Emotion du jour: Despair

Despair: when Satan laughs. I like the line Eowyn delivers in The Two Towers film: “and all hope of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.” Most of us may not hope for valor, per se; but there is something we want, something that – should it go beyond recall or desire – to lose would most certainly engender despair. That is when I must turn to Isaiah 41:10 “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” If I were to lose God, I would despair utterly; but I also know that nothing can separate me from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39).

So despair most often comes to those who do not realize they have had, or can have, God’s love. We make, all of us (even Christians), other gods – success, reason, action, health, a certain job or lover – and when those gods “abandon” us, we despair. Do I mean that faith in God will make everything better?
Of course not; actions still have consequences, and these consequences can spiral out of control. But if the words of Isaiah are true, we do not need to despair, no matter what our external circumstances.

Now how do I conjure a scene after a speech like that? Hmmm...

He really had kept up excitement for a long time: new college, new phase of life, new people to run into. But the semester dragged on: he drove to the college and went straight to classes, and left straight afterward; he went to work, the only one there while his boss stayed in the office during the slow winter months; he went home, where everyone worked the night shift and were either sleeping or rushing around, late for work again; he went to sleep. Slowly, day by day, the excitement ratcheted down. Weekends were the worst, without even the faces of classmates to look at. By December, he took a different route home after class, just to do something different. By January, he was keeping a journal of mostly profanities – it didn’t seem to matter who or what they were directed at, as long as they came out.

Two anchors stretched out of his dark despondency with iron grasps on hazy stars, invisible hopes: he was only 22, with lots of life to come; and a girl who refused to fall in love with him, whose email address became a receptacle that recycled his crushing, tangling thoughts, sorted them, and returned only hope – hope, and a good dose of reason. Without those, he might have fallen endlessly until swallowed up in himself, discarded on the dung heap of his own unformed dreams.

Something like that. See you tomorrow.