How can I find hope in the midst of the pain of suicide?-GotQuestions.org Podcast Episode 29, Part 1

Welcome to the Got Questions Podcast, your questions, biblical answers. Today we're going to hit another one of the topics on our top 20 of all -time most common, most popular questions.

It's a really tough topic. We're going to be talking about suicide today, and we really want to cover it from really two different perspectives.

One, what does the Bible say about suicide? The Bible never directly addresses suicide as in like a thou shalt not commit suicide sort of way.

It does mention several people who committed suicide, but then also talks a lot about grief, how to deal with it, how to deal with depression, how to deal with a lost loved one and so forth.

So we're going to be talking a lot about that today. So on today's episode, I have with me Jeff, the administrator of our

Bible Ref Commentary site. Hello. Kevin, our managing editor. Hello.

Good to be here. Today's special guest is Beth, one of the associate editors of Got Questions Ministries.

So just to kind of start off, Jeff has some great thoughts on just struggling with suicide in the sense that the vast majority of people have considered it at some point in their lives.

And it's not a stigma. It's not something that God doesn't understand or God is angry at you about.

So Jeff, I want you to give us some of the insights the Lord has given you. One of the things that a lot of people struggle about when we have conversations about suicide is the stigma that comes with just having those thoughts or having those feelings or having those conversations.

And that's especially common when we're talking about younger people and adult men.

Those seem to be the demographics where that really is an issue, where there's a sense of shame or embarrassment or I'm going to get in trouble just because I thought this or I'm thinking about it or I want to talk to somebody about that.

And it's really important for us to emphasize that people will have moments in their lives where thoughts cross their mind that are things that they might not ever actually do.

We call those intrusive thoughts. It will happen at times. And then there's also times where life gets us in circumstances and we start thinking things like,

I wish I could just make this end. I wish I could make this stop. We actually go through the process in our minds of imagining something like committing suicide.

And obviously that's not a good thing. That's not something that we want to do. But it is something that human beings really do experience.

And in that sense, if you are somebody who has had those thoughts or who has had those feelings, there is nothing exceptionally wrong with you that isn't the same for other people.

This is something that a lot of people experience. And that's it's an important thing to hear and to remember, because it is

OK when you have those thoughts and especially if those thoughts are recurrent or they seem to be pressing to talk to people about those things.

One of the worst things that we can do is to have those sorts of thoughts, those feelings and say,

I can't talk to anybody about this. I don't want anybody to know because then they start to fester.

Then they grow. Then they sort of feed themselves. We're not talking about somebody being panicky.

This is not about being weak or anything of that nature. It's just recognizing who we are as human beings.

So to anybody who has had those thoughts go through their mind, it's very important to know a lot of people think like this and a lot of people have these thoughts.

It's OK to reach out to a friend, a family member, even if you think that person is going to be a little bit put off by it.

I can pretty much guarantee you that person would rather have that awkward conversation with you than a year, two years, three years down the road, have a much more tragic conversation when you're not there because of the way that those feelings and those thoughts can continue and can progress.

On the flip side of that, we also need to remember that when other people around us discuss these ideas or if somebody brings it up, we have to take it seriously.

If a friend, a family member mentions suicide, even in passing, it's something that we do need to think about.

We need to address, we need to take seriously, but we need to do it through that same thought process, which is not with stigma, not with embarrassment, not with shame, not to blow it off as somebody being overly emotional.

We need to recognize that these are thoughts that people sometimes have. Life will sometimes drive us to have thoughts that are bizarre and strange.

Sometimes life will drive us to have thoughts that just nag at us. Sometimes life will drive us to act on those things.

So if you have friends or family, people within your circles of work or church who say something about that or express that you want to be the kind of person that they can come to and say, this is what crossed my mind and this is what

I thought or here's what I'm struggling with. And we need to remind them of the same thing. This is something we experience.

This is something that we sometimes get into as people. And that experience in and of itself does not make you crazy.

It doesn't make you weak. It doesn't make you tainted somehow. It makes you human.

And just like you would if you had a broken bone or a disease or an illness that needs a little bit of help, sometimes it's

OK to get help. Reach out and get help. Prayer is great. Bible's great. Family's great.

But if you need to call a hotline, speak to a pastor, get to a counselor, talk to somebody about that in the right now, in that moment, that's the thing that we need to address is what's going to happen to me in the next 10 minutes, two days, two weeks.

And then from there we can move on. And I think that's something that I'm hoping people will continue to get as we're talking about this, that anything we talk about when it comes to suicide is a discussion of what it means and how it works.

But it's all in that context that this is something that's OK to talk about. So with those things in mind, one of the reasons that Beth is with us today is because she has some personal experience that she's able to share that hopefully is going to provide some perspective.

So Beth, we're glad that you're willing to be here and to talk about this. What is it that you are going to be able to bring to the table on this discussion today?

Speaking to people who are considering suicide is extremely important. And also, we need to speak to the people they have left behind, and that's where my story is.

My dad killed himself when I was 29. He had suffered from depression and alcoholism for years, and he chose to kill himself by diving into his addiction, increasing his alcohol intake and basically hastening the inevitable.

So I mostly want to talk to those who have been left behind after a loved one has killed himself, specifically about three hard emotions that come up in the weeks and years after guilt, resentment and relief.

I realized my dad was going to kill himself about six months before he died. He started calling, which he never did.

He talked about going on trips to find his birth father. Then he started asking if I wanted his model ship or if my husband wanted his watch, which are all very classic signs.

I also understood there was nothing I could do to stop him. I did pray. I prayed

God would send someone who could reach him, and I found out later an older man he worked with wanted to help.

Andy had friends who told them told him that they would pick up the phone day or night, but for him it wasn't enough.

So when he called me, I understood I could not stop him and I was not responsible. I was in Colorado.

He was in Oregon. I didn't have the emotional bandwidth or the tools to give him what he needed.

All I had to offer was a daughter who was doing well and whom he could be proud of. That's all

I had. And he accepted it and appreciated it. But his wound was not something

I was a part of, and so I could not heal it. And every situation is different.

I had another friend who suffered from suicidal ideation. In that case, I knew that when

I picked up the phone, I may have to talk her out of hurting herself, even go to her house and distract her.

Some of my friends post on social media that they're ready to pick up the phone if anyone needs to talk. And that's that's fantastic.

That's very much needed. They give what they have to give, and sometimes that's enough, but sometimes it's not.

And we're not anyone's savior. My sister understands this. She poured all of the love she could into our dad.

She doesn't feel guilty that it wasn't enough. She's just sad he couldn't accept it. The flip side of this turns guilt into resentment.

It turns the belief that I didn't love him enough to make him want to stay into he didn't love me enough to want to stay.

But both of these feelings are lies. There were times when it hit me that he would rather be dead than stay and be my dad.

Four years later, we adopted our son and the feeling shifted into he'd rather be dead than be a grandfather.

Again, those thoughts are lies. His role as a father and grandfather had nothing to do with his depression or his decision to end his life.

I know he loved me and that he would have adored our son. There's a common statement out there that people who commit suicide are selfish.

They selfishly abandon everyone who cares about them. I think that's an oversimplification.

In truth, my dad's been an incredible amount of strength over many years to keep him from hurting himself.

And his wife and three kids were part of the reason he kept going a little bit longer. Tragically, that strength gave out.

He was broken and weary and sick. The burden he felt must have been phenomenal to make him choose to leave.

He didn't kill himself because he was selfish. He killed himself because he ran out of hope. Mixed in with the guilt that we couldn't do enough and the resentment that he didn't think we were enough is a sense of relief.

By the end, it was a relief to know my dad was at peace, free from pain and addiction. But there's another side of that relief that feels really selfish.

I was grateful we no longer had to carry the weight of his wounds anymore. The worry, the eggshells, the drinking, the hundred other things that made life with him so hard.

My theology teachers are trying to pound it into my head that this is a terrible way to look at it. That death is an enemy, not a relief.

It's a violence that tears apart spirit and body. It splits up your soul. It's hard to reconcile that with the knowledge that this act will end so much suffering for both the person and those around them.

I think it's OK to see the truth from all of these angles. My dad is at peace and his death cost him dearly.

He lost future relationships. He never got to meet his two grandsons and he broke his wife's heart.

We have peace, too, and his death cost us dearly. Any chance at healing relationships on this earth is gone.

We had to find our own way without the presence of someone who was supposed to be there. My son and nephew lost the chance to know their grandpa.

I think my brother has a good handle on this. He misses what could have been, but not too much, because even if dad had lived, it doesn't mean things would have been better.

Even so, he's still grateful he was our dad. It can be hard to find the balance and it can be hard to find the balance morally.

Technically, suicide is murder, but there are so many extenuating circumstances. A pastor

I know defined suicide as the result of the disease of terminal depression. I think this is helpful and it speaks to the emotions of guilt, resentment and belief.

Sometimes when someone has a serious disease, you can do some grand gesture that saves them, like donate a kidney.

But sometimes it doesn't work and there's no shame in that. Everything you can do is a grace.

Sometimes a person with a disease will choose to fight for their health because others need them.

But not all diseases give you that choice. It's good to mourn the brokenness of the world that causes disease, even get angry at it.

But we have to realize that someone else's disease isn't about us. Many of us are familiar with the contradiction of relief when a sick person is finally comfortable.

It's still hard to accept how the damage to their body takes away from your future together and almost turns them into a different person.

Sometimes we have to be disconnected from our bodies to find peace. And yet this is a violence to ourselves.

Death is the ultimate expression of this. I realized while I was writing this that I'm within a month of being the age my dad was when he died.

He has missed out on so much life that he will never get back. But I'm much luckier.

I learned that God redeems and makes up for loss. Whatever my dad was supposed to give me,

God will make up. If I remember to look. For me, God is father. For someone else,

God will fill the emptiness left by a friend or a spouse or a child. Takes a long time and a lot of effort to work through the loss.

But he is willing to heal us. Beth, I have a question for you just to follow up.

We talk about people choosing to kill themselves, choosing suicide.

But when it comes right down to it, when they have have lost hope, when they feel there's they have no hope for the future, doesn't that kind of take away any any choice in their minds?

I mean, was you think that's where your dad was, that he had no hope and so he really didn't feel like he had any choice other than suicide?

Or do you have any comments or insight on that? I had moved away when

I was 18, and so I had lived with him for 11 years. I can't really say what was going through his mind.

That's a hard question to answer for someone else. I think sometimes people do choose.

Some people don't. When I say that he chose, I mean, there was a moment he had been sober the previous year and there was a moment that he decided, forget about it.

I am going to drink more. I'm going to drink things with a higher alcohol content.

He made that conscious choice. And I'm going I know what the repercussions of that are going to be.

If I could just bring in some scripture here and speak to hope for people that may be contemplating suicide, may be struggling with those types of recurring thoughts.

Scripture comes to bear on providing hope. We look to scripture for so much.

And I think in this area, it's just vital that we take a look at reasons to have hope.

Scripture says that there is nothing impossible with God, Luke 1 through 7. And when scripture says nothing is impossible with God, I really believe it means nothing, that God can do absolutely anything.

That is, he can heal past wounds. He can heal those scars of trauma or whatever it was in the past.

He can heal broken relationships. He can set us on a new path of life.

All things become new in Christ. Nothing is impossible with God. So with him, there's always hope.

Also, Jesus knows our pain. Isaiah 53, predicting the ministry of Christ, said that he is despised and rejected by mankind, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Jesus knows whatever it is that you're going through. He knows your pain and he cares.

He doesn't just understand it intellectually, but he cares. He has walked this earth.

He has been that man of sorrows. He knows exactly what it's like to feel rejection, to feel the temptation for hopelessness.

And we can look to him for redemption, for healing and for hope.

Also, part of Jesus' mission in this world was to provide comfort and hope and restoration.

As Jesus was beginning his ministry, he read this part from Isaiah 61 that talks about the ministry that he would have.

It says that he was sent to comfort all who mourn, provide for those who grieve, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes.

The oil of joy instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

So the one who made you loves you and wants a relationship with you.

He wants to redeem your life from destruction. I want to echo what

Jeff was saying earlier about the need to talk to somebody, to seek out godly counsel, to seek out a friend, to seek out a pastor, a counselor.

But don't just try to keep this to yourself, but seek help. And there is always help in Jesus, our

Lord. And finally, we have God's invitation to call on him. We find it all the way through scripture.

But one particular passage would be Psalm 50, verse 15, where God says this.

Call on me in the day of trouble and I will deliver you. Our God is a saving

God. Our God is a deliverer. He is mighty to save, scripture says.

And you have God's invitation to call on him. So as you reach out for help and you let others know what you're going through, don't forget this matter of taking your burden to the

Lord as well, knowing that he cares, knowing that he is capable and knowing that he has already invited you to come to him.

And suicide is always a painful, tragic decision. And each of us to varying degrees have experienced either a loved one or someone we know who committed suicide or at least has considered it.

I can't necessarily speak for everyone else here, but at the time as a teenager, I was seriously considering suicide.

And I'm very thankful to God for delivering me from that. So if you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, you are not alone.

As the Bible says, there's no temptation that's taken except as common to man. Trust me, the vast majority of people in the world have at some point hit a really low spot and have considered suicide.

But as Kevin was sharing, there's hope in Christ that Christ can deliver you through whatever struggles you're going through.

It's not saying it's going to be easy, not saying that you're never going to struggle with it again.

But in Jesus, there is hope and we should never give up or allow our lives to be cut short from what

God's plan is. I think it's important that we also reemphasize that it's easy for people to hear us talking about Scripture and talking about God and so on and so forth, even in the context of the

Christian church. And to dismiss that as being something that's trite or easy or just too glib.

It's really easy just to say these things, to recite these scriptures and talk about these things.

To make this clear to folks who are watching and listening, we have people right now in this podcast who've had these experiences, who've seen these things.

Kevin's a pastor. He's experienced what it's like to have people in a congregation suffer a loss.

He's experienced personal loss. Beth's personal experience being very directly relevant to this.

The things that Shay has seen, the things I've seen when we talk about these things, I want to make sure everybody understands there isn't a sense in which anybody is dismissing what somebody feels.

There is no way in which we're saying this is supposed to be easy or you shouldn't feel the way you feel.

So there's something wrong with you. It's a difficult thing. The points that we're trying to make are that these really are things that we struggle with.

There are answers. There are solutions. There are ways that we could or can get through these things.

But I think we're hopefully setting up a background here so that people understand that when we're offering these solutions through Christ, they're not meant to be easy in the sense that, oh, if you would just understand this scripture, then everything would be fine.

And it's not going to make it any easier for people who are left behind in that sense.

Beth, one of the things that you had talked about was some of the feelings and emotions of what it's like to be there when something like this has happened.

What was your what was your experience in grappling with or coming to grips with what had happened?

What what was your process for absorbing all of that? It was interesting because that year, a lot of things happened, including my husband and I walked away from a plane crash.

So we didn't take the time to process that year. But over the course of several years, things would come up.

We deal with them. And what finally got me to a place of healing is my husband spent a couple of years traveling to his dad for Father's Day.

So I was alone. I think that's about three years in a row. So three years in a row on Father's Day, I was completely alone.

And God just met me there and reminded me that he is father, that he will make up for anything that I lack.

And if I keep my eyes open, then that's going to be just a wonderful gift.

So, Beth, thank you so much for adding the very close personal touch to this conversation.

I know Beth and I both had a daughter of a close friend who committed suicide last year.

And both of us were fairly close to her and very difficult. And there were multiple suicide attempts before she was tragically successful.

But just seeing the family go through the grief and then the many people who knew this young lady and loved her and sought to minister and encourage her, it's very painful.

So, yeah, like Jeff said, we're not approaching this as people who don't understand.

Because to varying degrees, we've all had to deal with these issues or seek to counsel or encourage people who have had a loved one commit suicide.

So this concludes part one of our talk about suicide. And part two, we'll dive a little bit more directly into what the

Bible says about it. But we're also going to continue to try to approach this issue from a personal touch.

So I hope part one has been encouraging and helpful to you. Not a very encouraging topic, but still hope you know what

I mean. Got questions? Bible -ized answers? We'll help you find them.