Good morning, My Dear Friends,
A couple of years ago, a gifted young woman who lived in New York City tragically chose to take her own life at age thirty. I had been her family’s pastor years earlier and in fact, I had taught her in confirmation classes when she was twelve. Her distraught parents asked me to officiate her funeral. I had to grapple with the question of what do you say when such a promising young person has decided that the future is impossible and believes that suicide is the only way out?
Few of us will ever confront such circumstances ourselves, but many of us, at times, have talked with people who live on the edge of desperation. Sometimes we may even feel that way about our own lives. How do we deal with such feelings? There are at least three things we could well remember.
First, the past for all of us is a mixture of good and bad. Any student of history is aware of this as so many of our heroes have dark and shady blemishes on their records. St. Augustine’s early years were so wild that his mother feared for his life. Ulysses S. Grant had long bouts with alcoholism during which his behavior was anything but exemplary. It’s a rare person indeed who can look back and be proud of everything.
Second, preoccupation with the past is useless except as it is used to guide us in the present and the future. George Santayana is credited with saying that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. There is nothing unhealthy about looking back as long as our purpose is to learn from it.
Third, it is possible to redeem the past by living responsibly in the present. I have long held to the proverb that God never allows one door to close on us without opening another. Life is so arranged that no circumstance is completely impossible, and we are never boxed into a totally closed room. There is an open door somewhere, and we can find it if we have the will to look for it.
Alcoholics Anonymous has worked for years on the principle that there are no hopeless people. They have pulled people out of every kind of circumstance and helped them to find new life. St. Augustine outlived his past. General Grant now occupies an envied place in our history. There are always open doors if we have the will to look for them.
Remember that the most hopeless problem has its opportunity,
Bruce Jones, Pastor
Imagine Church
