the stars don't care

I know what it's like to be ridiculously depressed and too anxious to breathe. I have also been faced with a situation where I genuinely pondered if I could live with the outcome. I thought to myself, "I now understand how people could kill themselves."

I can still understand, but in a very different way. The Kind Father has shown so much mercy to me...

My current roommate makes my third friend to express their fantasies of death to me. I have read books and gone to suicide prevention seminars. I have a list of "do's and don't's" for helping suicidal people. I have been told (so many times...) that I am ultimately not responsible for their actions.

I have read the Christian articles with the most unhelpful advice of "you just need Jesus" and "being depressed is a choice - so just don't be depressed and read another Bible devotional instead."

Thanks for nothing...

I have struggled so much (and still do) with how to help people contemplating suicide and how to not go crazy myself. I do believe that we are created by the Greater Being and we are designed to live a particular lifestyle that completely relies on God. And if God chose, I would not be writing this now. God is in complete control. The only way any of us will overcome sin is directly through Jesus. So yes, Jesus is the answer...

But telling the suicidal person to go pray, when they regularly hear "the voice of God"  telling them to kill themselves, seems like a less than brilliant idea. They need more than a good devotion and some alone "Jesus time." They need help (and yes, I believe that it is Christ who provides this help through counselors, medications, and people who are more attuned to God's desires for human life).

And yet, I am still not sure how I can really help, and how I should process everything. I feel torn between the condemnation of onlookers who have such easy solutions for 'those people' and being right next to so much darkness -- I don't know how much is enabling, helping, condemning, encouraging - I DO NOT KNOW!

The Lord did provide me with a non-Christian excerpt of someone's emotional response to suicide. I do not know who the author was, I was only given the words. It helped me put some of my frustration and passion concerning suicide onto paper.

The article addressed an underlying theme for my friends: they feel like they do not matter and nothing will change if they aren't living.

'The stars will come out and the world will keep spinning,' they say.

As the article so aptly describes, yes, the stars will come up, so why does your life matter? Why not just kill yourself?

The article reads:

"You want a 'Why not?' 

How about the way your best friend's older sister will throw up by the side of the road because she is crying so hard?

How about the way your best friend will sob for weeks in her showers, in her bedroom, in the bathroom at school?

How about the way your mother will cry every time she looks at herself in the mirror and pictures herself bringing you home?

How about the way your father's eyes will NEVER stop mirroring the image of your hanging body?

How about the way your boyfriend will sit in his room in silence, unable to to eat or sleep, or even... shower, because why would he want to continue without you?

How about the way the girl who calls you brother will start crying every time she sees your parents?

How about the way your family will sit in your house after the funeral looking blankly at one another, because...they can't find a...thing to say that doesn't float through the air where you should be walking?

How about the way your sister will wake up every morning and see your door and convince herself that you could still be there, just sleeping in your bed?

How about the way your now-ex girlfriend will come over and pull your clothes from the drawers and cry while she holds them desperately to her face to breathe in what's left of you?

Don't you dare tell me it won't change things.

There may be stars in the sky and wind in the air and sun in the clouds.

But without you we do not want them.

That's why not." 

- Author unknown

This article is from a worldly perspective, but I feel a truth in the words. Christ tells us that our life is not our own. It was given to us by Him.

Lives don't matter because the world would change if we weren't here. We weren't created for this world, anyway - of course it will go on.

Lives matter because we were created to live. We were created for God. We were created for each other and to need each other. We were created.

When I ponder the idea that we were indeed created, it emphasizes the absurdity of self-destruction.

I don't think that simply telling my roommate that we were specifically created is going to be enough to keep her from taking her own life. But it kinda helps me put words into why the darkness of suicide makes it hard to breathe. It explains why I have never been able to casually discuss the topic of suicide with people. It explains why I am driven to help people who struggle with depressions and suicidal thoughts. It is so destructive, so evil, and so consuming. It is a unique darkness that I have not felt anywhere else...

Kind Father, please help us.