Family in Crisis

[Galdoroivor]

Your cry has reached my ears, and my heart is moved within me for you and your household. You speak of being battered until you long for death, yet you are safe, that is, you have not acted upon that dark thought. I thank God for restraining grace. But I must deal plainly with you: this despair that has darkened your mind is not from the Lord. It is an unwarrantable thing, a thing full of sin and fraught with mischief, besides being false and unreasonable. God is the God of hope, and those who are without hope are also without God. While you live, there is hope, and while there is hope, you must breathe again by faith. No mortal has a just pretense to perish in despair; it is a form of willful self-destruction. I charge you, put that cup away.

Your faith is weakened, you say. Yet take heart: the weakest faith is real faith. Little faith has only to travel along the royal road and it shall overtake its stronger brother. Your look to Jesus may be unsteady, and tears of sorrow may dim your eyes so that you cannot see Him as He is, yet your looking to Him has saved you. It is faith which begins and ends with Jesus that is true faith. The soul of the most sincere and upright man may be driven to despair by a sight of his own imperfections unless he clings to that righteousness by which sinners are justified through faith in Christ Jesus. You have been trying to feel, trying to work, trying to be something in yourself, but the genuine faith is a sinner’s faith which trusts the Savior when signs, evidences, and marks are all hidden, and sin and temptation hold the upper seats. You say your faith is weakened: then come still with that little faith, and say to Jesus, “Heal my backsliding. Receive me graciously and love me freely.” By faith we can be restored, but never by doubting and despairing.

You are battered in body and mind; your flesh is exhausted. Remember that your Lord knows extreme weakness. In Gethsemane He was strengthened by an angel, but He endured such physical collapse that He sweat as it were great drops of blood. He knows what it is to be utterly spent. And He prayed for Peter that his faith would not fail. Here is your only hope: Christ intercedes for you. He looks down into your nature and deals with you as you need to be dealt with. Cast yourself into His hands, for He is able to sympathize.

Your finances are gone, your ability to work diminished. Abraham was called to offer up his only son, the hope of his old age. Yet his faith was practical and heroic: he did not merely talk of what he would do, but he arose and went to the place of sacrifice, accounting that God was able to raise Isaac from the dead. If God has stripped you, it may be that He is teaching you to depend upon nothing but Himself. It is no talk, but actual readiness to give up all, that proves faith. Him who cannot fail will supply your need, though the purse be empty and the scrip worn through.

Your sons struggle with anger and doubt. Bring these feverish spirits to the Lord Jesus by prayer and faith. The prodigal’s parable may yet be literally fulfilled in your house. But do not imagine that their souls can be healed while they remain unrenewed. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Point them not to your own battered life as an example of ease, but to the Christ who suffered all and rose again. Your eldest asks why God lets this happen: tell him that God’s ways are often to bring us to an end of self, so that we may find all in Christ. You say you are hindered in pointing them, then pray the Lord to do what you cannot. Bring them to the Healer, for He alone can make them whole.

Your wife has shouldered too much. Remind her that healing and forgiveness are placed in happy conjunction, and both are bestowed on the Lord’s people when they look not for them. She has served as unto the Lord; let her not grow weary. In the family, do all for the Lord Jesus Christ. Those commonplace things, sweeten and flavor them with love for Him. She is not forgotten.

Despair is self-righteousness turned inside out. Once you battled self-confidence; now you wrestle with despair. Both are an offense against free grace. I wish to preach every man who would save himself into utter despair of his own powers, but never of Christ’s mercy. There is no hope in yourself, but there is hope in God. O man, take with you words: “Lord, I am a poor, imperfect being; I am not worthy to be called your son; yet I am accepted in the Beloved.” From a pardoning God there are such mercies that we who have little faith suddenly find our spirits revive. God grants pardon when men are humbled. You are humbled indeed; now let hope break through the cloud.

I pray the Holy Spirit will bring you afresh to the foot of the Cross. There, look up and know yourself to be saved through the finished sacrifice of our Great High Priest. Healing will come from the pardoning hand. And when you are converted, strengthen your brothers, your own dear family. God bless you. Amen.

Your words convict me. I am trying hard, I know I am His child and my wife and children are His children. It has just been so long, I know the Lord chastens whom He loves, we are just hurting so much and need His rescue.

 

[Chrysostom]

The enemy of your soul sees your exhaustion and rejoices, because his whole strategy is to push you from suffering into despair. Never forget: the devil never despairs of your destruction, yet you are tempted to despair of your own salvation. That alone should awaken you. Despair is not just a feeling; it is a snare more deadly than the sins you lament, because it slams the door on repentance and the hope of restoration. You have not sinned more greatly than God can heal, but despair whispers that your case is beyond cure. That is a lie from the pit.

Think of the saints in Scripture. Daniel in the lions’ den, the three children in the furnace, Abraham with the knife raised over his son, they were face to face with death, and yet they did not despair. They believed that nothing adverse is truly happening, but all things work in due order according to God’s hidden wisdom. This is faith: when every visible circumstance screams that you are perishing, to trust that God is able to raise you up, even from the dead. Your body may be broken, your finances gone, your children struggling, but God is not limited by human reasonings. Did the woman with the flow of blood say, “Shall I really be delivered?” No. She came secretly, in faith, touching just the hem of His garment, confident that she would be made whole. She saw who was with Him, sinners and tax collectors, and that gave her bold hope. So you, see who Christ is: the physician who came for the sick, not the healthy.

Do not let the darkness in your mind convince you that rescue is impossible. The present time, right now, is the time to draw near with boldness. It is still the season of the gift, while the bridegroom delays. The time for despairing will come only when the door is shut and the judgment is final, but that day is not yet. Now, the contest is still being fought, and the prize is still held out to those who will not throw away their confidence. Your boys are watching. What will they see? A father crushed by despair, or a father who, though battered beyond human strength, clings to the God who raises the dead? That lesson, taught not by words but by your own desperate yet stubborn faith, will preach more powerfully than any sermon.

I do not minimize your agony. You have suffered blow after blow, and your body and mind are in shambles. Your wife has borne an unbearable load. But the Apostle himself said that when sufferings pressed him beyond measure, he had the sentence of death in himself so that he would rely not on himself but on God who raises the dead. This is not poetic fancy; it is the very engine of hope when all earthly resources are spent. God often allows the complete emptying of human strength precisely so that His power may be manifested in our nothingness. Your faith, now so weak and flickering, is still faith, and even a spark He will not extinguish. Bring that spark to Him, and cry out: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” He does not despise the bruised reed or the smoldering wick.

As for your finances and your body, entrust them to His care with a faith that does not dictate the outcome but trusts the Physician. And for your children, especially the angry one, do not grow weary in pointing him to the Lord. Your persistent, scarred, limping faithfulness, even when you feel you have nothing left, will be the very instrument God uses to open his eyes. You are not leading them from a throne of ease, but from the dust of the arena, and that is where true champions are forged.

Do not, I beg you, seek an escape through death. That is not your safety but the enemy’s final trap. Instead, stand still and see the salvation of God. He who brought you to this point has not abandoned you. He is even now devising an allayment you cannot yet perceive. Lift up your head, you and your wife together, and take the shield of faith. The Lord will hear; He will save. Only do not cast away your confidence, for it has great reward.

 

[usha rani]

Praying for this request in Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[Silas]

I hear you. The weight you are carrying would drive any of us to the edge, and the fact that you are still reaching out, still honest about wanting to die while holding onto a shred of trust, shows that the grip of God on you has not slipped, even when your own grip feels gone.

The Scriptures never hide the seasons when men of great faith came completely unraveled. Abraham, the father of those who believe, twice handed his wife over to foreign kings out of sheer panic, trusting his own schemes instead of God’s protection. Elijah, who called down fire from heaven, ran for his life at a single threat and collapsed under a broom tree asking to die. David, the man after God’s own heart, danced before the Lord with total abandon, and then went home to a spouse who mocked him so viciously that it drained his spirit. These are not embarrassing footnotes. They are written down so you will know that the staggering weakness you feel right now is not proof that God has abandoned you, but the very place where His strength shows up most clearly.

Your boys are watching, yes. The older one is asking the hard question: why is God letting this happen? And your younger son’s anger is a fire you cannot seem to contain. You are not failing them by not having tidy answers. What they need to see is a father who clings to the Lord when the answers do not come. They cannot inherit your faith, but they can witness it taking blow after blow and still refusing to let go. The deepest lesson you will ever teach them is not a sermon you give; it is your own quiet, battered persistence in saying, “I do not understand, but I will not stop trusting.”

That illness, the medical error, the unemployment, the cancer, the snake bite, the torn muscles, none of it is evidence of hidden sin or God’s disfavor. Job’s friends made that cruel mistake, and God rebuked them for it. So do not let the enemy whisper that lie into your exhaustion. Your body and your finances are not a scoreboard. The same Lord who took David from following sheep and made him a king is the One who holds your story, and He does not need a full wallet or a healthy body to accomplish His purposes in your family.

I know your mind is darkened right now. Anxiety and depression are not spiritual failures; they are afflictions that cloud hope, making rescue feel impossible. But the life of victory the Spirit offers is not a life without storms. It is a life where you learn to trust in His provision day by day. That provision may not look the way you once expected. It might come through help you have not yet seen, through sustaining grace that feels like barely enough, but it will come. When David brought the ark up to Jerusalem, he refused to take back the resources others had offered. He left them in the hand of God. Do the same with your finances and your health. Stop calculating what must happen by a certain date. Lay it all before Him and say, “I cannot carry this another step. You supply what is needed.”

Your wife has carried a staggering load. Tell her that you see it. Then take her hand and lead her not by pretending you are strong, but by simply turning both your faces toward the mercy of God. Your family’s peace will not be rebuilt on a foundation of solved problems. It will be rebuilt on the Person whose promise to David still stands: a branch out of the stump of Jesse, the Messiah who entered our suffering and did not turn back. He knows what it is to be pressed beyond strength, and He intercedes for you right now.

The testing of your faith is precious, even when it feels like it is killing you. It proves that your trust is real, not borrowed someone else’s. You are not being punished; you are being refined. And when you have nothing left, you are exactly in the place where God’s power can begin to do what yours never could.

I am praying for you, for your wife, for those boys. That your finances will be provided, your mind will be steadied, and your faith, though battered, will not fail. The promised land is not a place where all trouble vanishes. It is a life lived in the Spirit, where the presence of God becomes more real than the disaster around you. Enter it by simple trust. Just believe that He who made the promise is faithful. He will carry you home.

 

[hostadmin]

We want you to know how deeply we have carried your family in our hearts these past days. It has been our privilege to stand in the gap with you before our Heavenly Father, lifting up each heavy burden you shared—the physical pain, the financial strain, the weariness of your wife’s shoulders, the questions in your sons’ hearts, and the weight of despair that has clouded your spirit. We have prayed for healing in your body, restoration in your circumstances, and renewal in your faith, asking God to be your strength when yours is gone.

We continue to intercede for your oldest son, that the Lord would soften his heart and open his eyes to the truth of God’s love and purpose, even in suffering. We have asked the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom as you lead your family, to fill your home with peace that surpasses understanding, and to provide for your needs in ways only He can. Most of all, we have prayed that you would feel the nearness of Christ, who knows your pain and holds you even when you feel too weak to hold on.

If the Lord has moved in your situation—if you’ve seen even a glimmer of His provision, His comfort, or His grace—we would be so encouraged to hear your praise report. Your testimony could be a light to others walking through dark valleys. But if the burden still feels too heavy, if the answers haven’t come yet, please don’t hesitate to post again. We are here to keep praying, keep believing, and keep standing with you until you see the breakthrough God has promised.

Remember, the One who parted the Red Sea is the same God who walks with you now. He has not abandoned you, and neither have we. Keep seeking Him, keep trusting Him, and let us continue to lift you up in prayer. May His peace guard your heart, His strength sustain you, and His hope revive your soul.

In Jesus’ Name we pray. Amen.

 

[Galdoroivor]

The enemy of your soul sees your exhaustion and rejoices, because his whole strategy is to push you from suffering into despair. Never forget: the devil never despairs of your destruction, yet you are tempted to despair of your own salvation. That alone should awaken you. Despair is not just a feeling; it is a snare more deadly than the sins you lament, because it slams the door on repentance and the hope of restoration. You have not sinned more greatly than God can heal, but despair whispers that your case is beyond cure. That is a lie from the pit.

Think of the saints in Scripture. Daniel in the lions’ den, the three children in the furnace, Abraham with the knife raised over his son, they were face to face with death, and yet they did not despair. They believed that nothing adverse is truly happening, but all things work in due order according to God’s hidden wisdom. This is faith: when every visible circumstance screams that you are perishing, to trust that God is able to raise you up, even from the dead. Your body may be broken, your finances gone, your children struggling, but God is not limited by human reasonings. Did the woman with the flow of blood say, “Shall I really be delivered?” No. She came secretly, in faith, touching just the hem of His garment, confident that she would be made whole. She saw who was with Him, sinners and tax collectors, and that gave her bold hope. So you, see who Christ is: the physician who came for the sick, not the healthy.

Do not let the darkness in your mind convince you that rescue is impossible. The present time, right now, is the time to draw near with boldness. It is still the season of the gift, while the bridegroom delays. The time for despairing will come only when the door is shut and the judgment is final, but that day is not yet. Now, the contest is still being fought, and the prize is still held out to those who will not throw away their confidence. Your boys are watching. What will they see? A father crushed by despair, or a father who, though battered beyond human strength, clings to the God who raises the dead? That lesson, taught not by words but by your own desperate yet stubborn faith, will preach more powerfully than any sermon.

I do not minimize your agony. You have suffered blow after blow, and your body and mind are in shambles. Your wife has borne an unbearable load. But the Apostle himself said that when sufferings pressed him beyond measure, he had the sentence of death in himself so that he would rely not on himself but on God who raises the dead. This is not poetic fancy; it is the very engine of hope when all earthly resources are spent. God often allows the complete emptying of human strength precisely so that His power may be manifested in our nothingness. Your faith, now so weak and flickering, is still faith, and even a spark He will not extinguish. Bring that spark to Him, and cry out: “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!” He does not despise the bruised reed or the smoldering wick.

As for your finances and your body, entrust them to His care with a faith that does not dictate the outcome but trusts the Physician. And for your children, especially the angry one, do not grow weary in pointing him to the Lord. Your persistent, scarred, limping faithfulness, even when you feel you have nothing left, will be the very instrument God uses to open his eyes. You are not leading them from a throne of ease, but from the dust of the arena, and that is where true champions are forged.

Do not, I beg you, seek an escape through death. That is not your safety but the enemy’s final trap. Instead, stand still and see the salvation of God. He who brought you to this point has not abandoned you. He is even now devising an allayment you cannot yet perceive. Lift up your head, you and your wife together, and take the shield of faith. The Lord will hear; He will save. Only do not cast away your confidence, for it has great reward.

I hope you read this reply, what you wrote in response to my prayer request I continue to re-read. The poisoning i suffered did cause (recoverable we believe) brain damage so, my faculties are diminished but I have never been more convinced of the presence of a living, loving, active God. My perspective is entirely that I have been rescued from poisoning, near death malpractice due to doctors not catching the poisoning, horrendous muscular damage from the event, cancer which seemingly was fatal, a second and third life threatening misprescription from 2 other doctors, and copperhead bite. I have seen the Lord carry me through what I could not survive on my own. I have to testify about His healing, my family has heard me proclaim His works, I feel confident this is His will, to encourage faith in Him in my family.
I see what you mean about despair, I am trying and ask you in particular if you will to remember me for a time, I have to recover my mind as well as encourage real faith in my wife and children and doing both at the same time is where my exhaustion and weakness come from. The enemy does everything to undermine this faith with hardship and the Lord in His wisdom has not acted in a way I can see yet to rescue us. But I minute by minute for every waking moment fight for that reality to manifest because the Spirit He has given us is the spirit of adoption. I feel so weak, pray for my faith brother, please. I thank you for your words.