You've really messed up. You don't know which way to turn. You wonder if God's finally washed His hands of you.
Because you've done it again. Trusted the wrong person. Failed in the same way. Not stood up for yourself. Not loved as well as you should have.
There are so many ways you can feel like it's the end of the world for you.
But, you know what? God doesn't ever think it's the end of the world for you.
Richard Bach tells us -
"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly."
Every day of our lives, we're in transition. Growing, when we think we're shriveling up. Maturing, when all we can see are the ways we've failed.
As long as we've chosen to try to live as God asks us to live, God can deal with our perceived set-backs. God is leading us forward through every self-delusion, past every obsessive thought. Even if we feel so static we think we're in a cocoon, our wings of freedom and perfect love are growing.
Fear can keep us up all night, but faith makes one fine pillow. Instead of giving in to every fear in the darkest hours of the night, those bleak hours when every shadow threatens us and every projection into the future is a catastrophe, our eyes can watch through the night to ponder God's promises to us.
God promises that no matter what we do, if we hold on to Him, He will hold on to us. God's love is ever faithful. God forgives our sins and forges us to steel in spite of our failures. God dreams great dreams for our future and shows us how to make them a reality. In sickness and in health, till death and through death, we are the Lord's. All we have to do is to continue to step forward in courage. All we have to do is to truly love ourselves. All we have to do is depend on His Spirit to give us the right words at the right time.
Day by day, we are preparing to leave the cocoon and become the butterfly. Trust God's promise: One day, you will fly so high in courage and love that no one else's opinion can bring you down. You will be borne up on His wings. You will have the vision of the eyes of an eagle for seeing the truth. And the Truth will set you free - the truth of who you are, the truth of who God is, the truth of what your ministry is to be to God's people. For He surrounds you with Love, so that through, with, and in Him, you can bring others to new life in love.
Be patient. Trust in the Lord. Trust in His word. Wait for His Spirit to slowly and carefully break the bonds of your confinement, break away all those negative thoughts and self-doubts and self-beatings, those addictions and failings that cause you to hide your face from yourself and from God.
Reveal yourself to God and God will reveal Himself to you.
Remember: Jesus seemed to be a bloody failure on the cross. He seemed to face the end of the world.
But His Father raised him on high, to His right hand.
That's where the Father sees you right now. Rejoicing and resplendent at His right hand, next to His Son.
And, remember, God has given you a mighty support system. You have people on earth who pray for you. And, all the angels and saints in Heaven are praying for you as well. That's the meaning of the Communion of Saints. We're all one Body in Christ, in Heaven and on Earth. Every time you sing a hymn to praise God's Name, you're joining everyone else in Heaven and on Earth who are praising God. Just imagine all that power of prayer, those spiritual embraces you are receiving minute by minute!
Do you realize what you can do in the Power of God? You can love, even though your love is imperfect. You can sing with joy, even though in your heart you're crying. You can praise God in trust, even though you cannot see the way forward. That's living in faith. That's discovering that faith is a fine pillow for a weary head.
Edith Stein, the youngest of eleven children, was born in an area of Germany which is now considered an area of Poland, in an observant Jewish family, raised by a mother of strong faith. Her mother treasured her because she was born on Yom Kippur, the holiest day. Yet by her teenage years, Edith had become an atheist. It took a winding road, full of suffering and surprises, before she became a Catholic. Along the way, she earned a Doctorate in Philosophy, worked as a nurse and finally worked as a teacher. Amazingly, she became a Discalced Carmelite nun, during the terrifying days of the Nazi invasions and Jewish holocaust in Europe. She took the name "Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross," which means "St. Teresa blessed by the cross," because she was so inspired by the writings of St. Teresa of Avila.
Edith knew in her heart that, even though her Order sent her to the Netherlands for safety, she would not survive the war. Eventually, she and her sister Rosa were captured by the Nazis. A Dutch official, impressed by her calm, offered her a way to escape. She refused, saying she preferred to suffer with her brothers and sisters, offering her life and death to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in atonement for the evil being done, and for peace. She and Rosa died in the gas chamber at Auschwitz.
Edith understood what it meant to live in faith in spite of fear and suffering. She knew she was not alone. She knew that she may have felt as constricted as a caterpillar in a cocoon, but that her faith would give her wings. She might walk on earth in the dark, through endless days of worry while still reaching out to love others, but she was already intimately connected through Jesus to Heaven and the angels and the Communion of Saints. She wrote -
"To suffer and to be happy although suffering, to have one’s feet on the earth, to walk on the dirty and rough paths of this earth and yet to be enthroned with Christ at the Father’s right hand, to laugh and cry with the children of this world and ceaselessly to sing the praises of God with the choirs of angels – this is the life of the Christian until the morning of eternity breaks forth."
Source: "The Hidden Life"
It's never the end of the world for you. Jesus is continually beckoning you to new life in Him. Reach out your hand in faith. Trust in God's promise of faithful love and power in His Spirit. Step forward, and act and speak in courage, in support of God's Truth. Trust in the support system of prayer and praise that surrounds you. Know that when you sing God's praises, you are singing with everyone on Earth and in Heaven. Above all, Trust to the ongoing growth of your beautiful wings which are already practicing flight to freedom within the darkness of your cocoon.