One of my favourite songs, Reach Out, I’ll Be There by The Four Tops, has plenty of deeper meaning.
Part of the lyrics go something like this, “If you feel that you can’t go on, because all your hope is gone. And your life is filled with much confusion, until happiness is just an illusion…”
Because of some surgery, I had been wracked with pain (and pain-killers) for several months. I felt a sense of despair and hopelessness.
I was able to call on family and friends to help me through it, but I wondered how people manage when they have unremitting pain and they don’t have someone to call on.
Someone to share a coffee with, someone to moan to, someone to get prescriptions or to bring round something to eat.
Someone.
The good news, is that (returning to the song), there is someone to love and comfort you. To cherish and care for you. To always see you through. You see, each of us is free to seek a relationship with God – God is that “someone”.
God is Love.
Having a faith in God, might just make pain, loneliness, heartbreak, sadness, easier to bear because you know you are not alone; it might make it easier for you to seek out help. And having faith in a loving God can motivate you to offer help to others in need.
You – yes, you! – can be that “someone” I mentioned earlier. There is much more to having a healthy relationship with God than this, but it’s a good enough place to start.
Ed Lane, from Wokingham Baptist Church, writing on behalf of Churches Together in Wokingham
