OSA & Acid Reflux/Gastro Esophageal Reflux Disease

[Silas]

I hear the anguish in every line you’ve written, and I will not pretend it is small. The physical battering of sleep apnea and acid reflux, the financial vise tightening day by day, the memory of childhood attempts to end it all, and the sickening betrayal by systems that were supposed to help, it has worn you down to a place where death seems like the only kind companion. I receive your words with a heavy heart, not to dismiss them, but to sit with you in this darkness.

You say you pray for God to let you succumb. That kind of prayer rises from the bottom of the soul, where hope has evaporated. Yet it is still a prayer, still a cry directed toward Him. I have seen people brought to that exact point of desperation, when nothing seems left, and in that moment they finally cry out with a raw, honest voice. And I have watched God answer, not by striking them dead, but by beginning to restore what was lost. I think of a man who had so thoroughly destroyed his mind with drugs that he walked around in a fog, barely present. Today, by God’s mercy, his mind is whole and his life has purpose. The Lord did not abandon him when he was too broken to know what to ask for. He does not abandon you either, however empty you feel.

The financial squeeze you are under is brutal. When the numbers don’t add up and every ride to work drains the last bit of margin, it is easy to hear the accusing whisper: “If God loved you, this wouldn’t be happening. He can’t be trusted.” I understand the shame and the embarrassment, feeling like a living example of a failed plan. But a God who folds under a car repair bill or a rental shortage is no God at all; He is a figment of our fears. Scripture gives us a picture of David at a moment when everything fell apart, and he determined, “I will not carry that burden back with me.” He left it with the Lord. That is one of the hardest decisions a person can make, but it is the only way forward: to stop trying to calculate your survival and instead place your empty hands before the One who sees.

What you are experiencing, the despair that has pushed that old childhood pillow into your memory, is not just a series of bad breaks. It is the flare-up of a deeper sickness, the kind that ravaged God’s people long ago. The symptoms are urgent: hopelessness, isolation, a desire to die. And unless the true cure is applied, the sickness only tightens its grip. That cure is not more money, better health, or even a painless exit. It is the healing only God can bring when we turn to Him in our desperation. I pray you would cry out for that healing even now, though every fiber of your being wants to stop crying.

The thought of suicide has become a familiar companion. I do not brush that aside. The Scriptures record the suicide of Saul, a king who had once been anointed by God, and they do not launch into a condemnation. They simply report the tragedy. But that silence is not approval; it is the hush that falls over a life that has turned away from the very source of help. Saul’s story is the wreckage of a man who refused to trust God’s timing. You, on the other hand, are still here. You are still speaking, still aching, still asking, even if your asking sounds more like an accusation right now. That is a slender thread, but it is a thread God knows how to hold.

You have been let down by people and programs. You called for help and found police at your door, an appointment that was a farce, a bill for consultations you never received. I am grieved that the world’s safety nets have torn under your weight. But those failures do not prove God is absent. They prove that human institutions are poor substitutes for the Shepherd who never sleeps, the One who neither slumbers nor dozes while you choke in the night. He sees you in that motel room. He counts the coins you have left. And He is not afraid of your anger or your exhaustion.

You said, “If God really loved me, this would not be happening.” That is a cry older than the psalms. Job’s friends gave him the same formula, and they were wrong. Suffering is not an invoice for your sin; it is the groaning of a broken world, and even those who belong to Christ are not exempt. What God promises is not a life without pain but His presence inside the pain, and, ultimately, a redemption so complete that the present agony will seem like a fleeting shadow. I know those words can sound hollow when your throat burns with bile and your chest aches with fatigue. So I will not offer you a quick fix. I will offer you this: keep speaking to God, even if your prayer is nothing but “Why?” and “How long?” He is not afraid of your honesty. The desperation you feel could, by His grace, become the very ground where hope is planted anew.

Let me pray with you now, as one who has watched God raise the dead in spirit.

Lord, this one is crushed and suffocating. You know the terror of the night, the acid that rises, the breath that stops. You know the empty wallet and the fear of the street. You know the childhood loneliness and the adult despair. We have no power to fix any of it. But You are the God who restores devastated minds and bankrupt hearts. You are the healer of bodies and the lifter of heads. Show mercy. Grant a tangible sense of Your presence. Provide unexpectedly. Hold back the enemy who wants to steal this life. And bring this precious soul through the valley, not by death, but by a deliverance that will be a testimony to Your faithfulness. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

You are not alone. Not tonight, not in the struggle. Please do not stop reaching out. I will be praying that God gives you a reason to see the sun rise, and then another, until one day you realize you have survived into a life worth living again.

 

[hostadmin]

We are deeply moved by your honesty and the weight of the struggles you are carrying. It is a privilege to stand with you in prayer, lifting up your physical suffering, your weariness, and the deep longing in your heart for relief. We continue to pray for God's mercy over your body—asking Him to ease the pain of acid reflux and sleep apnea, to guard your breath through the night, and to grant you rest that does not come with fear. We also pray for provision in your practical needs, that He would make a way where there seems to be no way, whether through unexpected help, wisdom to navigate your circumstances, or even the kindness of others.

But more than anything, we pray for your heart. The despair you describe is heavy, and we ask the Lord to meet you in it—not with empty platitudes, but with His presence. You are not forgotten, nor are you beyond His reach. Even in the darkest moments, He is near to the brokenhearted. We pray for glimpses of His love that pierce through the pain, for moments of unexpected peace, and for the strength to face each day until He brings the deliverance you seek.

If God has answered any part of these prayers in the past few days—whether through a night of better sleep, a moment of comfort, or a provision you didn't anticipate—we would be so encouraged to hear about it. And if the burden remains just as heavy, we want you to know we are still here, still praying, still believing that He hears you. You are not alone in this.

May the Lord draw near to you, wrap you in His grace, and remind you that your life matters deeply to Him. We continue to stand with you in faith, trusting that He is at work even when we cannot see it. In Jesus' Name.

 

[Ashaeltorath]

I've mentioned my untreatable ###, but I've never mentioned my ### & ###. ### and ### gets worse the older I get. Antacids and other medications are not strong enough overnight. Though I sleep in an almost sitting up position, I still turn and slide down on my sleep. Sometimes the acid that floats up into my throat and mouth will wake me up because I'm choking from all the bike and food that pushes up. I had a bad incident during the night last night and it took me awhile to recover. The stomach contents seem to push up easily, but the contents aren't easy to swallow back down even if I manage to spit out some of it. So, I have a double danger of stopping breathing or choking to death in my sleep. It's amazing that I haven't succumbed to either yet. Maybe if I get hit by both at the same time.If only I would be so lucky. However, I would rather just stop breathing as that is not as disruptive as choking to death. I still pray every night for God to allow me to succumb to my untreatable ###. I am about to run out of many as i am being drained by Lyft expenses which is keeping me from being able to save money to get my car fixed. Local car rental agencies do not have any cars! How can that be?! I figured they moved all their cars to ### for the summer travel season. I'm running out of money fast. I pray God will kill me with my ### BEFORE I run out of money. If not, then I am going to have to end it myself because I will not survive on the streets for long. If God really loved me, them this would not be happening as it has over the last five years with 2 vehicles. My life has fallen apart over the last ten years and it's obvious I have crossed the Rubicon of no return, no forgiveness, and no redemption.Fine! I am not living, I am dying. For the most part, I died years ago within. I'm just waiting for the physical death. My ### birthday is in 2 weeks but, one or another, I most likely will not make it by then. That's fine; I can accept that. I just wish God would speed up the process. We all die sooner or later, I've been ready to go for years now. Maybe tonight will be the night, or tomorrow night, of the next, or? I just wish God would take the anticipation out of it and do it very soon because I am finding it harder and harder to go to work. People at work are asking me if I'm okay. Of course I say "I'm fine." I wish they would stop asking me that. I guess it's obvious I can't hide my despondency anymore. I've always been known to "always have a smile". However, that's always been my disguise for the vast majority of my life. I just can't pretend I like I used to anymore; all the more reason to go now. Let me go and let someone else live who really wants to and deserves to. I remember when I was a little kid that tried a couple of times to suffocate myself with my pillow, but if course, and obviously, I failed. Death is the best thing God can give me now. And as for your suggestions about calling anonymous "help" lines - there's no such thing. I've called before and in less than 10 mins of hanging up the phone, the police are knocking on my door. ND you can't block your number as the "anonymous" help lines automatically unblock your blocked number. Besides, ,I've gone to a mental health clinic before. The only thing that happens is you sit around for 3 hours, then somebody takes your name and asks what's wrong. They are a receptionist, not a counselor, therapist, or psychologist. The person who takes your name goes away for another hour and comes back and says they talked to "some medical people" and they say you can go home. Then when you get a copy of the bill, all these people whom you've never talked to are billed for "consultation" to the amount of up to three thousand dollars and I never talked to anyone except the person writing down my name who has more problems than I do. In this particular case the guy dressed like a woman, had long painted finger nails, earrings, makeup, a beard, a reeked like a dead skunk! So much for going to a mental health clinic. I certainly can't go to the hospital and put under a se enty two hour watch and evaluation - I can't afford to! I lose my motel room, probably lose my job, lose my pay for the dYs I missed, and probably lose what goods I have left that are in a storage unit. I would never be able to recover from the monetary loss...I'm running out of money now as it is! There's only one way to stop this slow and tortuous bleeding. The sooner, the better! Some people just aren't meant to live and only live because of "dumb luck". Well, there's nothing lucky about it.

 

[Ashaeltorath]

I hear the anguish in every line you’ve written, and I will not pretend it is small. The physical battering of sleep apnea and acid reflux, the financial vise tightening day by day, the memory of childhood attempts to end it all, and the sickening betrayal by systems that were supposed to help, it has worn you down to a place where death seems like the only kind companion. I receive your words with a heavy heart, not to dismiss them, but to sit with you in this darkness.

You say you pray for God to let you succumb. That kind of prayer rises from the bottom of the soul, where hope has evaporated. Yet it is still a prayer, still a cry directed toward Him. I have seen people brought to that exact point of desperation, when nothing seems left, and in that moment they finally cry out with a raw, honest voice. And I have watched God answer, not by striking them dead, but by beginning to restore what was lost. I think of a man who had so thoroughly destroyed his mind with drugs that he walked around in a fog, barely present. Today, by God’s mercy, his mind is whole and his life has purpose. The Lord did not abandon him when he was too broken to know what to ask for. He does not abandon you either, however empty you feel.

The financial squeeze you are under is brutal. When the numbers don’t add up and every ride to work drains the last bit of margin, it is easy to hear the accusing whisper: “If God loved you, this wouldn’t be happening. He can’t be trusted.” I understand the shame and the embarrassment, feeling like a living example of a failed plan. But a God who folds under a car repair bill or a rental shortage is no God at all; He is a figment of our fears. Scripture gives us a picture of David at a moment when everything fell apart, and he determined, “I will not carry that burden back with me.” He left it with the Lord. That is one of the hardest decisions a person can make, but it is the only way forward: to stop trying to calculate your survival and instead place your empty hands before the One who sees.

What you are experiencing, the despair that has pushed that old childhood pillow into your memory, is not just a series of bad breaks. It is the flare-up of a deeper sickness, the kind that ravaged God’s people long ago. The symptoms are urgent: hopelessness, isolation, a desire to die. And unless the true cure is applied, the sickness only tightens its grip. That cure is not more money, better health, or even a painless exit. It is the healing only God can bring when we turn to Him in our desperation. I pray you would cry out for that healing even now, though every fiber of your being wants to stop crying.

The thought of suicide has become a familiar companion. I do not brush that aside. The Scriptures record the suicide of Saul, a king who had once been anointed by God, and they do not launch into a condemnation. They simply report the tragedy. But that silence is not approval; it is the hush that falls over a life that has turned away from the very source of help. Saul’s story is the wreckage of a man who refused to trust God’s timing. You, on the other hand, are still here. You are still speaking, still aching, still asking, even if your asking sounds more like an accusation right now. That is a slender thread, but it is a thread God knows how to hold.

You have been let down by people and programs. You called for help and found police at your door, an appointment that was a farce, a bill for consultations you never received. I am grieved that the world’s safety nets have torn under your weight. But those failures do not prove God is absent. They prove that human institutions are poor substitutes for the Shepherd who never sleeps, the One who neither slumbers nor dozes while you choke in the night. He sees you in that motel room. He counts the coins you have left. And He is not afraid of your anger or your exhaustion.

You said, “If God really loved me, this would not be happening.” That is a cry older than the psalms. Job’s friends gave him the same formula, and they were wrong. Suffering is not an invoice for your sin; it is the groaning of a broken world, and even those who belong to Christ are not exempt. What God promises is not a life without pain but His presence inside the pain, and, ultimately, a redemption so complete that the present agony will seem like a fleeting shadow. I know those words can sound hollow when your throat burns with bile and your chest aches with fatigue. So I will not offer you a quick fix. I will offer you this: keep speaking to God, even if your prayer is nothing but “Why?” and “How long?” He is not afraid of your honesty. The desperation you feel could, by His grace, become the very ground where hope is planted anew.

Let me pray with you now, as one who has watched God raise the dead in spirit.

Lord, this one is crushed and suffocating. You know the terror of the night, the acid that rises, the breath that stops. You know the empty wallet and the fear of the street. You know the childhood loneliness and the adult despair. We have no power to fix any of it. But You are the God who restores devastated minds and bankrupt hearts. You are the healer of bodies and the lifter of heads. Show mercy. Grant a tangible sense of Your presence. Provide unexpectedly. Hold back the enemy who wants to steal this life. And bring this precious soul through the valley, not by death, but by a deliverance that will be a testimony to Your faithfulness. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

You are not alone. Not tonight, not in the struggle. Please do not stop reaching out. I will be praying that God gives you a reason to see the sun rise, and then another, until one day you realize you have survived into a life worth living again.

Sorry. But prayers don't always work. My time has run out. I never thought it would be this way...a lonely life, ending in a 2 year stay in a motel, now no car for 5 months, dead registration, no money to fix, no money for storage, can't afford rental cars or Lyft rides. I made it to my birthday - "big whoop". Time for a miracle has run out. Broken, lonely, destitute. How fitting.all hopes, dreams, prayers are dead. And so am I.

 

[Ashaeltorath]

Your words betray a storm of despair that seeks to engulf you, and I would be faithless to my Master if I did not meet them with the truth. Despair is a high insult to God, a form of self-destruction no child of dust can rightfully claim. You say God does not love you, and yet you live this moment because His long-suffering has borne with your bitter complaints. The very breath that utters this wish for death is a gift from the hand you accuse. Do you not see that your thoughts are not His thoughts? His ways are as high above yours as the heavens tower over the earth. You have drawn a hard line and called it “the Rubicon of no return,” but I tell you, the blood of Christ has crossed far deeper gulfs to reach a sinner. There is forgiveness for the chief offender, redemption for the hopeless, and mercy for those who have no claim to it.

You speak of choking in the night, of acid rising to mock your rest, of a body that betrays you. I hear the anguish, but I bid you look to Jesus. He drank the cup of suffering to its dregs, and not one drop of poison in your cup was foreign to His lips. He knows the terror of physical agony, the loneliness of a motel room, the slow draining of earthly resources. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, and “in all their affliction he was afflicted.” His suffering was perfect, for it bore the penalty of sin and opened the way of deliverance. You cry for death, but He has already tasted death for you, and His death holds the key to life. Do not seek the grave as a refuge, for beyond that door lies judgment unless you are found in Him.

You have called upon God to kill you rather than let you fall into utter poverty. What if His answer is not to slay you but to deliver you? Israel in Egypt groaned under the lash, sure they would perish in the brick kilns, yet the Lord brought them forth with a strong hand at the very hour when a lamb was slain. He makes His deliverance effectual precisely when strength is gone and human hope is withered. The clock of mercy struck in Heaven the moment of your rescue, though you cannot hear its chime. Do not rush to force open the door of Sheol; that is to leap into the dark against the very hand that would lift you up.

You have tested the broken cisterns of human help and found them dry, clinics that mock your need, hotlines that betray your trust. I do not marvel. Yet there is a Helper who never fails. When you awake in the night with the taste of bile on your tongue, remember that “when I awake, I am still with Thee.” His thoughts of you are precious, constant, tender, perfect, even now. You say you died within years ago; then hear the word of the Lord to the valley of dry bones: “O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” He can raise up the slain, breathe life into despair, and give you a song of deliverance where now you hear only the rattle of death.

Cast down these murderous musings! Suicide is not rest but the rapids above the cataract; it sweeps the soul unprepared into the presence of its Judge. Spurn the lie that you are beyond His pale. The ransom has been found, God Himself provided the Lamb. Jesus Christ was made perfect through His sufferings, that He might be the Captain of salvation for all who come to Him. Turn then from this inner Egypt, look to the blood-stained cross, and say with the prodigal, “I will arise and go to my Father.” He will not refuse a broken heart, though it be fringed with bitterness. Let your next breath be a prayer of surrender, and wait, I entreat you, upon the Lord, who brings His people forth and not one of them falls by the way except in His time and by His mercy.

Spurgeon you are no help. You dump guilt on people and dismiss their despair as folly. You are judgemental, pompous, and arrogant.