Suicide.

Today’s Topic: Suicide

People tend to think that suicide rates increase during the Holiday season while many professionals in their respective fields strongly disagree with this “statistic” the fact remains that suicide is a problem.

This topic is dear to my heart because this is part of my testimony.

I love Jesus because He first loved me and Jesus loves, wants and saves the suicidal. I know because I’m living proof.

Jesus gives life and life more abundantly. Unfortunately there are people in this world who haven’t been truly exposed to this knowledge. The Bible very clearly states that lack of knowledge is a direct correlation  to people perishing. It’s important to be informed.

Here are some Suicide Facts & Statistics to Consider:

Nearly 30,000 Americans commit suicide every year

There are an estimated 8 to 25 attempted suicides to 1 completion

There are somewhere between 240,000-750,000 suicide attempts each year

For young people 15-24 years old, suicide is the third leading cause of death

Twice as many deaths due to suicide than HIV/AIDS

An average of one person dies by suicide every 16.2 min

Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States

For people who have never contemplated suicide it can be an abstract thought, topic or idea. The concept of suicide is not easily relatable. Most people assume that suicide is a direct result of depression, or hopelessness and sometimes that is not the case at all.

The poem “Wanting to Die” by Anne Sexton though unsettling gives some insight into the mind of someone who is suicidal.

“…I have nothing against life…./But suicides have a special language/like carpenters they want to know which tools./They never ask why build”

Suicide is not always a matter of not having anything to live for sometimes it is simply an indifference to life itself no matter how much there is to life for. Suicide may also be the result of feeling powerless and be the result of a struggle to gain control. In that way it is an attempt to literally take one’s own life into their hands.

Suicide is an infection of the mind. It takes indifference and the “I don’t care” attitude to a different plateau. Just like people who inflict pain upon themselves “to feel” some suicidal people believe suicide is the only way they can truly live life because they will feel life slipping away.

Suicide and suicidal thoughts are a plan of the enemy to blind people to the real meaning of this life – which is to experience the love of God and respond to it through love and service. Life is not simply about “feeling” or “living” or “experiencing with only the fives sense”, real life comes from faith, believing, and encountering God with our spiritual man.

Very briefly I’ll share part of my testimony. I was not depressed. I did not feel hopeless. I simply did not feel at all. I was indifferent to life and I couldn’t be bothered with pretending because it required too much effort. Suicide, that taboo word that abstract idea. I thought about it a lot. It consumed my thoughts. Then one night as I was finalizing the details, God spoke to me through a friend who called. I went through the motions of appearing normal answering those calls I would normally answer. That conversation changed my life I was literally told to stop what I was doing and return to God.

Even long after that no one really knew that I had come so close to attempting suicide, not even those closest to me. I thank God that He spoke and the person obeyed because had He not intervened I could have been lost.

As a society we need to be aware of this mental plague because those who are suicidal can be triggered to the final act by the smallest word or action.

Your encouraging word, your testimony, your passion to share the love of God can be the difference between life and death and an eternity in heaven versus an eternity in hell for someone who hears you.

Take a minute or two today to pray for those contemplating suicide. Pray that God would intervene the way He did for me and many others. And be open to making that small but crucial difference in someone's life.