Are we beyond help?

“I would love to talk to someone. I have so many problems. Sometimes, I think I’m beyond help.” That was the response of a Facebook friend to one of my recent posts that I was sharing my testimony at an upcoming recovery event. My friend had asked what the recovery was for. I replied with an explanation of the 12-step program, which led to her comment above.

I don’t know her very well, dear ones, but I admire her. Her first two sentences reveal that she admits she has problems, she can’t fix them on her own, and she’s willing to talk to someone about them. Reaching out takes courage. And on Facebook – on someone else’s wall whom you don’t know too well, I’d say that takes extra courage.

Her last sentence, though, troubled me. Not because I’ve never heard or felt that way myself but because I’ve heard those words all too often from so many people. Once, twice, maybe multiple times in my life, I have felt like a hopeless cause. I remember feeling that way specifically when my husband asked for a divorce. I felt he was giving up on me, that I would never change, and that there was no reason to keep waiting for our marriage to change. I thought I was beyond help.

I felt that way again last year when I was on medical leave from work for six months and my health continued its slippery decline. Medications just kept making things worse. Again, I thought I was beyond help.

No doubt the invalid at the pool of Bethesda felt the same way (see John 5:1-15). He wanted to be healed or else he wouldn’t have been waiting for the waters to be stirred so he could be the first to jump in. But he’d also been there 38 years. So when Jesus asked him, “Do you want to get well,” his reply was – now this is the Daphne paraphrase – “I think I’m beyond help” (verse 7).

But he wasn’t. I wasn’t. My friend isn’t. And you are not. God made the invalid well. God has made me well. He can make my friend well, and He can make you well too. No matter how long you’ve been hurting, dear one, God longs to show you compassion (Isaiah 30:18). We are not beyond His help (Psalm 46:1). We are not beyond His outstretched arms (Psalm 136:12). We are not beyond His love (Jeremiah 31:3).

Come alongside…. When have you felt beyond help? What did you do to reach out? Are you there now? What can you do to reach out – to others and to God?