Orders from Above

I have suicidal tendencies. Don’t get me wrong, when I say that I don’t mean I want to hang myself with a rope on a tree, jump in front of a speeding truck, drink poison, or simply drown myself. I just want to die. Sometimes anyway.

Life tires me. I get tired of waking up every day to go to work, of pretending to listen to people who are less intelligent than me. I get tired of pretending I am interested in the world and how things work, of listening to the radio or TV telling us how wicked men can be to each other. I get tired of my sins, of repenting of them, then going back to do what I said I wouldn’t, and starting the cycle all over again.

Apart from that there seems to have been given “orders from above” that are working against me, isolating me from my friends, family, and people who care about me. Orders that are working at nothing but removing everyone from my life and leaving me all alone. Its no good to be alone. You get sad when you are alone, and when you are sad a lot you sometimes think of disappearing from the face of the earth like me.

I wonder a lot what I am doing with my life and whether I am achieving anything by living one day, one year or more. Or am I just stealing much needed air from all of you, a much needed job, much needed food or clothes, much needed space. It all seems very worthless. If I were to die today, my family would probably cry but they would move on and in two years forget I ever existed, if not in 6 months or less.

It is said that the heavens above planned everything about me: where I would live, what sort of person I

would be, the people I would get to meet, the things I would love, the things I would hate, the reason for my life. They must have made a mistake with me cause 70% or more of my life I have never been happy. Don’t let my name fool you.

The only times I have ever been 100% happy is when I kneel down to pray or do something good for anyone. That takes up about 5% of each of my days which means the rest of my time here on earth is a blur, sad, painful or tiresome. I can’t pray all the time, and neither can I do something good for someone all the time. 

It is my understanding though that God never makes mistakes. And if he made me the way I am then surely there must be some purpose to it. He not only made my hardware and software, but he connected it to power, switched it on and let it run. Not only that but he also maintains it when it malfunctions. So all the sorrow I feel, and the desire to die is somehow part of the plan.

Sometimes I sit on a couch and look down at the ants that run around my floor. They are picking this, drinking that, bumping heads, working together to carry something, or just wandering about seemingly without a purpose. I cant help to think that that is how God somehow sees us human beings. The only difference is that he feels our emotions, knows what we are thinking, knows where we are going.

That assures me somehow that maybe I am not completely a lost cause. Since I haven’t been allowed to die yet, like the way one picks up an ant and crushes it between their fingers, I guess there is something he who observes me is waiting for. I have no way of knowing what that is and he doesn’t say either so I try to keep myself busy. I try to focus on the things that I do well, things I do for people and prayer.

When I pray, I bend my knees and I ask that my life will not be in vain but that it will reach the fullest

potential of its calling (reason for being). I ask that God takes my life, as meaningless and tiresome as it seems and makes something of it that is of value. And I ask for strength for the days in my life when I am tired of living and just want to die, I ask for strength to bear the time that has been allocated for me on earth, and for strength to be strong the 90% of the times that I wish I could hang or drown myself.

As regards doing things for people. Putting a smile on a persons face, giving shelter in an hour of need, lending money to someone when they have no one else to turn to, encouraging the broken-hearted, sharing food with those who are hungry and water with those who are thirsty, as well as saying a prayer for those who have a harder life than mine; those in hospitals, in prison, in pain, in trouble, without faith, or broken. These are the things I do for people. Things that keep me busy so that I forget my sorrows and I keep from drinking poison. These things make my life worth something, and help the sad times pass quickly.

Sometimes all we want, all that each of us needs, and sometimes get, is to see or feel the heavens open and hear a voice say:

                        “Behold, this is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased (Matthew 3:17).”

Maybe there is some order to all the chaos. Maybe someday it will all make sense. Till then, show me some love, show me you care that I exist.

“Help please, is all that am saying. Please remember my name the next time that you’re praying.”

            -Gosple (Malawian musician whose song title I have forgotten.)