Your words have been heard and we have carried your burden before the Lord with much tenderness and prayer. We grieve with you over the losses you have endured, the abuse you have suffered, and the deep isolation that now presses upon you. To feel stuck in life, stuck in your body, stuck in time, to lose interest in all things and to feel that everything is pointless and hopeless, is a heavy affliction indeed. Some who have walked this way have described it as hell upon earth, and we do not make light of it. The Lord sees you where you are, even in a place where you feel suffocated and without any to talk to, and He knows the weight you carry.
We want to speak to you of the God of Hope. There is a hopelessness which is right and necessary, and there is a hopelessness which is a sin to be escaped. To have no hope in yourself is what grace aims to teach you, for there is indeed no hope for any of us in ourselves. But to conclude from this that there is no hope for you in God is unwarrantable and untrue. There is no hope for you in yourself, but there is hope for you in Him whom God has provided to be the Savior of such as you. His name is the God That Is Good, so good, so tender, who rejoices to receive His returning children. Though you are weary and have no strength, there is hope for you in your Father.
The Lord Jesus Himself knows what it is to be alone. All along He possessed His soul in patience, quiet as a lamb even in the Garden, surrendering Himself in loneliness with an awfulness of love more fit for thought than words. His sheep love to go in flocks, and they that fear the Lord speak often one to another and walk to the house of God in company, but somewhere on the road every Christian finds narrow paths and close places where pilgrims must march in single file. Sometimes the child of God endures loneliness arising from the absence of godly society, and you feel this keenly where you live. Yet if you can but believe in God, He will never desert you. If you can dare to trust Him, He will not allow you to be confounded. He is with you in that solitary place, and He marks the quiet plodding faithfulness that no eye sees but His. The loneliness you feel is known to Christ, and He is near to you in it.
Your hope, dear soul, is not a mere wish. The hope which is laid up for you in heaven is substantial, grounded on the Word of God, on His faithfulness and His power to carry out His promise, and therefore it is sure and steadfast and will make no one ashamed who has it. This hope consists of belief, desire and expectancy, and it is worked in you by the Spirit of God. It purifies and sustains, and it looks beyond present pain to the fuller range of salvation, the total deliverance of the soul from sin and the complete redemption of the body from pain and death. We are saved in hope, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Even when present joy is dim, we may rejoice that there is a God, and delight in Him as our Father, rejoicing in every attribute of Him as He reveals Himself in Scripture. Suppose you have nothing in the house but God, nothing to rely upon but God, nothing you can call your own but God, still you may rejoice in God, for He is All in All. Our entire dependence is upon Him, and it is better to trust in the Lord than to have confidence in man.
Do not weary yourself trying to find in your own repentance or your own strength what only God can give. Bring all matters, and especially soul affairs, to the Lord Jesus. Cling to Him and to His Word as you have been doing. Like the heavens that declare the glory of God, the Scriptures declare His glory in redemption, and they are perfect for converting and sustaining the soul. In them you hear of His eternal election, His covenant love, His finished work. Fall back upon His eternal purposes in Christ Jesus. Grow in the knowledge of God, for in coming to God at first we are only in the outer courts, and He would lead you further in.
We are praying for you, that God would intervene and help you out, that He would give you quietness in resting in the finished work of Jesus and in the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, that He would lift the weight of this intense depression and give you light in the twilight, shining more and more unto the perfect day.
Our prayer for you is this: O Lord, our God All in All, look upon this weary and afflicted one who loves You and clings to Your Word though cast down and isolated. You see the losses, the wounds of abuse, the suffocating loneliness. Have mercy and draw near. Reveal Yourself as the God of Hope. Let this dear one know that though there is no hope in self, there is sure hope in Christ. Comfort the lonely heart as only You can, for You have known loneliness Yourself. Sustain with Your presence where godly company is denied. Grant divine grace in daily troubles and especially in soul affairs. Keep this one in hope, believing, desiring, expecting Your goodness, rejoicing in You even when all else seems pointless. Redeem and restore, and give strength to endure and to hope for the glory to come, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who alone is salvation. Amen.
We will continue to remember you before the throne. You are not forgotten. The Lord is your God, and He will not leave you. Keep looking to Christ, keep in His Word, and keep pouring out your heart before Him, for He hears.