Question from a reader:

I read an article about Randy’s wife Nanci’s illness and death. She was at peace with God. I am not. I regularly take His name in vain. I was cursed in the womb. There is not one thing I’d miss if I was not here. I was born into a dysfunctional family, with sex abusers, bullying, fear, then in adulthood, lost jobs, grief, infertility, childlessness, and a troubled marriage. Counseling doesn’t help, church, Christian support groups—nothing helps. I get joy by planning my departure. I agree when Job’s wife says: “curse God and die.” This is a good time to check out, but I’m afraid of dying in pain and being sent to hell. Any advice?

Answer from Doreen Button, EPM staff:

You’ve been through a lot of stuff, and searching for relief from the pain is totally understandable. The difficulty comes when you search in the wrong places. There isn’t a human on this planet who can remove your pain—not even you, because if you think about it, trading this life for a life in Hell means your pain is multiplied throughout eternity. That doesn’t sound like relief to me. (Don’t misunderstand; suicide is not the unforgivable sin. If you belong to Jesus and go against His will in a matter of either great or small significance, you will be with Him after you die whether you die well or not.)

Your note asks for advice so here’s mine: stop looking at your past. You can’t do anything to change it. The only thing you can change is your attitude and your focus and thereby potentially put your future on a better trajectory. Yes, people have hurt you badly. You’ve probably made a few less than wise choices yourself. That’s what happens in this sin-dominated world. I don’t like it any more than you do.

I won’t mention suicide helplines because you said that Christian support groups, church, and counseling haven’t helped. But I will ask: Did you expect them to? Did you expect that your life would be turned around because you went to church or told your story to someone who (hopefully) was a good listener and asked good questions?

It may sound like a cliché, but I know from personal experience (I’ve been through a lot of stuff too) that looking to Jesus is the only way out of your suffering that has rewards both now and forever. Make Him your “husband.” Make Him your ultimate employer. Make His family your family. You may or may not be healed this side of eternity, but you can have peace.

I read this in part of my devotional time, written by Paul Tripp (Everyday Gospel, February 7), “Note the words of Leviticus 20:26: ‘You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.’ This verse points us to the call of God. To love God’s law is to live for something vastly bigger than the comfort, pleasure, or ease of the moment. God calls you to live for something dramatically more fulfilling than your personal definitions of happiness. He calls you to live for something greater than material affluence, personal power and control, or acceptance, respect, or fame. He calls you to surrender every desire in every situation of your life to the holy will of the one who created you and then took you for his own. The call to holiness enjoins you to always ask in every situation, oration, or relationship, ‘What is the will of God for me in this place, or what thought, desire, or response would be pleasing to my Lord here?’”

You noticed that Nanci had peace in her struggle, and you don’t. What reasons might you think that to be the case? Was it because she chased peace? Did she chase comfort or relief or happiness? No. She chased Jesus, and peace was one of the results.

You can’t follow Jesus and live life your own way. He called us to repent (turn away from the sins that have plagued humankind since Adam’s apple incident) and to “follow Me!” To be a disciple of Jesus is to watch everything He does and listen to everything He says and long to become like Him. Nanci was a disciple. She spent as much time as she could worshiping God and learning about Jesus by soaking in His Word. Do you? Have you, like Nanci, completely surrendered your future to Him?

If God has called you to follow Him, do it! I know He hasn’t called you to end your life because He created you for a purpose (“you are His masterpiece” according to Ephesians 2:10). Your life isn’t yours to end any more than it was yours to begin. Your choice boils down to “what will I think/do/say this moment” and if you look to Him for direction about what that thought, action, or word should be, you are His disciple. If you choose your own way, you are not.

When the pain becomes seemingly too much to bear, picture Jesus walking up the hill, carrying the cross we should have had to carry and dying the most painful possible death that we should have died and realize that all the weight of your sin and mine lay across His shoulders. And the part that always brings tears to my eyes and causes my jaw to drop is that He loved us so much, He did that knowing how much it would hurt and He did it willingly!!! (See Hebrews 12 and John 3:14-17.)

Hang onto Him! If you haven’t truly chosen to follow Him, what’s keeping you from starting right now? (‘If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always got’…and you’re clearly not happy with what you now have. When you spend time focusing on how to end your life, you make the enemy very happy. He wants you to listen to his ugly whispers, because dead people can’t follow, serve, or love Jesus here, or love others and tell them about Him; they can only be with Him…or not.)

I pray that you find the peace that God promises because it’s offered freely to anyone who will turn away from their old way of living and turn toward Him. That doesn’t mean you have to clean up your act before you come to Him. It means you look to Him alone for healing and hope and direction (and He will give you His peace and happiness as wonderful “side effects”).