My dear friend, read and listen carefully with your heart,

“IT'S HOPELESS! I'M HOPELESS! MY LIFE IS WORTHLESS!”

It's a story that began in Florida. That's when Wes hit bottom. His business failed and he was broke. He felt shame. Humiliation! Utter hopelessness.

He would end his pain away from his family. Make his suicide look like an accident. Just head for the mountains and drive off a cliff. No more pain. No more fear or shame.

So he headed east from Florida. His target was a range of mountains—and then another. Each time he held back. On he came—to the Rockies of Colorado and finally the Sierras in California.

Still, a restraining hand seemed to hold him back. Up he would go to the mountain determined to die. Down he would drive, still alive. He hadn't done it. Some 3,000 miles of agonized tears with suicide as his only option. He grew more desperate.

Then another thought squeezed into his tormented brain. Find a phone book. Try a cry for help. What's there to lose?! That's how a miracle brought us together. When Wes told me his story, the love of God surged through my being like electric jolts—and entered Wes' heart.

When he cried out to Jesus, he knew he was heard. Hopelessness melted in the presence of the God of hope. Shame vanished when he saw what Jesus had suffered to save him. And fear was replaced by a new love for Christ and the certainty that God would see him—and his family—through to better days.

“I'm going back to my family in Florida,” he told me. Now he knew who had kept him from ending it all. Now he had a new beginning.

Today, there are thousands—tens of thousands—of terrified lives like his. Lost jobs. Foreclosed homes. Repossessed vehicles. Little hope of finding work. This is America today. It's also reality all over the world. What an opportunity to let Jesus “love on” hopeless people through you and me.

Let other Christians debate the signs of the times and how and when the Messiah will return. Instead, look for the frightened and hurting all around you and tell them that God cares. If they are in financial hot water, I like to give them some money—$10 , $20, more—as a little seed that I am planting in that life so that God will grow it into a tree of supply. I like to take their hands and pray aloud. When I open my eyes, I often see tears in their eyes.

That's what we do all around the world. Desperate times mean desperate people. And desperate people are looking for hope that only a living Savior can give.

Stay on the lookout for the hurting. And please pray and support our efforts as we work a harvest field of precious souls across America and the world.

May God guide and guard you,

Frank Eiklor