If You Are Going Through Hell, Keep Going

"If you're going through Hell, keep going" - Winston Churchill. Whether we deserve it or not, whether it's our fault or someone else's fault or rather nobody's fault but one of God's mysteries, we sometimes have to go through Hell. But the most important word there is through. When we're in the middle of Hell it can seem to stretch on forever both ahead of us and behind us. Hell would have us believe it is endless and impassable and there is no way out. And if we believe these lies and we give up hope and we stop going through Hell, then we are staying in Hell. If we stop going through, then we're staying. That's just a geographical certainty. If we're in hell we can keep fighting to get out or we can stop fighting and stay put but the very reasons that drove us to quit fighting - it's too hard, it's too painful, it's too depressing - those reasons aren't going away. Whether our path through Hell is another hundred feet or another hundred miles, we can't get out unless we keep pressing forward. This isn't some drill sergeant tough love speech and it is in no way meant to diminish or demean the physical and mental and emotional torture that we may be experiencing. But if we're going through Hell, we have to keep going. If we stop going through then we're going to be stuck in hell forever, but if we keep going, there is still the possibility that hell will come to an end and we will get out. But we don't have to get out only on our own power. Christ has descended below all things. He can find us in whatever circle of hell we've found ourselves and He can lead us out. It may still not be easy but it will be easier than going at it alone and definitely easier than giving up and staying put. "Yea, we see that whosoever will may lay hold upon the word of God, which is quick and powerful, which shall divide asunder all the cunning and the snares and the wiles of the devil, and lead the man of Christ in a strait and narrow course across that everlasting gulf of misery which is prepared to engulf the wicked— And land their souls, yea, their immortal souls, at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heaven, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers, to go no more out." (Helaman 3:29-30). The strait and narrow course starts where we're at, even in the middle of Hell, and it can lead us up and out of that gulf of misery and land our souls at the right hand of God, to go no more out again.