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An illustration from Dr. James Merritt

Do you see that train steaming along the iron way? See, it plunges into a cavern in yonder hill! You have now lost sight of it. Has it perished? As on an angel’s wing, you fly to the top of the hill, and you look down on the other side. There it comes steaming forth again from the tunnel, bearing its…

Some situations just seem hopeless. Sports fans in Cleveland and Cincinnati believe they have been suffering for over 30 years. “Everybody’s got the blues,” Vincent Morano told the Cincinnati Inquirer.” Thirty years without a championship in the state has led Morano and other fans to petition the Ohio…

Instead of emphasizing the merry and bright upbeat Christmas celebrations, some churches are having Blue Christmas Services on the Winter Solstice (the darkest day of the year) for those in their community who find Christmas time difficult. "At its deepest level, I think the Christmas gospels tell the…

A federal judge sentenced a Kansas man to probation after the man admitted that he robbed a bank to get away from his wife, Lawrence Ripple wrote a note demanding money from the bank in front of his wife, and then took it to the bank and gave it to a teller. Ripple’s note also claimed that he had gun.…

While the whole world reels from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and many feel hopeless as a result, Queen Elizabeth issues her first ever Easter message in 2020, filled with hope for her subjects during this time of crisis. She reminds us that Easter is not cancelled this year but remains “a symbol…

When Kim Phuc Phan Thai was a 9-year-old child her war planes dropped bombs and napalm on her village in Vietnam. A journalist snapped a picture of the girl, naked, running from the village, screaming in pain from the napalm burning her neck, back, and arms. You have probably seen the photo. It became…

Judy Sanborn’s pet cat, Bandit, disappeared from her Michigan home. The woman had no idea what happened to her 2½-year-old tabby. Two months later 1,100 miles away in Florida, Bandit, was brought to the Blue Pearl pet hospital in Tampa by a local woman he’d followed home. How he made the cross-country…

The World Health Organization released a report identifying depression as “the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide.” They estimate that more than 300 million people around the world suffer from depression, compared to 212 million suffer from malaria, one of the most prevalent diseases.…

On November 11, 2016, many users logged onto Facebook only to find out they were dead. A message at the top of their Facebook page read, “We hope people who love [insert name here] will find comfort in things others share to remember and celebrate [his/her] life.” Some users went to twitter to show that…

Hannah Oliver-Willetts of the United Kingdom was working tirelessly to raise funds in support of her son, Zac, who is suffering from Leukemia. The special treatment, while likely to be successful, is not yet available in the UK and is therefore very expensive. The Hospital contributed by cutting the…

On a routine call in September, Albuquerque police officer Ryan Holets noticed a man and woman doing heroin behind a convenience store. The woman was not only injecting a needle into her companion's arm, she was also eight months pregnant. As Holets warned her of the damage she was doing to her baby,…

In the movie Passengers (2016, Columbia pictures) a spacecraft traveling to a distant planet has a malfunction in one of its 5000 sleep chambers, waking passenger Jim Preston from his suspended animation 90 years early. After a year of living on the ship alone in solitude and hopelessness, he becomes…

Journalist Anthony Breznican tells a heart grabbing story of the day he met Fred Rogers, the creator and star of the children’s television show, Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. It was during a difficult time in his life. “The future seemed hopeless. I was struggling, lonely, dealing with a lot of broken pieces…

Comedian Joan Rivers thought she had nothing left to live for. Her husband had committed suicide, her talk show had been cancelled, and her daughter wasn’t talking to her. At one point, she decided to commit suicide herself. She didn’t, instead she started lecturing on suicide prevention. She tells people,…

When our lives drift away from a focus on God our lives pay the price by ending in a time, place and manner that we never intended. In March of 2015, a plane crashed in the German Alps. It seems that the Co-Pilot intentionally switched the autopilot on the doomed Germanwings plane to descend to 100 feet.…

In early 2008, Jonny Benjamin was 20 years-old and had just been diagnosed with a debilitating mental disorder. He had dropped out of school and there was little chance that he would ever be able to hold down a job or have a family. His response was to climb out on a bridge and end it all. Just as he…

In his book, Thanks: How Practicing Gratitude Can Make you Happier, Robert Emmons writes, “Hopelessness and despair can adversely impact the endocrine and immune systems, even hastening death. Conversely, being an optimist may help reduce your risk of dying from heart disease and other causes. A thirty-five-year…

Analysts say that the prolonged economic downturn is having a negative effect on the suicide rates in our country. The Centers for Disease Control announced that suicides among Americans 35 to 64 have jumped 30 percent since 1999. The biggest jump is 49 percent and affects men from 50 to 54. The figures…

A Nurses’ Health Study analyzed by Harvard University researchers discovered that people who attend religious services a couple of times a week may live longer. The study was a survey of 74,534 healthy women beginning in 1992. Researchers tracked them for 20 years. By 2012, 13,537 of the women had died.…

Andrew Lloyd-Webber was suffering intense pain in his leg. Fourteen surgical interventions left him in such agony he wanted to die. In his own words he said, “I went through a moment of deep depression—that awful moment when you think you must find a way out.” From there he descended to contemplating…

Teenagers who join the Goth subculture are at a substantially increased risk of depression and self-harm, according to a recent British study. “The longitudinal study of 3,694 adolescents found that teens who identify as Goth at age 15 are three times more likely than other teens to be clinically depressed…

In Washington State, Vermont, Oregon, and Montana it is legal to for a physician to assist a patient commit suicide. Under this law, 83 Washingtonians died in 2012. When a person despairs to the point of having no hope suicide can look like a reasonable solution. Grace calls us rely on the sufficiency…

About 37,000 Americans end their own lives each year. This is more than die each year in car crashes. Safety improvements have cut the death toll of car crashes by 25% but suicides have kept rising. No government safety program can stop the devastation of a life hungry for meaning or lost in depression…

Five years after the earthquake in Haiti, leaders in the country say the event has become a catalyst for spiritual development. Churches that started meeting in the open air after the quake are still growing and changing lives, and new orphanages have been built to meet the needs of the people. A renewed…