Never Despair

Although it is difficult sometimes, when life seems to be throwing everything nasty at us and nobody else seems to care, there are very good reasons why we should never despair. Even when all hope seems to have departed and our own resources are clearly insufficient to cope with the problems we are facing, when friends all seem to have deserted us and we feel like ending it all. That is when, at our lowest ebb, the light of the spirit that shines within each one of us, begins to respond to the unfailing encouragement it receives from those in the spiritual world who love us and never desert us. They may have to look on helplessly for a while because in our despair we have become so introverted and self-pitying we have set up a barrier even their love cannot penetrate.

It is almost impossible to be objective when we are being assailed on all sides, when everything seems to be going wrong. We become victims of circumstance. We start to imagine that no-one has ever had to suffer like this, that life has become pointless and all the dreams and hopes we used to have, crumble to dust. What is the point of hope when everything we held precious is about to be or has been, taken away from us? Life is precious, whether it is our own or that of those around us whom we love so much. When it is threatened, either by illness, financial or social disaster and the old certainties we found so comforting are no longer present, we begin to doubt and if we are unable to allow our inner light to shine forth and show us the truth, it quickly turns to despair. What is the truth?

The truth is that you and I are imperishable, eternal beings of light. We are eternal and this earthly life, though seeming all-important as we live it, is no more than one short phase in our adventurous journey from ignorance to knowledge and from darkness to light. Because our five physical senses are so powerful, they obliterate for many this awareness of eternity. They cover our sensitive, higher selves with a shell of materialism and the conviction that only what is physically solid can be real. This leads to a distorted understanding about life on earth, its purpose and how we relate to one another and to the Earth itself. The senses try to persuade us that only physical life matters and that when it ceases, everything ends. Thus, when we are about to lose a loved one who has become the lynchpin of our lives, we are at our wits end; we don’t know where to turn. When the job that has meant so much to us or the fortune we have built up laboriously, look as though it is about to disappear; when our physical mobility, our eyesight or our hearing are removed, we are rocked to our very foundations. Everything that was formerly good and loving about life has turned to ashes.

Throughout our lives, different experiences come our way and from each we learn and thus develop our character but if those experiences are filtered through a merely physical sieve, what we learn is much more superficial than should be the case. To gain the most from every experience, to receive in depth, it needs to touch us in every way, physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. Cut off any of those and the experience becomes incomplete. Sometimes a lesson is considered so vital by our inner, spiritual self that extreme measures become necessary. This is sometimes the reason for despair. When we reach rock bottom and appear to have nowhere to turn, we begin to feel true humility. In that humility, we cry out for help in desperation and lo and behold it appears. When we are thoroughly stripped of pride and become as children, then no longer is there a barrier between ourselves and those in the spiritual world who love us deeply and want to help us. Then things begin to improve; we find new strength and an understanding that what we formerly regarded as vital in our lives is not important at all. An inner awareness of the eternal nature of life; that we chose to come and live this earthly life; become part of our consciousness, and although loss of a loved one is still painful, it becomes bearable because we know it is temporary. As Robert Frost said so eloquently in his poem “The Trial by Existence,”

‘Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we chose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but that we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stripped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing us crushed and mystified.


In true humility, the scales are removed from our eyes, the truth is revealed and we see ourselves and others as the wondrous creatures we truly are. As Jesus of Nazareth said, “The meek shall inherit the earth.”