Faith, Hope and Love

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The events surrounding what happened with my friend have left me feeling numb and sick.  I keep playing over the "what if(s)".  "What if" we'd been in bed and missed the cry for help?  "What if" they'd accomplished what they started?  "What if" we'd rejected them long ago like so many have done?  If the answer to any of those questions had been different, I might have awakened yesterday only to hear that my friend was gone.  And having been involved in the situation, I know the depth of that desire to be gone.  And it makes me feel ill. 
How sick is this world?  How cruel do people have to be?  As someone who's has dealt with bullying and rejection as a child...as someone who has never felt like she "fit in"...all the pain came back.  Stuff I thought I'd let go of long ago has apparently just been sitting here festering...a gaping wound.
It's like all of the sudden their pain became mine...and wow how I wasn't prepared for that.  BUT... the difference is...in all my pain I have NEVER felt so bad that I thought I didn't want to be alive.  I've always had HOPE that life could get better...maybe tomorrow...maybe next week...maybe next month...but there was always HOPE.  How deep is the pain when someone loses HOPE?
The Scriptures say in I Corinthians 13:13:  “And now abideth faith, hope and love...but the greatest of these is love.”  What would this world be like if those three things were removed?  It would be a world with no God!  It would be a world of confusion and torment and pain and self-loathing and bitterness.  And the reality is that a lot of people live in that world.  They live there because we, as Christians, have failed to show them that faith, hope and love abide.  We fail to show it when we give in to a worldview that accepts “reality” television as “reality”...when we tolerate and participate in “gossip” and “rumor” sharing...when we become self-focused and materialistic...when we fall for Satan’s deception and fail to remain true to God and His Word...when we become “just like the world”. 
We’ve been instructed to live “in” this world without becoming part “of” this world.  I’ve found comfort in my search of the Scriptures today.
John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”  Peace...a gift that surpasses understanding sometimes.  The pain of these past couple of days would be unbearable if it were not for the work of the Spirit in comforting my heart and giving me peace.  I don’t have to hang out in the “what ifs”...I can move on to the “see what God did.”  I can remain in the hope that God will “work all things to good” in the life of my friend...even this horrible, painful event.  Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”  Today I will be busy renewing my mind...basking in God’s love and comfort...and moving on from this painful event into the hope that I have because He is my Lord and Savior.

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