Sometimes we may have to suffer and to hurt and to be humiliated, so that, groping in the dark, Jesus Christ may become real to us. There are times when your despair and humiliation will lead you to find Christ.   

If you read the autobiography of Harry Emerson Fosdick, you will find that in his late twenties he very nearly took his own life. This sounds strange because he had by then a fruitful and purposeful life. Fosdick was a prolific writer and an inspiring preacher. For two generations he wrote books that breathed a vibrant and an heartening message. He had a robust faith in God. So it was quite inconceivable that such a person would want to kill himself.
  
But through his incessant studies, speaking and writing, Fosdick had literally worked himself into a nervous breakdown. And he snapped! It was as if his mind had flung unhinged. He coundn't study, couldn't write, he couldn't do anything. And this sense of powerlessness humiliated him. He felt ashamed. He withdrew into himself. And he tells us that one day, in the bathroom, he was about to cut his wrist and end it all, when his father, for no particular reason called out "Harry!". And his father's voice stopped him in the nick of time, and he couldn't go ahead with it.

Then he tells us of the long painful crawl out of the dark hole back to life. And he tells us that he did that through exercising small bits of faith in God. One small step at a time. He may have written and spoken about having faith in God, but now it was a real test. But God stayed by him, and step by step. he crawled back to normal life.

About a year after that near suicide,  Fosdick went to a little cottage by the wind-swept coast of Maine, walked into the kitchen of the broken down place, sat on an ordinary chair by a very plain table, and wrote a little book. The year was 1915. It’s simply called The Meaning of Prayer.  Hundreds of thousands of copies have been sold around the world.
It is still published today. And this is probably Fosdick’s best book because there is a touch of authenticity and honesty about it.

Fosdick went through a harrowing experience which almost killed himself, but through that experience he found Christ real. And for us too, there will be times when we will have to go through a dark tunnel – an illness, loneliness, the neglect of a spouse, the loss of a love, a sense of rejection, or the fear of growing old.

But it is precisely at such a time when we may discover God to be true and near. If we bring ourselves to our knees the eyes of our heart will be opened. And we will see God.

Paul said it so long ago: "I have suffer the loss of all things that I may gain Christ" (Phil 3:8). He also said: "A thorn was given to me in my flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but he said to me `My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness'” (2 Cor 12:7-9). And he came to see that it was when he was weak, that he was strong. (v.10)

Let God meet you in your pain.