Dying to Die

            The greatest serial killer of our time has never been apprehended.  His victims number beyond reckoning.  He is never seen by his victims, but he makes his presence unbearably strong.  He often kills in the most sadistic, agonising ways imaginable.  He claims lives across the globe.  His vendetta stretches as far back as the beginning of time.  His name is Despair.

            Every day we see, walk past, work with, live with, and go to school or church with men and women who are slowly dying.  Often their despair isn’t even noticed.   He is so subtle and crafty that he is regularly unnoticed even by his own victims until it is nearly too late.  He is also terribly powerful.

            This monster is so strong that he can blind people to the truth that life is God’s greatest gift, and tricks them into seeing it as a curse from which to escape.  Satan’s most devilish insult to God is taking the pinnacle of His creation, and deceiving it into tearing itself to pieces before destroying itself.  What is truly sad is how little we speak out about suicide compared to other “hot issues”.

            We see films, read books, and hear sermons on issues such as abortion, pornography, crime, pain, and how to get over them, but so often these subjects are simply the gateway to the far greater evils of guilt, suffering, and despair.  These things do not require grand sinful acts and are so easy to hide from everyone else around.  They bring about loneliness, and loneliness brings them about.  They make a man drift slowly, almost unnoticeably, further and further into real and/or imagined isolation, Satan/Despair’s most successful tactic.  Fear is also a useful tool.  People become so afraid of being driven further into isolation, that they unwittingly do exactly that, as they fear that seeking help will only bring negative attention and stigma upon themselves, so they bury the truth even deeper.  The most horrifyingly sad aspect of this is that so very, very often this fear is justified.

            Nearly every suicide victim has felt that at best, no one will truly care about their pain, and at worst, people will make their wounds deeper; that everyone’s lives would be better—happier—once they are gone.  All too often, the evidence of how people speak to and treat them is genuinely supportive of this lie.  When someone is told repeatedly that, “you fail at life,” we cannot be surprised when they decide to drop out of it.  Everyone knows we discard of scum we find lying around, so if they are told that they too are scum, why should their fate be any different?

            In the aftermath of a suicide, we often hear people, even the ones who may have made the sort of degrading comments mentioned above, remark about how selfish the act of suicide is.  After all, it deprives parents of their beloved children, soldiers of their useful comrades, and children of their life-giving parents, and all because they were focusing on themselves and their own pain. While these facts are true, let us look a little bit deeper.  How many children live feeling guilty or burdensome to people who are obligated to be responsible for them? How many soldiers wonder if something were to happen to them, if their battle-buddies would really miss them so much as miss having another body for duties.  How many parents feel ashamed and that they will only fail their children?

What is truly more selfish? Ending definite personal hardship and the apparent hardship of others caused by mere existence? Or cutting away at someone’s life just to help us feel better about our own; or even simply neglecting to care for those in pain?  It is appalling, maddening, and sickening to think of how many literally untold lives could have been saved by a single moment of kindness and compassion from someone…anyone.  Decades of the lives of millions prove to not even be worth the five seconds it takes to tell someone they are special and loved! Even a single, simple compliment can make an unimaginable difference. What sort of difference could be made if the pregnant cashier at Taco Bell was sincerely told she has beautiful eyes? If your debt-ridden co-worker was told they are doing an excellent job? If your rebellious son was told he played a really great game out on the field? If your depressed daughter was told she’s a true princess? If you saw the ragged man on the side of the road and his cardboard sign, looked not back down at the stereo but in is eye, and fed, clothed, and helped him?

We go to church on Sunday seeking God, and, hopefully, we find Him there to a degree.  But where God truly can be found is in the poor on the street, the frightened people barely making ends meet, the diseased and war-torn nations in Africa, the unsatisfied corporate executives, the panicked soldier on the battle field, and the despairing friend sitting next to you.  Therefore, it is vital that we get out and join God in what He is doing out in the world and in the lives of desperate people.  If we want God to bless our lives, we must allow God to let us be the blessings in the lives of others.  We will be someone’s mouthpiece; either for Satan’s barrage of degradation, or for God’s love and compassion.  Satan’s native language of deceit is overwhelming to so many, but God’s language of Love and Hope is far stronger, and is meant to be our only language.