Do. Not. Give. Up. Giving up creates hopelessness. And hopelessness creates a huge black hole of depression and deadness in you. When you quit caring about anything in life, you stop living, even though your heart continues beating.

Living in hopelessness means having to keep walking a step at a time when you don’t have a destination that even matters anymore. There is no food to listlessly put on your fork and carry into your mouth that will give you a rush of pleasure. No amount of sleep will relieve you from the aimlessness and dread of facing each new day. There is no sparkling sunshine and perfect temperature outside that will even really register on your dulled brain. You start to live life as if you are simply not alive.

Hopelessness also opens up an entire new bag of potential physical ailments.

The medical field tells us that stress in itself is not a bad thing. Your body and mind thrive on contemplating possibilities and problems you need to solve – when you convince yourself to feel confident that it will all work out in the end. But dis-stress is the actual problem, when you allow yourself to give in to the belief that you have no way of winning. The human body and mind take a very dim view of you deciding there is no hope in sight, and they tend to let you know they disapprove. In ways that you can’t miss.

But how does a person avoid hopelessness, when your world has slid slowly but definitely downward and you are afraid there is no way back up? When someone dear to you tragically dies? When the business that you poured your entire life into abruptly shatters into splinters, leaving you with nothing but debts and painful memories? When you drastically and permanently lose your good health?

When life no longer feels like you are living. Know this: You have to make a choice, a very definite, firm, conscious choice. A choice to not let yourself sink into that seducing, sucking, tempting hole of hopelessness. That is the first step.

Realize this: Unless you decide to commit suicide, you have no choice but to keep living. You have to find a way to keep living. So, 1. grieve your loss, fully. Then 2. look for some small interest that will at the least help you stay existing each new day, until finally you can 3. grasp at a new beginning. One that will allow you to start over and give you a real reason to walk, to eat, to laugh, to make plans.

Hang on in faith: You have to tell yourself that countless others have walked this same road, you can do it also. Although it looks impossible, you will find a way with time. That God really is in your corner, He wants to help you survive what this broken world has thrown at you and to keep walking.

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