how it feels to lose your hope
But don’t give up on everything when everyone has given up on you
and it feels like everyone has left you
I will never leave you
Come back to my open arms
To the only love you need
When it all feels crashing down, when it hurts, that's when God is working. Take encouragement, while you may not feel like anything good's coming from this, God will make Himself known through your pain. He works miraculously and mysteriously when we feel Him the least!