Dealing with the Unfathomable

This past weekend we lost someone we knew well to suicide. This individual was our former pastor, a spiritual leader, a definite man of God.

I’ll be honest, it’s been an emotional week. We’ve not asked why so much as we’ve been deeply grieved at the level of loneliness, despair and desperation that he must have felt.

You see, he was loved by many, many people. He was respected by many, many people. The thousands of people who attended his memorial, plus the uncountable others who watched the service via webcast, attest to this.

However, one thing we’ve learned through our own struggles of working in ministry is that it’s infinitely difficult to work in ministry. You are held to higher expectations (fairly or unfairly) and there’s a feeling that you can’t – or shouldn’t – share your struggles.

After all, every church member knows that ministers/missionaries don’t suffer from the same struggles.

After all, ministers/missionaries can just pray harder, rely on God more in times of trouble.

Let me say this very clearly: The above items are lies believed by the church body that hurt those in full-time ministry.

Yet good people, faithful church attenders, believe these lies anyway. We can innocently isolate the very people in positions of providing us with spiritual care. Heaven help the minister/missionary that confesses these feelings to the wrong person – they might lose their jobs by confessing feelings of inadequacy, loss of calling, depression or confusion.

In a strange turn of events, a friend of mine had a friend who committed suicide last month. She blogged about the sermon from the memorial service. I found the pastor’s message from that day to be very comforting and thought I’d summarize his main points here:

1. This is not your fault. It’s hard not to play the mental game of “If only I’d said this” or “If I’d called them.” This is unfruitful thinking. These lies simply build a prison of guilt for ourselves.

2. Suicide is not the unpardonable sin. This notion is not based in Scripture, but in church tradition. No matter the circumstances that led to death, a believer who dies in Christ will be with Christ at perfect peace for eternity.

3. Self-destructive thoughts are not originating from you. Very few people have never had a self-destructive thought. Very few of us have never battled periods of loneliness, depression and feelings of worthlessness. Scripture teaches us to take captive every thought that is against God, rejecting them as lies and believing in Truth. If we don’t, we risk allowing thoughts to take root and grow into action.

4. Bitterness of soul and unforgiveness are like poisons you mix for your enemy then drink yourself.

To this list, I would add another three points that, somewhat ironically, come from a sermon that our late pastor gave many years ago at the funeral of a teen who had committed suicide:

5. People do things we don’t understand.

6. God does things we don’t understand.

7. There is nothing that God doesn’t understand.

So today – this week – and probably for some time, I’m freely saying that while I understand how this could happen, I don’t understand why this happened. And it’s ok to say that, just as it’s ok to say that I’m very, very sad.