Suicide 365

To myself, and all the other self-centered rats out there who seek the Father.

“And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.”    

Luke 9:23

Ever wonder why some of the most successful, talented affluent people on earth take their own lives?  Chris Cornell, Anthony Bourdain, Kurt Cobain, Naomi Judd and Kate Spade are just a few whose self-inflicted deaths have shocked the world and forced us to look in the collective mirror and wonder why?

Because I come from a family-tree with nooses on every branch hung by relatives who have either attempted or contemplated suicide, I take the matter seriously.  From what I have learned suicide, in many ways, can paradoxically be often avoided and in other ways unstoppable; avoided because in many situations the act is the result of not seeing any other way out of a situation so all it takes is other people watching and reaching out when someone signals they have reached an end of their ability to cope; cannot be stopped because sadly, if or when someone sets their mind to killing themselves very few things on earth have the power to stop them.

Naturally, actual suicide is serious, sad and is often the product of mental illnesses, addiction, substance abuse or circumstances that appear to be utterly unmanageable or out of our control.

If you are suicidal, have ever been suicidal or have contemplated taking your own life for whatever reason, this book was written to offer you an alternative form of suicide, one that is quixotically endorsed by God and one where He actually will step in and help you do it.  But if you are suicidal now, contemplating it or even just toying with the idea, put this book down and please call someone immediately.  Tell them your heart and be heard.  The national suicide hotline number is

988

Call it and talk to someone.  Once you have come back and pick this book up as it offers you a far more productive way to kill yourself, a way actually recommended by God.

I am personally authorized to write this book for a few reasons.  First, and as mentioned, I come from a long line of people who have had run-ins with the notion of suicide.  Parents, grandparents, siblings, myself and children – in our family the genetic make-up runs dark and depression of the mind is common.  Secondly, as a person and a pastor I have confronted suicide face to face – with my introduction to it being when I was only seven or eight and heard my parents talking about finding my grandmother sitting upright in a chair, passed out and with her mouth full of red sleeping pills.  As a ten-year-old I was on a river trip with a bunch of men from our church, my Dad included.  My Dad was a firefighter at the time, and I’ll never forget the sound of people shouting for him to come aboard a large white boat anchored near shore under the shadow of the Grand Canyon walls.  I followed him on board and witnessed a bloated looking male, lying face down on the deck of this boat with pills scattered around his body.  At his feet was his dog, also dead. He left a note that indicated that he couldn’t take the pain of eczema any longer.  Growing up I learned that a friend of mine killed himself on the driveway of his parents’ home because his girlfriend broke up with him.  Another popular basketball player at our high school hung himself for the same reason.  And in ministry I have both counseled people tempted with suicide and met with people whose loved ones had taken their own - to the point of even changing the sheets of a man who did it.  Finally, and perhaps most importantly, due to my own genetic make-up which was exacerbated by numerous experiences in my nurturing, I have considered and contemplated suicide for the first four and a half decades of my life.  But most importantly, I believe, is that I am qualified to write this book because I have experienced a solution to suicidal ideation and desire that pops up in the minds of some people uninvited and relentlessly calling them to act.  That solution, tried, tested and proven over the years, is oddly another form of suicide, but this time it is actually assisted and recommended by God Himself.

The point of this book is to explain how to kill oneself God’s way.  Whether you deal with suicidal thoughts or not, the contents of this book are actually God’s way for human beings to enter real living, and again real living, according to Him, begins with dying or death.

I wish you the best as you contemplate taking your own life God’s way and not your own.