“Courage consists of hanging on one minute longer.” Albert Payson Terhune
We speak of holding on, a trite phrase, simplistic, pointless.
Holding on to what? My sanity? Am I sane? Was I sane? Saniswane? Jabberwocky?
No strength of yours or mine is sufficient to “hold on.” I have felt the strength of the storm of sin in full fury, and no man or woman is able to retain their grasp of anything in that maelstrom. Furthermore, there reached a place where one’s interest in “holding on” fades to nothing. Where you begin to question the purpose of the pointless effort in the face of incomprehensible opposition.
I lost all strength to hold on long ago. Numb with pain and shock, stunned by the fury of the storm my sin had unleashed, my nerveless hands could no longer grip anything.
Anything.
Wife, family, children, church. Not even God. They became Things I wanted but could not hold. The wind was a whisker from blowing me loose of my moorings, and carrying me away into the depths of time and place, shredded like a windblown shopping bag at the dump. The waves beckoned, the icy waters called for my soul.
I let go. I chose to let go.
At that moment I discovered something. To my surprise and shock, I did not fly away on the wind, driven to my destruction. It was there that I discovered my greatest treasure in the midst of my shame.
It was not my strength to hold on that mattered. It never was. In that moment of giving up on God and life, I discovered that He had not given up on me. When my hands could no longer cling to the rock, the Rock held me fast. I was bound with everlasting ties to He who cannot fail.
So what is the point of holding on?
Honour. His honour.
In my weakness, I have dishonoured Him because I doubted His goodness, His strength, His plan.
If you read this, quit telling hurting people to hold on. That’s what they are doing by breathing.
Give them a hug. Tell them you love them and need them. Don’t tell them to keep doing the most exhausting thing in the world. There is no hope in that.
But if you remind them that God is holding on to them, that might actually matter.
And then be brave enough to hold onto those who are about to let go.
CPH
Learning to Run 
Have you found your song again? It sounds like you might be close.
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Not even close. I tried singing in church last week. Managed a croak or two. Then events of this week proved that song is a historical fact, not future hope.
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Music has never been a central point in my life. Yet when I dwell on the Lord and His goodness. On ALL that He IS. I usually find a hymn flowing through me that I had not been conscious of. It’s something I find difficult explaining but I remember being told once that when one considers all the Lord has done for us and continues to do for us on a daily basis both what we consider good or possibly consider bad one can’t help to offer praise. (Job comes to mind)
Do we not say, “Hymns of praise”?
You wrote of your first hand discovery on the reality of John 10:28-29. God is good and as I’ve learned in my own life when I wondered where He had gone that I was the one who’d strayed from Him. And when I looked (truly looked) I’d find He’d been there all along. After all, if it was God who leaves us, then how would He hear our repentance and forgive us? Would we not be forever lost?
Proverbs 25:21-23 tells us to be good to our enemies so we will heap coals of fire upon his head. I know just how that feels when I sin yet God is still good to me. To forgive me each time I repent and I still find those coals hot when I stop to consider it.
We are supposed to forgive those who sinned against us as the Lord forgives us when we sin ourselves. But it’s harder to forgive myself for sinning especially when I’m pretty certain I’ll sin again no matter how hard I strive as long as I’m in this life and the heat of additional coals weigh upon my head. And still I’m told and try to hold fast to the promise that our Lord will continually forgive as long as I sincerely repent because what hope have I otherwise?
God is good, God is in control and in spite of my sins His will is done so when focus on Him rather than myself perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised to find a hymn of praise flowing through my mind, heart and soul.
I hope you will too.
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