I took a  peek at one of my social media platforms today.
I haven’t been online in a bit and a quick glance at the “trending stories” showed someone had died. A closer look showed he had committed suicide. Reading his suicide note(s) was tough enough, reading the comments under the story was tougher. Many people described their battle with depression and how they’ve tried to do same and are alive today only because they thought of their mothers and how it would break their hearts, or someone found them bleeding out and rescued them or they just hadn’t found the guts yet!

In recent times, there have been many cases like these; people who felt tired of making poor choices and felt things will never get better for them. Their solution was to pull the plug. Afterall, things would never get better than they had ever been for them.

That’s a tough place to be in. A place where you feel that all you are is all you will ever be. A place where you feel the world is moving at a very fast pace and everything and everyone is leaving you behind. A place where you feel no one cares, not your family, not your co-workers, not your neighbours, no one. A place where you feel sad for no reason at all and even if you are surrounded by wealth, love and friendship you feel so out of place you want to disappear.

The sad thing about this post is many people reading can relate. The loudest person in the room isn’t always the happiest. Many among us are loud, but dealing with a lot of pain. Pain so real and so deep they dare not utter it to a soul because they tried to before and got laughed at for doing it, or got told, “you have so much working for you, how can you say you are depressed.” Others were told to, “snap out of it because it isn’t that serious.”
But how could anyone possibly downplay what keeps you awake at night and makes you research ways to kill yourself painlessly?! It is a big deal to you yet they make it sound so light.

We live in times when people place so many expectations on finite humans. (Emphasis mine).
Our expectations just keep growing – towards others, then towards ourselves.
The boyfriend expects so much from the girlfriend…
The girlfriend expects even more from the boyfriend…
The child so much from the parent, the parent so much from the child…
The boss so much from the subordinate and the subordinate even much more from the boss…
The wife expects so much from the husband and the husband so much from the wife….
Then when we are done expecting so much from the person next to us, we move on to expecting tons more from ourselves!

We set targets for ourselves, we make resolutions, SMART decisions and all of that good stuff.
When we achieve one milestone, we feel good about it, then it ceases to be a big deal.
The new job we were happy about last month isn’t meeting our needs anymore.
The 100k followers are not as many as we thought, we need 200k.
Being married is overrated, we now need children.
Having children is a lot of work, we need a vacation on an island sipping mocktails as if we were single, without a husband or any child!
Flying first class loses its zing, we need to hire the whole jet for a girls trip!
We always need more.
After one achievement, we start to feel empty and yearn for more.
So, we raise the bar and feel temporarily alive as we stretch to achieve the next thing.
Then when it comes our zeal dies. Constantly busy, constantly itching to achieve. 
Satisfied one minute, feeling utterly empty the next. Forgetting that the void inside each of us was designed to be satisfied by only ONE person. 

I remember a song Don Moen sang so many years ago, “There is a longing only You can fill; a raging tempest only You can still…” 
So many are hurting and facing huge giants without knowing who or where to turn to.
They would turn to you but the last time they did, you went and talked about it with someone else.
Or you laughed at how weak  you thought they were and you told them to toughen up.
Or you despised their vileness. Too many issues bundled into one person. Too much drama. ‘This is a new year’, you said to yourself, ‘I don’t need all that drama.’
We live in times when it is easy to delete and block people. People less committed than us, people who sin differently than us, people dealing with much more than we are. Delete, block, restrict, mute…

What if Jesus did that?
What if he blocked you before you ever had a chance to change?
What if he picked up your file and was appalled at how horrible you were and wrote you off?
What if he painted this picture of being so holy, so upright, so good and he didn’t want to have anything to do with you, you couldn’t approach Him?
What if when the Father sent him to save you He couldn’t even think of it because he had blocked your lying, evil, cheating, sinful, dramatic self!

He loved you, listened to you without judging. He loved you to life. He loved you, filled the void and gave you the strength to live for him. He waited patiently, He didn’t give up on you or me.
A lot of us are undergoing a lot of spiritual exercises at this time in preparation for  an amazing year.

Can I plead with you reading this to add one thing to the top of your list for this year? 
Commit to be a person of love.
Beyond all the desires you have, desire to be a person of love.
Commit to be that person the next person can come to when they are weak and find love. Commit to point them not to another self-help book or method but to boldly point them to Jesus. Only Jesus can fill that void. Tell them about Him. I promise you, when they have Jesus, they will be alright. They will be.

Let’s love more. Let’s love the depression away. Most of the suicide notes say, “no one even cares” or “no one will notice, the world is better off without me anyway as I have nothing to offer…”
Please pay attention. Pay attention to the next person more this year. Especially to the younger ones who probably feel more overwhelmed about all the things going on around us than we imagine.

And please, please, please, if you read this and have been feeling overwhelmed. Please leave me a private note. Don’t listen to the “voices” telling you there’s no point to your living. Let’s pray together. Let’s talk together. Let’s walk the path together. Let me walk you to Jesus. He can fill the void, he can help you, he will walk you through the fire. I know because He did that for me too.

“But now, this is what the LORD says– he who created you… When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the LORD, your God… Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you…Do not be afraid, for I am with you…” Isaiah 43:1-5