Written after hearing the news of the loss of Jarrid Wilson.
A pit in my stomach arises. I think I am going to be sick.
That is how I feel every time I hear the news of someone taking their own life. Whether I know them or not, it is the thought that a person reached a level of hopelessness so deep that to die seemed better than to live. How can this be? How can the shadows creep that far out of the closet that they overcome people? My brain cannot wrap itself around it nor do I want it to.
It is not God’s design for us. I hope I never stop responding the way I do. I hope there is always the shock and utter disbelief that it has happened. It needs to be that way. As the statistics rise at a pace to fast to keep up with, it does not matter how high the numbers get, we must never let ourselves become accustomed to the concept of suicide.
Today, I think about one of my best friends who has had the demons whispering in her ear. I think about my older brother, in the thick of addiction, believing there might only be one way to stop using once and for all. I think about the high school girls who have sat across from me at a summer camp and out loud confessed the urge to make it all stop. None of them fit a certain mold. All ages. All backgrounds. All stages of life. By the grace of God, each of them is still here. Unfortunately, this is not everyone’s story. We celebrate the ones who are still here but we weep with those who sit in the valley of the shadow of death. We partake in sharing both emotions.
We have to do better. I do not have all the answers. I do not have a secret formula for how I think this will be done. I just know that every fiber in my being is telling me that we have to do better.
Our church buildings have become perfectly decorated and aesthetically pleasing but I am afraid that the people inside of it have come to believe that they need to match the environment. Our churches should be functioning as hospital rooms for the sick – mentally sick and physically sick. They should be lifelines of hope and oxygen mask to the ones who barely can take another breath. They should be places where the mess feels welcomed, not something we ask you to sweep under the door as you walk in. It is not supposed to feel like the time when company is showing up and you shove everything in the back room. Maybe we need more of the mess showing. Maybe that is where we start. Maybe all of, every single one of us, stop walking around like we have it all figured out. Maybe what you and I can do is stop putting up fronts and polished outwear. Maybe we show up with every dent in our amour showing from our own battles we have been fighting.
Maybe the starting place is we stop assuming. We stop assuming that the people we see day in and day out are okay. We stop assuming that anyone is more likely than others.
I hope that we stop assuming and instead start asking. And to those of you who are have experienced the aftermath of someone assuming that you were okay when you were in fact drowning, I am sorry. I am sorry that we assumed just because you walked through the doors of a church that you were fine. I am sorry that we assumed because you showed up to work that you were doing good. I am sorry that we assumed because you do occupational ministry that struggles did not exist for you. I am sorry that we assumed because you were a parent of beautiful children that internally there wasn’t more going on.
I am sorry.
I am sorry for how many times I have said the phrase, “I never would have thought…”
Why does that phrase even exist? Do we even realize how much shame we are throwing on people when we say this? We might as well say, “you don’t look like someone who would be struggling.” What we are saying is that we were basing the inward position of people’s hearts by the outward expressions we see. I believe that phrase is the language of the enemy. It is a phrase I do not ever want to have to use again. The only way I do that is by making myself stop assuming and start asking. We must connect more. We must sit down with people more. We must create more spaces for messes to be seen and messes to feel like they can come out.
It is not an answer to this epidemic tied in a pretty bow, but, it is a start. And we have to start somewhere.
