Suicide, Eternity, and Awareness

Rick Warren's youngest son Matthew took his own life yesterday morning at the age of 27. When I heard the news this afternoon, my heart broke for him, and for his family. Apparently, he had suffered from mental illness, including depression and suicidal thoughts for most of his life. What a load to bear! And what a load for his family to bear now that he's gone.
Having personally struggled under the weight of depression, and having attempted suicide myself within the last year, the news of this suicide has shaken me up. It has brought along with it so many thoughts and memories, way too many for one blog post. There are a few that I would like to address tonight, however, and perhaps a couple more in the days to come. One of the first thoughts that came to mind when I heard about Matthew, after, of course, the sickening sadness for him and for his family, was of the vicious, evil comments the family is likely to get bombarded with. Sadly, conservative Christians are notorious for their cruelty to certain types of hurting people, such as the mentally ill and those with alternative lifestyles. I won't go into all of the destructive "advice/opinions" that were said to me in my darkest moments by people who claim the name of Christ, but I do want to address one. I have been told that a person who commits suicide will not go to heaven, that it is an unpardonable sin. Come again? "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16. Nearly every person who lives in this country knows this verse. Ask a Christian how they know who goes to heaven, and odds are they will quote you this verse. Let me tell you something. I cannot speak for every person who commits suicide, as I am not them and do not know where their heart is or what their beliefs are, but I can tell you this. That dreadful, dreadful day last October, when I opened a bottle of pills and downed them, my faith in Jesus was still very real and active. I knew He was the Son of God. I knew that without Him, there was no way I was good enough to stand before God and I knew that His blood covered all my sins. That is, I knew that at my core, in the rational brain that I could not access that morning. I knew that in the brain that could think, and reason, and debate. Unfortunately, that day, all I was left with was an all-consuming, heart wrenching, mind-numbing pain that took over every ounce of me and shut down that brain. My chest literally hurts right now as I type, just from the memory of the excruciating pain of that morning. I knew I was in trouble, but I couldn't get myself out of it. Life hurt SO bad, SOO bad, and it felt as if nothing was ever going to take that away. Taking those pills had nothing to do with my belief that Jesus is the Son of God and the atonement of my sin. Do I believe that my suicidal attempt was a sin? Yes, just like murder is. Life is not for us to take. But unforgivable? No. I have never seen that in Scripture and I don't believe I ever will because I don't think it's in there. If you want to take the argument that a person committing suicide is dying in the act of committing a sin and is therefore condemned, you are taking a very narrow view of the grace of God! We all do stupid things. We fall. We fail. Every hour of every day, we break the laws and commands of God. If you believe that you cannot be breaking one of those commands at the time of your death and still enter eternal life, then good luck to you. I hope you don't have a heart attack while lusting, or stroke out at a time of high stress when you are angry at your brother. Oops. Picked the wrong moment to die. Sucks to be you. Perhaps you will make the point that in those examples, your sin would not be causing your death, as it does in the case of suicide, and I will agree there is a slight difference there, but I come back to my earlier point. Show it to me in Scripture. Having been trapped in the suffocating darkness of major depression, crying out to God from the depth of my being and hearing nothing in return (He was there. I just couldn't feel Him at the time.), I do not believe that the God of grace and love that I read about in the Bible would condemn such a wretched, suffering soul to eternity in Hell because the burden, at that split second in time, became too much for them to bear. Perhaps I am wrong, but I think not.
There is much I could write on this issue of depression and suicide, as it is near and dear to my heart. And what an epidemic it is! Did you know that, according to the CDC, an average of 105 people commit suicide a day in the United States?!! 105! We heard about Matthew Warren today because his father pastor's a megachurch and his book "Purpose-Driven Life" has sold thirty million copies, so nearly everyone knows who he is. But what of the other 104 people who took their own lives on that same day? Who are they? What are their stories? What caused a pain so deep in their lives that they just couldn't face another day? And what in the world can we do about it?
According to MADD, 27 people a day die as the result of drunk driving crashes. Tragic! That is 27 people too many, and yet four times that many die from suicide every day! According to this Puget Sound Susan G. Komen webpage, about 110 people will die each day in the US from breast cancer, nearly equivalent to the number who will take their own lives. For breast cancer, we have pink ribbon, mammograms, early detection tips, Relay for life, Susan G. Komen foundation, etc. What do we have for those battling depression? There are some resources available (National Suicide Prevention Line, NAMI, to name a couple), but many of us do not know about them. What can we do to raise awareness? What can we do to help? How can we bring light into this suffocating darkness? I don't know, but I'm determined to find out, because 105 people a day is 105 too many.