Broken

There are two times in my life that I seriously considered killing myself, enough that I had made a plan and was seconds away from implementing it. The first was when I was 17, not long after I had graduated High School(yes I graduated a year early that isn’t a typo). The 2nd happened when I was 28 several months after my first marriage had ended in divorce.

I bring this up because we spoke about it at my therapy session last Tuesday and I have been thinking about both instances a lot this last week.

Both times that I had almost killed myself an element of impending change was present. See when I was 17 I was right in the middle of moving from a small town in Farmington NM where I had just spent 2.5 years and had finally felt like I had made some decent friends to Denver where I really didn’t know anyone. I was just out of high  school where life was pretty much planned and mapped and now I was going to have to figure things out on my own. I felt alone, more alone than I had every felt in my entire life. The girl I was pining for, the girl I thought I could save, the girl who was living with us at the time because she felt she had no where else she could go was downstairs in the arms of another guy. I was alone, I was lonely, I didn’t want to start over and I would do almost anything to stop the deep sorrow I felt at the time.

When I was 28 I was living with my folks, in their basement several months after leaving my ex wife who was in love with our room mate. I didn’t really grieve the end of that relationship because I put all of my love and energy into another girl that I thought I could save and take care of. She told me she was being abused and that she loved me and wanted out and now she and her husband had just told me to get out of their lives and to move on. They were going to work it out. THat left me empty and alone., There were no hopes and dreams left for me it seemed. I was once again filled with a darkness that I don’t know how to describe and I knew again that I didn’t want to start over. I was getting too old and meeting women was too hard. I would have done almost anything to stop the hurt I was feeling and I almost did.

Both time, in my darkest hour I was stopped in my tracks.. The first time I don’t really know why I didn’t do it I just knew I couldn’t. The second time friends talked me down. Looking back now I can see the providence of God all over both instances and consider myself both lucky and blessed. I also consider the sin in both instances. I’ve committed many sins in life but I think one of the biggest sins is my demand that life be free of pain, that I be comfortable and happy. Demanding that GOd redeem the pain and suffering I’ve experienced in very specific ways instead of submitting to his calling in my life and allowing him to shape me in any way he sees fit.

I’ve spent a lot of time demanding a happy life, now I find myself less and less concerned about that, though when blessings come I will accept them. My concern is becoming more and more about loving God and using my time here on earth to serve him no matter what. I don’t know if I will ever feel the way I did back then, I hope and pray that I don’t but I am learning, slowly but surely, that I cannot live my life simply trying to avoid those moments of deep depression. What I am asking God for is the strength to be able to keep my eyes focused on him no matter what this world will throw at me. I still long for a simple happy life but I feel I\ can no longer make a demand for one.