By Nancy Virden (c)2023

No one wants to make suicide seem like a healthy option. Well, almost no one. Certainly, I do not. Challenging stigma around suicide is not trying to make it normal or comfortable, rather we want to make it easier for people to come forward and speak of their struggle. How else can we help to save their lives?

Common terminology is, “committed suicide.” This is because suicide was criminalized for many years. Many people still see it as taking a life, the murder of self. Since I am not God, I cannot possibly speak to the many reasons different people may have for ending their life. I do know that it is complicated and worthy of greater understanding than to write it off as criminal.

Religious stigma implies that one who has ended his life and thus cannot repent of murder is lost to hell forever. My primary difficulty with that thinking is that it suggests our salvation depends on whether we repent in time for anything. This is works-based salvation. What about the financially poor Christian husband who steals Christmas presents in a flash of impulse, and is hit by a bus? What about the believing woman who bitterly teaches her Sunday School class that we are victims of fate (a heresy) and dies of cancer before she repents for false teaching?

Are these people going straight to hell because in a moment of frustration or emotional anguish they did something wrong? I say no. God knows our hearts better than we know ourselves. He judges us by His wisdom and by the holiness of Christ’s blood that was shed for us in payment for our sins. He alone knows if a person died by suicide because of twisted thinking or blatant disregard for God’s ways. Even if we did suspect, we cannot judge because we are not, no not, all-knowing.

Some people die by suicide by accident. They misjudge the lethality of their act of desperation or are behaving recklessly and go too far. Just as some intended suicides are interrupted due to a lack of knowledge, some are completed for the same reason. Are all these desperate-minded people going to hell?

God is not unjust. Remember that. Next time you see a family member of someone who died by suicide, don’t tell them their loved one “committed suicide”. No wrong or mistake in and of itself sends us to hell. It is not having a Savior that sends us to eternal damnation. Jesus is our Savior in everything from which we need to be saved.

-COMMENTS WELCOME

Today’s Helpful Word

Hebrews 9:13-15

Under the old system, the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer could cleanse people’s bodies from ceremonial impurity. Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. That is why he is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant.

If you are feeling suicidal, or concerned about someone who is, in the U.S. call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988, or for a list of international suicide hotlines, go here.

If you are suicidal with a plan, immediately call 911 in the U.S. or go to your nearest emergency room. In the EU call 112. (For other international emergency numbers, go here ). Hope and help are yours!

Always the Fight Ministries (ATFM) has been displaying compassion for those fighting mental illness, addiction, or abuse since 2012. Nancy is the founder and voice of ATFM and openly shares her emotional resurrection from despair. NOTE: Nancy is not a doctor or a mental health professional, and speaks only from personal experience and observations. In no way is this website intended to substitute for professional mental or behavioral health care.

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