12, The Prison of Despair
The Covenant Key, Opens in the Darkness
The Covenant Key That Opens in the Darkness
A Day So Painful I Wanted to Die
Being a Christian does not mean one is spared from agony so deep that death seems preferable.
I, too, have stood on that edge.
There were days when a whisper brushed across my heart:
“Should I end my own life now?”
Scripture tells us that suicide is a form of murder.
Yet the Lord also calls us to pray as though our lives depended on it,
and He promises to answer those who cry out to Him.
John Bunyan writes in The Pilgrim’s Progress:
“The Lord has placed into the hands of all believers
the mysterious key that unlocks the gate of Doubting Castle.”
The Giant of Despair and the Castle of Doubt
Christian and Hopeful entered what seemed a peaceful path,
but it did not last long.
Soon they fell into a deep pit and struggled desperately to escape.
Exhausted, they finally crawled out and collapsed in sleep.
Fig. 12–1: Christian and Hopeful imprisoned in the dungeon of Doubting Castle
But in that moment,
the Giant Despair appeared and seized them.
He dragged them to the underground dungeon of Doubting Castle.
Its darkness pressed against their lungs like cold, damp iron.
There they endured days of hunger, torment, and fear.
The giant growled:
“Who are you? Why have you trespassed on my land?”
Christian stammered,
“We are pilgrims… we lost our way…”
Without a word, the giant hurled them into the dungeon.
With no water, no bread, and no light,
their faith began to crumble.
Giant Despair had a wife named Diffidence.
When he asked what to do with the prisoners,
she advised,
“Beat them until they long for death
and end their own lives.”
Fig 12-2: The Giant Despair and his wife Diffidence.A Faith Collapsing
That night Christian groaned in agony.
“Brother, what shall we do?
Better to die than to suffer like this.The grave would be more peaceful than this dungeon.”
Hopeful bowed his head.
“I feel the same.
Yet the Lord has commanded, ‘You shall not kill.’Suicide is the path of losing one’s soul.”
With their strength nearly gone,
they sank to their knees on the cold stone floor
and prayed through the night, weeping until dawn.
The Key of the Covenant
At the break of dawn,
Christian suddenly cried out:
“Ah! How foolish I’ve been!
All this time I have stayed in this rotting cell,
even though there is a way of escape!
I carry in my bosom a key called Promise.
I’ve heard it can open every lock in Doubting Castle!”
Hopeful’s eyes widened.
“Quick, bring it out!”
The moment the key touched the lock—click!
The door swung open.
They stepped out from the dungeon of darkness and despair,
and walked toward the light and hope.
The Battle with the Spirit of Alcohol
I too have known a time that felt like the prison of despair.
It was the shadow of alcohol—
the same shadow that had fallen on my father and my younger brother—
and now it reached even to my daughter.
She was a good and clever child,
yet after she became an adult,
whenever she went out for a company dinner,
she would drink until she lost consciousness.
There were nights she wandered the streets
unable to find her way home.
Fig. 12–3: My daughter often became unable to find her way home after drinking.When Darkness Returned
Four years ago, I stood with my daughter
before a deep and terrifying pit.
I will never forget the sorrow and confusion trembling in her eyes—
and the way she quietly despised herself.
I was her father,
and yet I was powerless to save her.
That night, for the first time, I asked myself:
“God, why have You allowed such a valley in my child’s life?”
But there was no answer.
Only silence.
And in that silence,
I fell to my knees.
The Prison of Despair — The Place Where Christian Fell
John Bunyan speaks of the Giant Despair in The Pilgrim’s Progress.
This giant crushes hope itself
and thrusts his victims into a subterranean chamber
called the prison of despair.
It is a place where no light reaches—
cold, damp,
and echoing with the sound of one’s heart slowly breaking.
Whenever I read Bunyan’s description,
I think of my daughter alone in a midnight alleyway.
The grip of alcohol was no mere temptation.
It was a chain binding the soul:
shaking her,
clouding her mind,
collapsing her thoughts,
and tearing apart her self-worth.
So I was convinced:
“This is not a mere habit.
This is a spiritual battle aimed at the soul.”
A Prayer Offered at the Risk of Death
Darkness came to us again—
but this time, things were different.
When I heard the news,
I dropped to the ground in speechless sorrow.
“…Why now again?”
But something had changed within me.
Once, I feared the prison of despair.
But now,
I knew the key that opens its door.
Prayer.
Promise.
And a love that refuses to give up.
So I began fasting and praying again.
I do not know when this will end.
But I will keep walking and praying:
“God, if the Giant of Despair knocks again on her heart,
then place the key of Your covenant in my hands once more.”
Fig. 12–4: At the moment the prison of despair opened,
I saw in a vision the flowers that adorned my daughter’s living-room wall.
Like the Prison Door That Opened for Peter
Scripture tells us that when Peter was imprisoned,
his chains fell off by themselves,
and the door opened
without a human hand touching it.
Yet behind that miracle
was one thing:
the earnest prayer of the church.
And I believe this:
My daughter’s heart,
her struggle with alcohol,
and the darkness trying to swallow her
will one day break apart
like Peter’s chains.
Until that day comes,
I will not stop praying.
Fig. 12–5: The moment Peter’s prison door opened.A Quiet Confession to My Daughter
My beloved daughter,
the most precious thing in this world
is the fact that you are alive.
You may stumble.
You may waver again.
There may be times you sink to the ground.
But remember this:
Your father will never give up on you.
And God—
He has not let go of you for even a single moment.
You may feel as if you are walking through darkness,
but the light is already walking beside you.
For Those Who Find Themselves in the Prison of Despair
Everyone can enter this prison.
Its appearance may differ,
but its name is often the same:
Alcohol.
Relationships.
Wounds.
Failure.
Loneliness.
Depression.
The heaviness of life…
But there is something that outlasts every prison:
God’s promise.
The door never stays closed forever.
No matter how fiercely the Giant Despair crushes us,
God has hidden a key within each of us.
Sometimes that key shines quietly
in the tears of prayer,
in the touch of love,
in steps that refuse to give up.
Fig. 12-6: A child's room where sleep has returned, The Word became flesh.The Word that Shone in the Prison of Despair
— “The Word Became Flesh”
I have a daughter and a granddaughter.
Three years ago, my daughter got married, and soon became a mother herself.
One day, she left one-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter at home
while my son-in-law and the daughter went out to see a late movie.
That night, the room where she slept
was the very same room where my daughter once slept
before she got married.
On the surface, it appears ordinary—
same house, same room, only a different generation.
But imagine viewing that night
from God’s perspective, beyond the flow of time—
then this simple moment begins to take on a very different meaning.
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…”
(John 1:14)
In the realm of spirit,
was God not already aware
that this child would be born?
As if calling a name,
did He not call life itself into being by the Word?
The next morning, when I saw my granddaughter’s face,
a thought struck me:
God had already worked a small miracle.
Just a few years ago,
this child was beyond my imagination.
But to God, there is no before or after—
He stands outside of time.
This is why Scripture is filled with stories
that cannot be fully grasped by reason alone:
it is the language of God’s timeless realm
translated into human words.
As the Apostle Paul confessed:
“Though our outer self is wasting away,
our inner self is being renewed day by day.”
(2 Cor. 4:16)
This too eludes pure logic,
yet when our spirit is filled with the Spirit of Christ,
new life begins,
and the door to eternity opens.
Paul even described bodily death
as an act of being swallowed up by life itself. (2 Cor. 5)
Despair is not the end—
it is the threshold of life.
Today, artificial intelligence may
bring us ever closer to realms once thought divine,
creating new worlds with a single command,
erasing the line between prediction and creativity.
Yet no matter how advanced technology becomes,
one truth remains clear:
The miracle of bringing life into being—
the act of opening the prison door
for someone trapped in despair—
that belongs to God alone.
The Word who became flesh still speaks
in the midst of humanity’s darkest prisons:
“Arise.
The door has already been opened.”
A Pilgrim’s Confession
Now I know:
Despair is not meant to finish me,
but to rise me up again.
Prayer may seem like dim starlight,
yet it is enough
to guide a traveler through the night.
And I know this too:
God is still opening
the prison doors of despair
even today.