After years of abuse at school, he'd had it. My normally happy and peaceful young son was not thinking at all about suicide, but the anger in his heart was boiling over, causing him to be terse, short with all of us, and unable to deal with the normal situations. His mind was in survival mode from daily abuse.

He's a very compliant child, not only cooperative and sweet, but helpful in the extreme of people with problems, especially hard technical questions, at which he's become rather adept. He studies endlessly to learn anything electrical, logical, or mechanical. As a result, he's become the go to guy at his job. It wasn't always that way.

In high school there was a kid who constantly went after him, incessantly picking on him. And a teacher, just graduated from Bible college, who turned him in accompanied by a false accusation. The school administration, not following their own policies to investigate, expelled him from the school, rather than face the kid's parents, known to threaten other people, or the teacher, who, a year later was fired for an unassociated infraction of lying. But my son's spirit was so broken from the endless needling that it took seven years of counseling to rebuild his confidence. (Two years later, my wife was told by another former teacher at the school that the entire administration had ultimately been replaced. We were already home schooling by then)

We have to depend on and trust in God, though it may be hard for years to see the grace and goodness of the Lord in times of persecution. It IS hard when bombarded by negativity and attacks, to see the grace of God!

I'm reminded of Paul wrote powerful letters from a prison in Rome shortly before he died a martyr's death! Truly, in God is our calm, our refuge!