DO I REALLY WANT TO COMMIT SUICIDE?
(By: Norm Rasmussen)
The following is an email I received about hopelessness and possible suicide and how I felt to respond back to this precious individual. My intention of making it public is to let God use it if He wants to somehow minister to others who can relate to this individual's pain of living...
Dear Brother Norm,
I don't know when you posted your video, but I just watched it. In a nutshell, I'm 58, was raised in a Christian home, turned turned away from God in my teens and only accepted Jesus into my life in 2002. Before that I destroyed my life with alcohol, throwing away my marriage of 15 years and losing everything. These past 12 years have not been easy, but I have not had a drink in 13 years.
So why was I watching a suicide video? In the past year I've lost everything. I developed sciatica which has brought horrible pain, and was laid off for a second time. I lost my medical insurance after the layoff, then before I enrolled in a plan, I had to be hospitalized for a staph infection. I then developed staph in my spine, which required twelve hours of surgery. As my doctor said, I could easily have died or been paralyzed, but this didn't happen. God kept me alive for a reason, but, Lord forgive me for saying, I wish He hadn't. I now owe hundreds of thousands in medical bills, no job, and no prospects. I live in a rented room and have nothing. I just don't want to be alive anymore.
I want to thank you for your video. I am holding off on doing anything rash. Yes, I know I sound like a spoiled ingrate, but really, the worst thing is that I'm alone. I yearn to share my life with a good Christian lady. And I met one. She is a wonderful gal. She was disabled years ago when a car hit her as she was walking across the street to church years ago. She has such a strong faith, has never been married at age 52. I love and respect this woman so much, and we do go out all the time, but she had been used and hurt by men so many times. She said she doesn't want romantic relationships ever again. I'm so blessed to know her, and just hope maybe someday she will come to see me as a man she can trust, but, well, I guess I'm fooling myself. Anyway, all this sounds so trivial, and you would say I'm very blessed. I know I should feel joy, but I feel despair instead. I don't know how to pick up the pieces of my life. I asked God to show me, but He has not done so. I have lost all purpose and hope.
Thank you for your time. Again, I'm not going to do anything tonight or tomorrow. I guess really I'm reaching out for help--help in the sense of being reassured that there is hope.
God bless, L.
How I felt to respond: Thanks for sharing, L. You're a wise, wise man for humbling yourself and reaching out.
Obviously you have walked with Jesus. I'm persuaded that people such as yourself are focusing on suicide as a way out from hopefully having not to have to deal with God any longer. Feel free to tell me if you believe I'm wrong, but I sense that you're REAL struggle is simply that you are tired of 'FEELING' let down by God. FEELING God has let us down and God actually giving up on us are two entirely different matters. I don't believe God ever gives up on us, unless we make a solid decision to stop following and trusting in Jesus Christ any longer. If we are serious about doing that, we risk greatly having the Holy Spirit pull away from us and thereby essentially telling Jesus to go take a LONGGGGGG hike, so to speak.
In our pain, we can become polarized, focused on the wrong things, which is Satan's trap. Satan wants us believing the lie that taking our life will end our suffering. He full well knows BETTER.
Prayerfully consider reading this writing and ask God to quicken to you that which you are able to handle regarding the writing: DON'T MISS THIS END-TIME WISDOM (From God I Believe, But You Be the Judge)
I've seriously considered suicide in times past as a way to hopefully be relieved of my pain, as you recently have. Yet by the grace and mercy of God, He's helped me to see that killing myself may actually be the BEGINNING of worse pain for me the rest of eternity. I can't prove differently. Killing myself in no way gives me real hope that I'll have a better existence once I'm dead through suicide.
Thus I've come to realize that for me to make it in this 'miserable' life, there is only ONE option left. To try to stop over-analyzing WHY all the painful things that have and continue happening to me, and simply leap over adverse circumstances that inflict me with pain and CHOOSE to praise and worship my Savior until my heart stops beating.
When I exit this life, however God will allow that to happen, I want to remember this life by how it ended for me. My options seem to be only two that I'm aware of:
1) Either praising and thanking my Creator, no matter how much pain I am and/or have had to endure, or...
2) Go out bitter, angry, and caught up in utter hopelessness because I believed the lie that Jesus Christ simply isn't worthy of my praise and thanks to Him (unless He changed things for me...sigh)
Either He's worthy or not. I've had to face that very trial ' make that decision - a number of times, trying to decide WHICH it will be. He leaves the choice to us. By His help that I just don't comprehend most of the time yet He assures me in His Word that He's the author and FINISHER of my salvation, He allows me to realize that if I choose the opposite of praising and thanking Him, by an act of my will ' no matter how unfair life seems to have treated me 'and YOU God could have kept that from happening!' I am not attaining to what He created me to be, and to become. God created me to be a winner, not a loser. I firmly believe that applies to everyone. The ONLY way I know how to win is to keep speaking well of my Lord and Savior, no matter how much pain there may be in my heart and body while I'm doing so.
Anyone can praise and thank God when life seems to be going right. God allows us to see ourselves truly as we ARE by allowing trials to try our very soul as you have been/are being tried. I've flunked that trial on many occasions, yet for some baffling reason I just don't understand, He KEEPS putting up with me. Go FIGURE!!!
In His Love & Service,
Dear Reader - are you at peace with God? If not, you can be. Do you know what awaits you when you die? You can have the assurance from God that heaven will be your home, if you would like to be certain. You can even have that assurance RIGHT NOW! Either Jesus Christ died for your sins, or He didn't (He did!). Are you prepared to stand before God on the Judgment Day and tell Him that you didn't need the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the Cross to have your sins forgiven and get in right-standing with God? We plead with you...please don't make such a tragic mistake.
To get to know God, to be at peace with God, to have your sins forgiven, to make certain heaven will be your home for eternity, to make certain that you are in right-standing with God right now ... please click here to help you understand the importance of being reconciled to God. What you do about being reconciled to God will determine where you will spend eternity, precious one. Your decision to be reconciled to God is the most important decision you'll ever make in this life, because in Christ, it is impossible to put a value on the worth of your soul in light of eternity.
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Remember: All that we do in this life comes back to our God-given purpose which is to serve and glorify God. The money and assets we accumulate, the fame and power we've attained or seek to attain - all of the things of this nature will one day pass away, but those lives of others we impact for Jesus Christ will last for eternity, and we will be rewarded for the part we helped play by impacting those lives ... for eternity. (Matthew 6:19-21 is our assurance)