Vibrant.

Handsome.

Warm.

That describes the face of the 36-year-old who stared at me today from the obituary page, squeezing my heart to the point of pain.  I didn’t know him personally.

A college honors graduate.

A sensitive person who regularly volunteered to serve the elderly and the needs of other target groups.

A life snuffed out in its prime–by his own hands.

A Christian.

The column read, “He passed into the loving arms of God after a lifelong battle with clinical depression.”

I’ve never tried to take my own life, but I’ve been on the cusp of it.  Scores of times, I couldn’t see through the dense fog to a brighter future.  I know the throbbing ache of despair to the point of asking God to take my life as I slept.  Oh, the times I’ve panicked because I didn’t know if I could last until bedtime, when I’d experience the reprieve of sleep.

When depression overwhelms, logic and objectivity of thought evaporate.  Pessimism reigns in the mind.  The possibility of getting better, of happiness, seems unattainable.  Past accomplishments don’t satisfy.  Future challenges, even those in the form of meaningful ministries, no longer fuel eager anticipation.  Hearing others’ words of affirmation can’t muffle the sound of self-condemnation or unearth the deep-rooted feeling of unworthiness.

So I hesitate to write this post because I fear my suggestions will come across as too simplistic or unrealistic or preachy.  I realize that everyone’s despondency is in some way different, whether in its cause, symptoms, or degree.

Despite those caveats, I’m offering three reasons not to take your own life.  Even if you aren’t depression-prone now, the day may come when suicide looks more appealing than continuing in a state of despair.

Though I’ll offer these suggestions as if I’m speaking one-to-one with the reader (addressing “you”),  these are arguments I speak to myself when I think I’d be better off dead.

 

How will ending your life affect those who love you?

How will your spouse, children, or parents react when they discover your body or get the call saying you’re gone?  Do you love them enough to spare them a broken heart?  Are you willing to absorb the pain of living in order to spare them shock and agony?  Do you want them to wonder why they weren’t enough for you?

Dying is easy.  It’s living that’s hard.  For their sake, will you do the harder thing?

A scene from a funeral home haunts me.  Fourteen and eleven-year-old girls took their final glance at their dad’s earthly body before someone closed the casket.  Only thirty-three, he succeeded on his fourth attempt to end his life.

The year before, not long after the third attempt, I begged him to think of his girls the next time he wanted to end it all.  He loved them passionately and called them “my life.”   Because he didn’t (or couldn’t) listen, his daughters, as they stared at his body, couldn’t dam the torrent of tears.

Life isn’t just about you.  It’s also about those who love you and how your actions affect them.

 

What will your suicide model for others about handling pain?

When your loved ones face serious difficulty, will the way you chose to escape influence them negatively, nudging them to consider suicide? When they encounter a career setback,  the piercing pain of a spouse’s betrayal, or some other tragic loss, will your decision increase the possibility that they’ll choose the same escape route?  Will they rationalize, “I can’t see things getting any better.  Dad (or Papaw) avoided the despair by killing himself. Maybe that’s an option for me, too.”

Some experts contend that about 50% of persons with chronic depression have a genetic predisposition to dark moods. If you’re prone to the depth of despondency that enhances the attractiveness of suicide, it increases the possibility that your children or grandchildren will be more susceptible to melancholy moods and irrational impulses.  Please don’t compound this vulnerability by suggesting through your example that death is preferable to life.

Oh, God, help us to model perseverance, even when the alternative seems more appealing than enduring the difficulty.

 

Who owns your body?

My prayer is that these next paragraphs won’t sound like a cold, typed point in a sermon outline.

When the thought of harming myself surfaces, I remind myself that my body doesn’t belong to me.  Christ purchased it with the high price of His blood (1 Peter 1:18-19). If you’re a Christian, the Holy Spirit resides there and “you are not your own…for you have been bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).

Though Paul’s words to the Corinthians capped an argument for sexual purity in the church, I apply it to myself when I don’t want to continue living. What right do I have to mistreat God’s property?

I also remind myself that if He is, indeed, sovereign over my life, then nothing–not even depression–happens to me without His permission.

If He hasn’t removed the recurring bouts of darkness, can you trust Him to use the darkness redemptively?  Is His sovereignty a sterile doctrine, or a dependable truth with profound implications for sufferers?

Will you allow Him to use the darkness to deepen your dependency on Him?  To enhance your sensitivity and ministry to others who hurt?  Can you best honor God by relying on His sustenance during episodes of depression, showing observers that He can strengthen and use the weak?  Could He possibly instill hope in others who are despondent because they see you trust Him to assuage the pain, rather than acting to escape it?

The next time suicide becomes a viable option, I hope these questions surface in your thinking.

I’m not about guilt trips.  A believer who follows through and takes his or her own life enters the presence of the Lord.  But such a course of action isn’t God’s desired will, nor is it God’s best for you, nor will God accomplish what He could have through you.

If your history is pock-marked with the emotional scars of depression, you’ve held on this long.  Hang on a while longer until the Lord determines when and how you’ll enter His presence. The current suffering is only temporary.  Focus on forever.

“He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall no longer be any death, there shall no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain” (Rev. 21:4).

Which argument (or question) resonated most with you?  Why?