Ask Him for help

IF you've ever felt that suicide could be an answer to your problems, it might help to know that actually God is Life, is all the life you have. Not now or ever can you be separated from Life. You can ask God for help. He is your Father and Mother, who loves you, and trusts and values you right now. Whatever the problems, you'll have to figure them out sooner or later. Not by dropping out of things but by finding better solutions here and now.

Of course you want love--and life does offer love. But maybe it's really something different from what you've been depending on. There's a spiritual love that's not defined by people or confined to having a person care for you. It's God's love. It's divine. In the book called Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy,1 the author, talks often about Love. ``The sharp experiences of belief in the supposititious life of matter, as well as our disappointments and ceaseless woes, turn us like tired children to the arms of divine Love. Then we begin to learn Life in divine Science.'' 2

A long time ago in the Bible someone wrote about a man and his suffering. Maybe you've heard of Job. He said: ``Even to day is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning.'' 3 Job's friends tried to tell him he should take their view of God. His wife told him he ought to curse God and die.

There's a lot of thinking around that sounds like Job's wife. Some of it is fascinated with death, as if it were a friend or a romantic solution to tough times. Some of it dramatizes the self-absorption of the suicide, and the sad ordeal of his family. Such thinking insinuates itself like contagion, making us feel it has to be acted on.

But thoughts of self-destruction are not original. They are not your own; they are mesmeric, and you don't have to act them out. Nobody in his right mind wants to end his world, and you are in your right mind now because you really are in God, Life, and have one divine Mind.

Job wanted to follow his own thought, not conform to the simplistic answers of his wife and friends. So he persisted in trying to understand God for himself--not on someone else's terms. ``Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!'' 4 he said.

Finally in this drama God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind. He says: ``Wilt thou also disannul my judgment? wilt thou condemn me, that thou mayest be righteous? Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?'' 5

And at last Job sees that there is no power--not even despair and suffering--as mighty as the Lord. ``I know that thou canst do every thing, and that no thought can be withholden from thee.'' 6

Maybe you want to find God for yourself. You can. You have every right--a divine right--to work out the problems that are so dismal for you. You can feel freedom and joy where you are and as you truly are, because these are God-given qualities. You aren't isolated--trying to go it alone in a messy world. You are completely special and included in His design. You have courage; you are whole and loving because God made you that way.

This minute you can feel new thoughts--your own thoughts from God. You can be conscious of how close He is, and let His love lead you away from emptiness. These spiritual thoughts tell you that you are God's child, and you can call Him ``my Father-Mother.'' He created you; He made you complete, and capable, and very lovable. At this moment God is holding you safe in His arms. You can ask Him for help.

1 The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. 2 Science and Health, p. 322. 3 Job 23:2. 4 Job 23:3. 5 Job 40:8, 9. 6 Job 42:2.

This article is a condensation of one that appears in the January 28 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.