… sometimes it’s so hard to accept what we’re given, everything goes wrong, falls apart. Lucky people have their faith, or their friends. some, like me have lost their way altogether. I hope your readers can call upon outer resources to help their pain. Simply this: my heart suffers, so it goes out to other people who suffer also, and maybe we can help each other. Right now, I have little hope, but God can give it in abundance, to those who can accept. My friend told me so. Please print this, for there is always hope, for even people (damaged) like me.
Dear Sister in Christ,
To be honest with you I had a hard time following your letter and what you were saying or asking. I am answering it here because there are a couple of pieces that I want to highlight for other readers. But, please, if I have missed your point write again.
“Lucky people have their faith, or their friends. some, like me have lost their way altogether.”
God did not create us to be lucky. We were given free will and the ability to make choices. People have faith because they choose to have that faith. Read the letter to the Hebrews, it is full of people who practiced their faith and chose to follow God even when it looked stupid to everyone else. They knew in their hearts that God would provide for them, just as God provides for us today. If we lose our way today it is usually because we choose to and have decided to give up. We have made a decision to quit seeking God’s truth in our lives. Never forget: “Knock and the door will be opened, seek and you shall find, ask and it shall be given.”
“Simply this: my heart suffers, so it goes out to other people who suffer also, and maybe we can help each other. Right now, I have little hope, but God can give it in abundance, to those who can accept. “
Let the suffering of your heart be put to good use. Jesus suffered on our behalf. The point of that suffering was so that we could have hope, so that we could understand that it is in our journey or trials and tribulations that we can witness to others that God is with us always that no matter what others may do or say we cannot ever be separated from the love of Christ.
“But we are able to overcome all these things and more through his love. For I am certain that not death, or life, or angels, or rulers, or things present, or things to come, or powers, Or things on high, or things under the earth, or anything which is made, will be able to come between us and the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” — Romans 8:37-39
God bless,
Pastor Paul
Editor-in-Chief of Whosoever and Founding and Senior Pastor of Gentle Spirit Christian Church of Atlanta, Rev. Paul M. Turner (he/him) grew up in suburban Chicago and was ordained by the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches in 1989. He and his husband Bill have lived in metro Atlanta since 1994, have been in a committed partnership since the early 1980s and have been legally married since 2015.