This looks to be a psychotic crab with an identity crisis! Have you ever struggled with an inner anguish? Such an internal storm may be invisible to those outside or there may be tell-tale signs in one’s behaviour. When extreme, it is a dangerous state making a person vulnerable to feelings of worthlessness, self-harming and even suicide. There are so many causes – gender confusion, guilt, insecurity, sexual ethics and bereavement to name a few. It could also be around money issues, breakdown in relationships or a sense of inadequacy. There are more people suffering this inner pain than we like to admit – it is likely that there are those around you carrying this heavy load unbeknown to others. Perhaps you are suffering or have suffered in this way?
- ‘I just could not understand or accept that this was happening to me. I maintained a persona of hard-working, fun, enthusiastic young doctor, while feeling pretty dead inside; as I felt worse, the feelings of worthlessness and hopelessness turned to thoughts of and plans for suicide. I felt that I could not tell my girlfriend about how I was feeling, I just kept things hidden, feeling steadily worse and worse until the only option seemed to be to take my own life’ – James
- ‘Twenty years of my life was basically drugs and crime – it just spiralled completely out of control. I kept praying to beat this addiction and come out of this dark life I’d ended up in’ – Carl
- ‘Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word’ – Laurence Olivier
- ‘Loneliness is the worst pain in this world. It constantly eats away the person’s heart, and can cause the person to hate, to feel enraged. It is like a wound of the heart; the type of wounds that cannot go away with a kiss or a hug. The only thing that can make this great pain go away is love and compassion, another human heart to pull them out of this hell’ – Princess Diana
Pyotr IlyichTchaikovsky is highly regarded for his musical genius but he was in turmoil due to a sexual preference for men – Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Benjamin Britten and Francis Poulenc were fellow composers who went through the same struggles. Tchaikovsky married his admiring student Antonina Miliukova but it was a disaster and he attempted suicide before ending the marriage. Bernstein married actor Felicia Cohn Montealegre who wrote in ‘The Bernstein Letters’ about his ‘double life, peace of mind and nervous system’. In 1976, he left his wife and moved in with a lover; in 1977, Felicia developed lung cancer, and Bernstein moved back in to care for her until her death in 1978. Van Gogh suffered with depression and inner torment – on 27 July 1890, he shot himself in the chest with a revolver and died two days later. Human beings are very wonderful but complex – body, soul and spirit.
- ‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth’ – Psalm 139: 13-15
- ‘Be merciful to me, Lord, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction and my bones grow weak’ – Psalm 31:8-10
- ‘And being in anguish, he (Jesus) prayed more earnestly and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground’ – Luke 22:44
- ‘Jesus clearly did not come to help angels, but he did come to help Abraham’s descendants. He had to be one of us, so he could serve God as our merciful and faithful high priest and sacrifice himself for the forgiveness of our sins. And now that Jesus has suffered and was tempted, he can help anyone else who is tempted’ – Hebrews 2:16-18
For every high and low in life, there’s a Psalm that covers each emotion. Knowing how fragile we are, God sent Jesus to fully identify with our weakness and to overcome anything we might experience. You may feel like Jekyll and Hyde over some inner conflict but take heart, God has it covered. You can’t surprise or shock Jesus so the best thing to do is to talk with him about everything and anything. That’s what the psalmist was doing and its what we need to do too. You can take God’s word for it:
- ‘Three different times I begged God to make me well again. Each time he said, “No. But I am with you; that is all you need. My power shows up best in weak people.” Now I am glad to boast about how weak I am; I am glad to be a living demonstration of Christ’s power, instead of showing off my own power and abilities. Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite happy about ‘the thorn,’ and about insults and hardships, persecutions and difficulties; for when I am weak, then I am strong—the less I have, the more I depend on him’ – 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 (TLB)
- ‘A bruised reed he will not break and a smouldering wick he will not snuff out’ – Matthew 12:20
- ‘So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us – who was raised to life for us! – is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture: ‘They kill us in cold blood because they hate you. We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one’. None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us’ – Romans 8:31-39 (The Message)
- ‘Turn all your anxiety over to God because he cares for you’ – 1 Peter 5:7 (NOG)
There it is then, take heart whatever you may be going through. When you know what mountain you’re facing, then with God’s help you can start climbing. Ignoring it won’t shift it. Both James and Carl faced up to their inner torment – the happy result is that they are now back from the cliff edge and pressing on in God’s grace each day.