With an end of the rough, twisted rope in a tight grip around my throat, heartbreaking tears exploded from within and covered my face. I didn’t want to die, but the pain of betrayal, a failing career, and grieving words haunted my heart too much to stay alive. It was August 18, 2011.

Self awareness made me a spectator with a front row seat, watching this nightmare unfold. Pain and deeper suffering kept me a helpless victim who lacked willpower to overcome the demons that had lured my emotions to act that evening.

The chair beneath refused to roll away. The energy was gone to do anything more than collapse in a pool of tears. Crawling up the stairs and out of the pit of my basement, I found a phone and called for help.

It was the first time since elementary school that I had climbed into a bed with my parents to feel the comfort and strength of their bodies next to mine.

It was a long drive the next day, as the reality sunk in and I admitted myself into a psychiatric facility. Mom and Dad couldn’t sugarcoat my trauma anymore with, “it’s going to be alright;” clearly it wasn’t.

For months I had been reaching out, however, a recent move narrowed the options of people close enough to care. As the sorrows grew too heavy for my heart to bear, I scoured our self-absorbed society looking for the land of listening ears, but it was parched of people who would pause.

Even the hospital wasn’t as interested in lending an ear as they were in prescribing an absorbent amount of prescriptions. That’s when I checked out of the psychiatric facility and invested my income into a Christian counselor.

We don’t need more breakthroughs in anti-depressant options. We need to break down the burdens with love.

Many consumed by depression are reaching out, yet we’re not listening. In our fast-paced, dream driven world, we’ve flown right past the shield of a smile and never stopped for a second listen.

This lifestyle of self-consumption has drenched the messaging in our minds to spit out, “what’s in it for me”. What prevents us to pause is the idea that we will lose ground in our schedule or success. Yet, none of us will take our dreams with us when we die.

God created community to care for each other. The measure of success in heaven is in hearts.

We’re too rushed to hear the tears falling. Our eyes too focused to see through the shield of a smile. And we’ve become too narrow-minded to notice the fear in a friend standing in front of our face.

Success is measured by love. It doesn’t simply talk about love, it walks out love.

How can you live love today? Who can you be a friend to? Where can you pause and notice that pain in someone else?

Or maybe it’s you we’re searching for. Speak up, reach out, I’m listening.