Going Through Gethsemane: Overcoming Darkness and Emerging into the Light

By Chris Dougherty

Have you been there? Have you been in place where you felt abandoned, forgotten, down trodden and without hope. If you have, join the crowd. We all have at some point in our lives. The author considers the dark times as Gethsemane moments. This inspirational book explores these times and more importantly offers encouragement and possible ways to get through Gethsemane. Life is beautiful, yet into every life comes periods of darkness, or you can call them Gethsemane moments, we can and must go through Gethsemane.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664207646

Chris Dougherty

Chris Dougherty is married to the love of his life Wendy, they have two wonderful children, Shane and Courtney. Chris is a graduate of DeSales University and Widener University. Born in Wilmington Delaware his career has taken him to Southern California. Chris is honored to serve as a Deacon in the Catholic Church.

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Copyright © 2020 Chris Dougherty.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

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except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher

make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book

and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Bible, Revised

Edition. Copyright © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian

Doctrine, Inc., Washington, DC. All Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0765-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0766-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0764-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020919107

WestBow Press rev. date:   10/12/2020

Contents

Chapter 1    My Broken – Not Holy - Halleluiah

Chapter 2    Life! A Series of Sunrises and Sunsets

Chapter 3    Scared to Death by God

Chapter 4    The best way out is always through – Robert Frost

Chapter 5    Looking for my Firelight

Chapter 6    Everyone Has a Plan Until They Get Hit

Chapter 7    Everything will be okay in the end. If it is not okay, it is not the end

Chapter 8    Going through Gethsemane – Grow through what you go through

Chapter 9    Getting Just a little bit of Hanging

Chapter 10    Cut the rope – Is there anyone else out there?

Chapter 11    There’s a place where fear must face the God You Know

Chapter 12    No One Fights Alone

Chapter 13    The First Stone – Give Me a Sense of Purpose – a Real Sense of Purpose Now

Chapter 14    The Second Stone Remove Negative Thoughts and Be Filled with Positive Thoughts – Blessings in Disguise

Chapter 15    The Third Stone My Body Is the Temple of the Holy Spirit

Chapter 16    The Fourth Stone Achieve A Deep Intimate Relationship with God – The Hurt and the Healer Collide

Chapter 17    The Fifth Stone Look for Angels – Calling All Angels

Chapter 18    Getting Through Gethsemane – The Sound of Surviving

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CHAPTER 1

My Broken – Not Holy - Halleluiah

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Beautiful music and songs mystically seem to capture the emotions of my life. At least for me, music and songs have a way of defining my story and enable me to convey the message imbedded in the story of my life. So, I will rely on various songs that touch my soul to help me compose the narrative of this chapter of my life. The beauty of the wonderful music and songs that I cling to not only assists in helping me tell my story, but has also profoundly assisted me in progressing on my journey. They have been constant companions in reviving me whenever need to.

Please experience this story for precisely what it is. This represents the work of a very average, ordinary, unworthy, imperfect person, attempting to offer praise to his perfect, loving, almighty God. There is no plausible way that this terribly flawed person could even adequately offer praise to God for all His glorious blessings and majestic workings in my life. Despite this inadequacy, I feel compelled to tell this story. It is in fact, God’s story and my desire to share this story is to offer praise and glory to our wonderful God, who has given me so much and graced my life in so many ways.

I have been divinely inspired by the heavenly, beautiful song Hallelujah. This incredible song, written by the late, great Leonard Cohen, is so very inspiring me to listen to. It has been performed by countless wonderful artists. Many artists have altered some of the lyrics in this magnificent song. All these versions are sensational in their own way, but the original lyrics by Leonard Cohen are the ones that speak most directly to myself and help me to tell my story. To initiate the narrative of this chapter of my life, I point to a few lines that Leonard Cohen wrote, that I believe are very relevant in expressing my desires: There’s a blaze of light in every word it doesn’t matter what you heard the holy on the broken Hallelujah. I sincerely hope that in my story- there is a blaze of light in every word, and that my story is a Hallelujah. By that I mean that it comes across as joyous praise for God and that it is seen as boasting in God!

Leonard Cohen distinguishes the Holy and the broken Hallelujah. My telling of this story is my broken Hallelujah to my loving Abba. My sincerest hope is that by offering this Hallelujah, no matter how broken it may be, it will still bring glory and praise to God. Further, I hope that it will inspire others to see the glory of God no matter that you heard, or more correctly need, a broken Hallelujah. My story emanates from events in my life and the miraculous, incredible workings of God throughout my life.

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CHAPTER 2

Life! A Series of Sunrises and Sunsets

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Life! What a glorious gift from God! Life is filled with joyous, moments of absolute ecstasy. Love and relationships bring majestic beauty and joy into our lives. But life is not all joy and light. From time to time darkness creeps into our lives. We face sorrow, struggles, doubts, even despair.

There have been so many great moments, high points, and times that I have experienced incredible joy in my life. What a fountain of blessings I see in these memories of ecstasy. Throughout my life, I have been granted unbelievable glimpses of heaven when I have experienced these delightful, joy filled moments.

I specifically recall a great moment, a really peak day where I felt immense joy, it seemed like a perfect day. I point this particular memory out because it may be the earliest memory of great joy that I possess. I may have been five or six years old at the time and I don’t really remember all of the specific circumstances of this day but here is what I do remember. I recall this wonderful family outing. We went to a venue in Pennsylvania that was named the Valley Forge Music Fair. This would be my first opportunity to see a Broadway musical. Honestly, I don’t believe I was that excited about seeing a musical. No, what really excited me was that this was a very special family outing because it included my entire immediate family, including my mother, my father, my brother and my two sisters. Now the four of us kids may have argued and fought a lot, but we really loved each other and enjoyed being together. What made the excursion so special was that we were also accompanied by my grandmother and our aunt who lived with her. My grandmother and aunt rarely left their house and the fact that they were with us made this extremely special. We were very close to them and loved them dearly. To my surprise the show was sensational. It was Fiddler on the Roof and it had an extraordinary cast. I remember it was under an enormous tent, and it was a bit hot under that tent, but that didn’t seem to matter. It didn’t matter because I was with the ones that I loved most in life, at that time and for goodness sake the four of us kids were not arguing or fighting! We were all watching a great show and reveling in being together, it felt like Christmas or Easter, it was so special. What a day! What great joy! Life is good! I even remember there was even a song in the show that seemed to really capture the immense joy I was feeling that day. The song was called To Life. It is an extremely exuberant, upbeat song that celebrates the joy we find in living. The entire ensemble sang the following chorus, to life, to life l’chaim- l’chaim, l’chaim to life. It is a song that is giving a big, grateful cheers to life and tells of how joyful life is. That song really captured my euphoric feelings of that day. How delightful it was to be with those I loved so much and enjoying this marvelous, uplifting show- to life!

As I mentioned, I was very young, little did I know that life would be full of moments of joy- great highs, but also inevitably there would be some sorrow that would center into my life, some dark times, some low points. I would experience peaks and valleys in my life, and I suspect we all do. In fact, in retrospect, the song from Fiddler on the Roof that best describes my life journey form that wonderful day on was a song called, Sunrise, Sunset. This is a beautiful yet much more sobering song that eloquently describes the way joy and sorrow, weave through our lives. The chorus goes like this Sunrise, sunset; sunrise, sunset; swiftly fly the years. One season following another laden with happiness and tears. How true those words are, laden with happiness and tears. After that day, which was a sunrise day, I would experience