Show Me How To Live!
 

"Take me, God! I have no reason to live."

I have been that low.  I know what it is like to give up on life.  I know what it is like to wake up cursing the world.

I have sat with a hand full of pills looking for what I thought was courage enough to take them all.  That is not a courageous act at all.  It is a desperate act driven by depression and hopelessness.

Why am I telling you this?  I was reminded of all of this this morning when the chaplain at hospice was reading a message from Joni Tada, a victim of a diving accident in 1967 which left Mrs. Tada a quadriplegic in a wheelchair, unable to use her hands.

"God, if I'm not going to die, then show me how to live!" the chaplain read.

I stopped listening to the meeting.  I listened instead to that voice inside.

"You know how she felt.  You were that desparate, too," I heard.

So my message is brief today.  But, perhaps one of the most powerful messages I will ever send out.

Why?  I believe I was supposed to send it because someone is beginning 2006 and wondering why they are still alive.  Someone is feeling empty.  Someone feels there is no purpose for their existence.

Someone is hopeless.

So was Joni.

So was I.

Here is your prayer.  Pray it.  Expect answers.  Not some burning bush response.  No thundering voice of God in the night.  No heavenly angelic images.  Perhaps a whisper.  Maybe someone you know.  Maybe a perfect stranger.  Maybe a voice inside that says..."I love you!  Now live the life I gave you."

"God, if I'm not going to die, show me how to live!"
 

© 2006  Bob Perks
I Believe In You
Used with permission

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I'm going through something like this right now! Adelle

Visit Joni Tada's website and read her remarkable story.