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Welcome to Frank’s take on despair.This post will deal with despair as rationalized sadness, or how to deal with it when life kicks you in the pants!

What you have to remember about this is that despair is not a sin. Let me repeat that: Rationalized sadness which you won’t let go of is not a sin. It is, however, a tool which Satan uses to try to get us to sin. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello, everybody!

My name is Frank Robertson. I’m a seventeen year old who has probably read too much apologetics for his own good. I have to give a heartfelt thanks to Christi, who found me during a class at EFY, to our founder Erik, who has put up with my endless questions for the past few weeks, not to mention edited and refined this post into the late hours of the night. Last but certainly not least to the members of FRG who mercilessly exposed all my errors of judgment and clarity in writing this post!

As the newest member of FRG, I’ve spent quite a while pondering my purpose, and having the purpose of the organization explained to me (special thanks to Noah and David on that one!). I believe my purpose is to explain the joys and obstacles in my life, as a seventeen year old trying to live the gospel. With any luck the things I have to say will be doctrinally correct, and some other teen will benefit from my (lack of) experience.

For my first post I’d like to discuss one of Satan’s weapons which I have particular difficulty with. It’s an instrument which I believe to be in wide use among youth today, both in the church and out of it. It is a debilitating and subtle assault so typical of our adversary and one I think that needs to be dealt with as such.

I speak of despair, of the fear which binds tongues, and the melancholy which oppresses spirits. Please understand that I do not speak of depression in the medical sense, which is an actual affliction which should be brought to a medical professional and dealt with accordingly. The difference really is that clinical depression won’t go away without proper psychiatric attention, more information can be found here.

For the rest of us despair falls into a few distinct categories:

• worldly sorrow for sin,
• rationalized sadness we won’t let go of,
• and fear of sinning distorted to paralysis.

I’m not going to deal with the first one, except to say that you need to pray and maybe even go to your bishop about it. We’ve all heard about repentance since the day we were two feet tall. Enough said.

“…Despair” parts one and two will deal with rationalized sadness and fear as despair, respectively. Part three will discuss what you can do to help someone coping with despair. I might throw in a ‘part four’ if someone thinks of something I missed.

Now I’m just seventeen years old. That means I haven’t seen despair in all it’s colors, but I remember what I have seen. I pray that the words I write will touch someone’s heart somewhere. I pray that you’ll know others have been where you are today, and through the love of our Savior they survived. I pray that the lessons I have learned and the prices I have paid will help you in your life.

That’s all the space I’ve got for now! But don’t despair! The next segment of this series will be here before you know it!