I’m busy with a full-time job, slow and slight renovations to our country home, taking care of my family, and writing a book. I’ve made peace with the fact that I will write two to three blogs per week, and still encourage others, while not taking time away from “life.”

So this morning I was perusing the files and folders in the dungeon of my spirit, bouncing a few ideas off its cavernous walls for today’s blog, when it suddenly hit me:

“Someone reading this may be ready to give up on life. Someone may have stumbled onto this page who is ready to throw in the towel, PERMANENTLY.”

Thus, it is to you I speak:

If you’ll peruse my previous blogs you’ll know I have struggled with chronic pain and depression since I was a teenager. I even tried to kill myself once, but it didn’t take. God wasn’t ready for me to chuck it in.

I even wrote about it when I returned home after my suicide attempt:

“When I tried to kill me, Jesus smiled and cried / Told me little secrets ’bout the day He died / Told me that He shed His blood for my sins and that He’d do it all over again…”

I don’t back off on my spirituality on purpose when I write; I pen the words I feel the Lord wants me to write. Some may term it “Christianity-LIGHT,” but as I stated in a recent post:

“It’s my assertion that people of differing beliefs hung out with Jesus because He was good-natured and kindhearted. He had an enchanting character which made children want to be close to Him, and probably had a great sense of humor. His warmhearted demeanor was not validation of the personal life choices of those with whom he dined. He was simply a mirror image of His Father’s love and compassion, which seems to be a more effective approach than theological asphyxiation.”

What I’m saying is this: I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe, and I’m not going to try and beat you into submission with my family-size King James Bible. I’ll pray for you, I’ll hang out with you, I’ll go see a rock concert with you, and I’ll share a pizza with you, but I won’t put you in a strangle-hold and choke you blue, until you relent to my way of thinking.

That ain’t my style, man.

So believe me when I say this, ok? Are you ready? This is my whole reason for being. This is the entire reason I’m on planet Earth, I truly believe. It’s my life’s purpose rolled up into one paragraph.

Here it is:

Never give up. Never, never, never give up. Never surrender to the darkness which tries to swallow you whole. Never quit. Not tonight, not tomorrow, and not ever. 

Keep fighting, until you draw your last, painful breath. Keep reaching for the stars, keep breathing, keep laughing, keep loving.

Just keep on, and never quit. Life is worth it.

A few weeks ago I managed to capture this sunrise, which I thought I’d share with you, just to remind you of the beauty of life:

No special effects were added. No color was inserted with a phone app. This is the beauty of life, pure and unfiltered.

The God who created a sunset like this at the end of a long and trying day, just as a reminder of how beautiful life can be, loves you. He really, truly does.

So that’s it. That’s all I have for today. I pray you find your way. I pray you discover joy hidden in the most unlikely of places. I pray the journey be challenging enough to keep you on your toes and help you learn, but not so suffocating as to blanket you in darkness. I pray you find peace in the midst of a storm. I pray you find love where you least expect it.

Blessings.

“Don’t be afraid, for the Lord will go before you and will be with you; he will not fail nor forsake you (Deuteronomy 31:8).”