Try living on SS retirement or disability with failing health and virtually no savings and watching Obama bankrupt SS at a shocking pace and destroy the middle class and small businesses to fund handouts to non-citizens and 3rd generation welfare parasites.
Wait — now I’m depressed.
But my family would be instantly impoverished if I off myself. And paying into SS for a lifetime would be for naught. The checks stop when you die. Unless you’re much younger than I. And my insurance would pay nothing if they can prove I offed myself.
Deep, clinical depression, exacerbated by drug problems, legal or illegal, and our natural temperament and genetics, can sometimes make us virtually impervious to reasoning and encouragement. I know. And many of you do also. I’m sorry the man was going through this deep darkness. He apparently could not see a Betty White type come-back in his future, but if anyone had the talent to pull it off he did. His addictions may have had much more to do with this valley than any combination of the other factors above. Imagine if all those factors seem to be falling in on you at once.
I’m sure many friends and family wish they could’ve gotten to him and tried at least one more intervention. Any of us would pray that God might just take us out of this life before we reach such a level of despair.
The unconfessed sins of a lifetime, poured out to psychiatrists and not to God, add perhaps the greates burden of all. I know that people with great religious faith can succumb to severe depression also. I’m certainly not trying to condemn the man. But we live in a society based on Darwinian materialism that tells us we are simply animals who will someday die and become nothing more than
“worm-food” & “fertilizer” (Dead Poets Society) makes the inevitable valleys of despair much worse.
The philosophy of Macbeth is certainly nothing to cling to during the storms of depression and misfortune either:
Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Work, plan, prepare as best you can and seek out family, friends, and the Lord when life seems to be collapsing in on you:
Mat 6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?
Mat 6:26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
Mat 6:27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?
Mat 6:28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,
Mat 6:29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Mat 6:30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
Mat 6:31 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
Mat 6:32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
Mat 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Mat 6:34 “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Psa 23:1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
Psa 23:2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.
Psa 23:3 He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Psa 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
Psa 23:5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Psa 23:6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Rev 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
Rev 21:2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Rev 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
Rev 21:4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
Rev 21:5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
Rev 21:6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.
Rev 21:7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.
Rev 21:8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” {I’m a minister, retired and living on disability and my wife’s small Christian school teacher’s salary, by the way}
lovely and helpful. thank you.