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Discussion Forum : News and Current Events : Suicide on the rise for middle-aged Americans

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Brother Compliments, I know what lonliness is.
I know what it is to live in hellish conditions, environmentally and to have a disease that's eating someone alive.

YET - I know I've been "re-programmed", so that HE fills all-in-all. And even if I spend these days and the days to come alone in a sick bed, I still will try to share - "Joy to the world" - ALL that HE is with a lost and dying world.

Brother, it's only when I learned in a very hard way, to get my eyes off myself, did my will to live return. I don't know any other way to come out of depression. And in my case, the depression is also because the disease is physically causing depression, organically.
But I don't need anti-depressants because HE showed me the secret of Himself being the greatest anti-depressant on earth. He showed me that HE was and is "others minded always" and that cures any depression - even the organic kind.

I 'have' to testify of this. I can't stay silent and not tell of what HE can do.

You'll be in my prayers and Julian too.
We have each other and the Love shed from Him between us.
The prayers of the Saints here, at SI, got me through the darkest time I've ever experienced and they know who they are and how grateful I am to them. It was a MIRACLE.

"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee." - says the LORD of Joy & Hope.

 2007/12/15 14:01
PaulWest
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Joined: 2006/6/28
Posts: 3405
Dallas, Texas

 Re:

Quote:
This time of year should be when Christians put on that extra push to Evangelism and The Message that "He came and why" and not spent fighting with each other over it. What sort of witness is that to a world that is already fighting and depressed? Or even to Christians who have been depressed for other reasons.



Amen, this is what I am saying in other posts as well. I think it's important to be apprised of the situation at hand. This is a great time to go out and spead gospel seed, but we must take heed as to what we major on. Satan would love to keep Jesus in the manger, all swaddled up with porcelain wise men and donkey figurines. This is not an evangelistic picture - and the enemy knows it - which is why you can buy plastic mangers at Wal-Mart that play "Come All Ye Faithful" on two double A batteries.

Personally, I like the hymns "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" because both contain powerful sections where it's explained [i]why[/i] Jesus came to Earth. And even then, we never sing all the verses. In the former, Charles Wesley writes, "God and [i]sinners[/i] reconciled," and in the latter we sing "To save us all from Satan's power where we were gone astray." Christmas to the unsaved without the explanation of [i]why[/i] God came down into Bethlehem is like gospel preaching without a cross. There is a very active effort in the world to evade this. Most carols sung nowadys do not mention why Jesus came; they only express joy for His birth.

I think we need more Christmas carols that mention words like "sin" and "death" and "making atonement." As it is, the average person celebrates 70-80 Christmases and then dies unsaved and goes to hell. Obviously, the traditional celebration of Christmas is not very efficacious in bringing conviction and repentance.

Quote:
We really need to knock off the negatives and start exalting Him, because some of us need it too.



We need to understand that there [i]are[/i] negatives, and perhaps see that a mere [i]seasonal[/i] exhaltation is just not going to cut it. If exalting Jesus daily in your life is absent, the exhaltation at Christmas will be ineffective. This is why we have so many depressed and damaged souls around this season...and many of them are from within our own ranks and files!

I believe that if we lived January thru Novemeber as Jesus-exalting and joyous as we did during the last week of December, we would have something of worth to give to the unsaved. Because then they would know that we're not faking it, we're not just putting on our Christmas masks. But as it stands, many of us can only present the world with a plastic manger and songs.

Brother Paul

(edit) Hey guys, I'm re-reading my posts and they sure look depressing. I'm sorry about this. But this is, after all, a holiday suicide thread. What a topic to discuss! We're getting somewhere with all this, I promise. Just give it some time...


_________________
Paul Frederick West

 2007/12/15 14:10Profile









 Re:

Quote:
And even if I spend these days and the days to come alone in a sick bed, I still will try to share - "Joy to the world" - ALL that HE is with a lost and dying world.

Amen Brother! I have become used to my loneliness/depressions. And I know about what you have said about it being hellish. We were born for a purpose and I think that these depressions of loneliness are for a reason that we must endure. And we have endured many of them because Our LORD is strong on behalf of the weak. I would have never known His strength if I had not become a weakling, helpless and barren.

There is fruit up ahead, there is more to endure yes, but we have set our eyes on something that we can't turn away from. Perhaps it's the joy that is set before, were enduring the depressions, despising the loneliness and will finally sit down where He sits, for where He sits we sit.

 2007/12/15 14:27





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