Last week I was talking to a friend in Texas and they were sharing with me the difficulties of their life and how it had become over whelming.  They were depressed and lost their hope.  The conversation became more silence than words until they shared with me the worst of it.  Mark they said.  I am driving around looking for a place to take my own life.  And then the silence became powerful and stifling.  They had nothing else to say and I was bound by anxiety and sadness; helplessness and despair.

We are so very fragile, us human beings.  Our bodies, our minds, our souls, all can be damaged and left to die easily by a culture that devalues, desecrates and dismisses the central truth of who we are in the eyes of God.  I often think of the words in Isaiah 43 – “You are precious in my eyes and glorious, and I love you.”  Do we all know this.  My friend had forgotten.  He had forgotten the reason God tells us that He alone is our God and we should not have any other gods.  That reason is love.  That reason is care and concern for us.  It is an awareness of the trials we will face in our life.  Only God knows these things and only God can help us with them.

And He says over and over again:

I am the Lord your God: hear my voice.

Ps – my friend is okay.