Heart pounding. Body trembling. Eyes crying. Terror, sheer terror, in the middle of the night. Can’t sleep, can’t stop thinking, can’t breathe.
It’s not like this every night, but it was like this last night.
We spent the past six years since my brother’s suicide saying: “Please, no one else do this. We’re going to make it. We can do this”
We said it regularly. We said it on anniversaries and at random. We said it again and again and again.
We didn’t make it. She didn’t make it. She smiled and shook her head affirmatively as she said it, but she didn’t make it.
When someone in one’s family dies by suicide, all family members instantly fear another suicide. It’s horrific. It’s horrifying — it’s so horrifying it will make you cry until you can’t breathe and scream until you can’t speak.
That was our reality. That was what my family lived through. That’s the pain we lived with for years, and the fear we lived with for six years. And then it happened again.
Again and again and again, we pleaded that none of us would do this. We encouraged honesty, we checked in on one another, and we regularly had this discussion.
It had been six years. I thought we made it. I thought we were all safe. I thought my mom was safe. She said she was safe.
One third — one third of my family has died by suicide. That’s one out of three so far. Do you know how absolutely horrific that is? No, I get it, you “can’t even imagine that,” and I’m honestly grateful that you can’t. It’s a terrifying reality.
Now here we are again, and I am mortified. One in three… one in three… what does that mean? What does that mean for my nieces and nephews? What does that mean for us survivors?
The horror… the sheer horror.
My mother lived a beautiful life. Though she endured significant trauma, she overcame so much. She was excited about life. She had multitudes of plans and dreams. She loved her life, and she didn’t? How on earth am I supposed to reconcile that?
How horrible. With all the beautiful, wonderful, incredible things Mom had going for her… how horrific that she still desired to die more than to live. How absolutely terrifying that, in that vital moment, she could not see the beauty of life. She could not remember her beautiful plans. She could not feel how wonderful her life was. In that moment, she wanted to die more than she wanted all the amazing things she had to live for. I know she loved so much and she was looking forward to so much. I know that. But for some reason, none of that mattered in that moment.
That is absolutely horrifying, and, now, I can’t trust the rest of my family. I can’t trust the other survivors who say they’re not going to do it, because she said that too, and I believed her.
I believed her. I believed her. I believed her, and she’s gone.
I am in anguish. I believed her.
July 18, 2026
I wonder every day whether suicide will take another life from my family. I wouldn’t necessarily characterize this as anxiety, but more as an awareness of a very real possibility for my family members.
“Trust God,” people say. It’s interesting that they assume I do not because I speak plainly of pain’s realities.
I trust God, but I know what human beings are capable of — regardless of what God wants for their lives.
Losing a parent feels like losing one’s foundation.
Losing a parent to suicide feels like finding out one’s entire life was a lie.
Distraught – that has been the word most on my mind today.
Suicide makes one relive and rethink every interaction with the lost loved one, and, today, it’s made me angry. I’m angry that my Mom is gone. I’m envious of everyone who gets to have a mom. I see a mother loving her young children, and I think of my mother and how much I know she loved me and our family. But I see a mom with her young children and can’t help but think how could you [Mom] do this to me?
How could she be so hopeless? She truly had so many things she loved, looked forward to, and enjoyed about life. She never uttered a word about hopelessness, but it was there. Maybe it was always there.
Maybe every day for the past 51 years was a blessing, maybe every day was one more day than she thought possible. Who knows? We’ll never know, so it almost doesn’t even matter.
I am distraught. I am distraught that my mother had these thoughts. I am distraught that she couldn’t think of all the beautiful things she had to live for in her last day on earth. I’m distraught because, as hopeless as she clearly was, she did have so much that she loved and so much that she did look forward to.
I am distraught because I am angry with my mother for choosing this. I am angry at God for allowing it — which is likely bad theology, honestly. God gave man the power to choose, and my mother chose poorly on that day. I am distraught because I have to have all of these thoughts and think through all of these things. I am distraught because every day feels like I’m learning something tragic I didn’t know — as if my life hadn’t had enough tragedy in it already.
Thanks, Mom.
I am distraught because I loved my mom. I loved her so much, and any of us would have done anything for her. I am distraught because she hurt immeasurably bad and there is nothing I can ever do about that, ever. I am distraught because I will carry this devastation with me for the rest of my life.
I am distraught because I know that God is good, and that God will bring good and beautiful things into my life — things I will never get to share with my mother, whom I loved so much.
I am distraught because I have to watch my Dad and brothers not have a wife and a mother. I am distraught because I have to watch my husband and my in-laws not have their mother in law. I am distraught because I have to watch her friends not have their friend. My beautiful Momma.
I am distraught because she did this. I am distraught because, in her mind, she had to do this. I am distraught that people’s minds can do that to them.
I am distraught that little things in my house get messy — my bathtub needs cleaned, my library has books and pens that I don’t know what to do with because I’m still using them and still reading them.
I am proud. I am proud that I am brushing my hair every day. I am proud that I am getting up every day. I am proud that I am leaving the house every day. I am proud that Dad and I are going on bike rides every day. I am proud that I am eating every day. I am proud that I am showering [almost] every day — sometimes I don’t remember if I have or haven’t showered, but I know I’m brushing my hair and teeth each day. I am proud that I am exercising every day. I am proud that I am going to therapy. I am proud that I am doing the bare minimum to at least be physically okay. I am proud that I started reading my Bible each day. I am proud that I am letting people help and support me. I am proud of a lot, and I am thankful for a lot.
Parents really are foundational. I feel like a house whose foundation has cracked in half. Restore me, Lord, for my foundation crumbled.
I have enough without my mom. My life is still good without my mom, but, God, I wish I had my mom to share my life with.
July 17, 2026
This post resonates with me deeply.
I vividly remember the utter anguish of those mere 26 days after suicide destroyed her. Back then, it was unfathomable to imagine living without her. Now, I’ve already grown accustomed to her absence, but all of life remains foreign to me. Existential dread fades to a quieter, guttural anxiety; no longer the terror of losing her, but the constant ache and exhausting reality of living without her.
I’m still distraught about everything mentioned a year ago, and I always will be. I’ve learned how to carry the anguish, the disappointment, and the horror of it all.
* * * *
The American Society for Suicide Prevention asserts suicide is not a “choice” that its victims make. Our laws even protect people by means of an insanity defense: defendants admit their actions but cannot be found culpable because of their severe mental impairment (illness).
I’ve read that calling suicide a choice is both inaccurate and increases the stigma around it. I’m not sure how I feel about that.
Refusing to label suicide as a choice destigmatizes survivors — no one looks at the survivors of those who have died of cancer and blames family members. No one questions, “what did they do to them?” when someone dies of an illness. No one thinks their family is better because disease takes the life of someone else’s family.
In the same way, I suppose it does destigmatize those who died by suicide — no one calls those who died of an illness cowardly or selfish. No one claims it’s a person’s decision to have a fatal disease.
If we understand mental illness for what it is — an illness — they’re right. Rational people don’t make irrational choices and, ultimately, suicide is quintessentially irrational.
Maybe the act of suicide itself, like every other illness, is not the choice but the consequence of what happens when someone does not seek proper medical treatment and intervention.
The knowledge of having an illness or disease, however, provides the choice [and the responsibility] to seek treatment.
People who ideate — people who think things like “I’d be better off dead,” “they’d be better off dead,” “if I could just die and go to heaven, it wouldn’t have to be like this anymore,” “it would be easier if I were gone” — have the choice and the responsibility to seek treatment. These are neither normal nor safe thoughts: they are clear indicators that you are suicidal. Wishing away your life in the hopes of heaven isn’t faithful, it’s suicidal.
I think some people may not realize how mentally unhealthy they are because it’s common for people to joke about death. I hear phrases like “kill me now,” or “shoot me if ___ happens” or “it’s so boring, I’d rather die than sit through ___” weekly, if not daily, laughed at as sarcastic comments. These phrases normalize suicidal thoughts. Some churches unintentionally perpetuate this in their messages on heaven and Christ’s return — longing for Christ’s return as if He didn’t already bring salvation to earth. It’s not a healthy teaching to preach people to wish their lives away; it’s not preaching salvation, it’s preaching suicide.
Maybe people do not ultimately choose to die by suicide, but many have the opportunity to choose treatment and help for their mental illness.
Whether or not my mom chose to die by suicide, she did choose not to seek treatment. That feels personal. That hurts. That is part of what makes surviving suicide so terribly complex.
* * * *
I choose to live.
Despite the pain, despite the tragedy, despite the judgement, despite the cruelty, despite the anguish, despite the horror, despite how hard it is to carry the weight of what I’ve lived through.
I choose to heal.
To prioritize my mental health, to seek the treatment Mom wouldn’t, to live a full life.
I am so proud for the choices I’ve made and the person I have become since Mom’s life ended in ruins. I’m proud of the truths I’ve been seeking, and the lies I’ve rejected; truths built on fear aren’t truths, they’re distortions hiding insidious motives. All those little things, like brushing my hair every day when breathing felt impossible, have added up. I’m proud of who I am becoming and how I’m healing.
Our second church service since Mom left us filled me with encouragement once more. A healthy amount of tears dripped from my sore eyes onto my pallid cheeks as we sang of God’s good plans, his faithfulness, and his constance. All of which I believe, and I mean really believe.
However, I mentioned the dissonance between faith and desperate circumstances during Mom’s Celebration of Life, and I want to share more of what exactly that looks like. Suffering forces people to confront their inmost beliefs, and that is completely healthy and can become beautiful. My Mom loved Jesus with her entire being: the cacophony of confusion left in her wake prompts intense introspection and deconstruction.
Our Father in heaven,
your name be honored as holy.
Your kingdom come,
Your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
And do not bring us into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.
Matthew 6:9-13, CSB
Now, please understand, I’m not looking for answers and I do not plan to provide any at this time, but I do want to share the questions clamoring in my mind. Thoughts that, perhaps, cloud your mind as well. Maybe sharing my thoughts will help those echoing the same to feel less alone and less afraid, because two thoughts can be true at the same time: one can trust God and be utterly confused and skeptical at the same time. Thus, my questions:
• Good fathers are supposed to protect their family. Why don’t you [God] protect mine?
• If Jesus is the abundant life, how could my mom die? She loved him.
• If he [God] knew what Mom needed, why weren’t her needs met?
I’ve said this so many times — I believe that God can do all things, but I fear what he will allow to happen. This is precisely why: I have now experienced twice how despair and hopelessness kill those whom I love, and those who legitimately love Jesus.
Today, I was incredibly overwhelmed by the generosity and the care from mine and Scott’s small group. They ensured our current needs were met and provided provisions for our future needs. My family has experienced such incredible and support from people being the hands and feet of Jesus, and, because of them, right now my faith remains strong. I wrestle through these complex questions, but it is abundantly clear that we have our daily bread, that God is providing and caring for us, and that we will get through this. I cannot thank our community enough for all they have done. You have eclipsed this horribly dark and tragic time with light and love and I am amazed and humbled at all of this. Thank you.
Tips for Communicating with Someone in Mourning
Acknowledging the situation is better than avoiding the topic altogether. It may be awkward to speak up, but a simple “I see you,” goes a long way 💙
June 30, 2026
God is faithful. His faithful love endures forever.
I’ve grown through the year — not that suffering is meant for one to grow, but that God can bring the blessing of growth and new perspective despite suffering. I reject the notion that anyone “needs” suffering to glean a cosmic understanding, but I acknowledge that committing to healing and renewed life can provide a beautiful glimpse into ethereal understanding.
It is better when people dwell in unity, and I miss the moments when I perceived my mother’s church as a safe place to attend. Maybe that safety was real, maybe it was an illusion. Maybe catastrophic loss changed things for the worse or perhaps it revealed a truth that was always there.
This particular Sunday was one of the most influential in my memory because of the sweet group of friends that continued to meet my family exactly where we were at. Their profound generosity and kindness shines brightly in my otherwise darkened memory: they provided for us for months. They gave sweet notes and gift cards that lasted until I returned back to work. The profound sadness and stress of losing my Momma was/is horrific to bear, but they eased that burden by ensuring that I did not need to worry about returning to work. I did not need to worry about what we would eat or how we would make it — they met those needs in the most incredible ways.
I think some supporters can feel an element of guilt because they are not sure how to support, nor do they feel that their support is enough, but support as detailed above enables more healing than supporters can imagine. People who acknowledge the loss, empathize with a griever’s perspective, and provide physical support for things we grievers can barely think about are earnest. There is nothing to be guilty about here, in fact, it’s something a griever cannot “repay.”
To a supporter, it may seem trivial that they had one honest and empathetic conversation or provided money towards a gift card or a meal while expecting nothing in return, but to a survivor this is the bread of life. This is the kindness that kept us from sinking, this is the provision that kept us eating, this is the support that allowed our mind to focus on healing from the loss instead of focusing on how we are going to afford to survive.
Kindness, compassion, and love change the world.
Kindness, compassion, and love nurture healing.
Above all, God is love.
* * * *
A deluge of questions barraged my mind back then. What was a flood dwindled to a trickle of ever-present drops of questions, much less intense but nevertheless constant. Healing harvests new worldviews, and these are my new perspectives on those old questions:
• Good fathers are supposed to protect their family. Why don’t you [God] protect mine? God is love. Love protects, but love cannot control all outcomes. My perspective on the idea that God “allows” certain outcomes was most challenged by Thomas Jay Oord’s book God Can’t, as I have previously mentioned. I believe that God gave people free will, and that people harm one another. In this specific case, it was my Momma who harmed our family [not God]. Individuals are accountable for their actions because of their free will. God is love, and love protects. If God could protect from this harm, He would.
• If Jesus is the abundant life, how could my mom die? She loved him. How much we love God and/or others does not cure, manage, or heal mental illness. People who love Jesus can be suicidal. People who love Jesus can be delusional. One’s love for God and other people is simply not enough to keep him or her alive. There is no relationship between theological beliefs and mental illness — belief or love of Jesus does not fix mental illness at all. In fact, people can put their entire hope and joy in heaven and begin to loathe this beautiful life they were given. I call this idea Christian Escapism: the belief that one’s life is altogether terrible and it would be better to unite with Christ in one’s idealized imagined heaven. Life is always a gift, life is always a blessing. We were not given the gift of life simply to die.
• If he [God] knew what Mom needed, why weren’t her needs met? Mom’s needs could have been met. She was an educated white woman in America, with more friends and connections that most people have in their lifetime. She had the resources available. She had the support available. She was capable of having her needs, whatever they were, met. Mental illness creates delusions — delusions that choices are limited, that life is altogether horrible, that our pain will always be all-consuming. It isn’t God’s fault that my Mother did not pursue life and healing, and I believe that it is as tragic to God as it is to us.
I do not fear what God allows anymore. I fear what man is capable of, and what man will choose to do with his or her freedom. I fear what people will do with their brokenness and hurt. I fear what people will do with their anger and frustration. Emotions offer so much insight into who we are as individuals: they reveal what is important to us and help us experience the fullness of life in its brevity and elation. They are a gift, but a gift that requires nurturing and tending. I fear what people will do when they do not tend to their emotions and when they do not pursue healing.
This surreal week will haunt me for the rest of my life, and yet I’ll remember your kindness vividly in the days to come.
Love permeates everything and its warmth reaches my deep wounds. Tonight, I remember that the New Testament word “Salvation” is the same Greek/Hebrew word for “Healing”. Jehova-Rapha: The God who Heals, written throughout the Old Testament. The God who heals broken hearts and broken minds. The God who binds our wounds and holds us up. El Roi: The God who Sees. The God who sees me — who sees us in our pain.
I live amongst a community of mourners: I know you’re hurting too. I know you loved her, and I know it’s so hard to fathom life without her. She was such a light, such a joy, and so… “sparkly” as my Grandpa, my mom’s dad, described. I love it – she was so sparkly.
Life is so confusing right now. It still doesn’t feel real, until it hits and it hurts excruciatingly. I don’t want it to feel real, I don’t want it to be real. None of us do.
Thank you for being here, for watching, for reading. For holding my hand, playing with my hair, and hugging me. Thank you for loving my mom.
Be well tonight and get some rest 💙 Live loved.
June 27, 2026
The mind works restlessly to comprehend catastrophic loss. In early days and weeks — perhaps even months — after Mom died, I vividly dreamed of her but could not reach her. I knew she was dead during each dream, then I would wake up after a fitful hour or two of sleep and blankly stare into the darkness
Those memories haunt.
We became a community of mourners that day, ever changed by a choice we were powerless control.
Kindness powerfully redeems and heals wounded hearts and minds, but individuals must take ownership of their healing.
Admitting sadness isn’t enough. Admitting depression and anxiety isn’t enough. Admitting isolation isn’t enough. It’s a massive step in the right direction, as many [like my Momma] refuse to admit or acknowledge it to begin with, but saying it aloud isn’t enough to heal someone.
Coming to terms with the reality of one’s own mental fragility can be incredibly painful, vulnerable, dark, and frightening. Yet it is in this darkness that seeds of healing begin to grow when watered with kindness and compassion.
I have been amazed at people’s kindness and cruelty amidst this horror, but I believe that there have been far more kind actions than actions meant to harm. It’s unfortunate that the cruel actions cause such rippling dramas, but it is the compassion that acts as a raft to carry us through.
He is the God who heals and the God who sees, and this healing and seeing often comes from people who peer into our lives to offer compassion.
Thank you for joining me on this lonely and isolating journey, and making me feel less alone 💙
I’m always amazed how much pain people can endure when faced with suffering.
I woke to notes of encouragement, sorrow, and prayer. My breathing fails, my eyes swarm with tears, and my body heaves with the weight of my mind.
“My Momma. My Momma. My Momma. I loved my Momma,” I chant in a voice choked by emotions and tears — words barely able to escape my mind and reach the outside world.
My Momma is gone, and she’s not coming back. My Daddy, my Daddy. My Daddy☹️ I can barely move. I don’t know how to function, “My Momma. My Momma. My Momma,” I mumble.
How do I reconcile this? It doesn’t make any sense. I know I’ll be angry with God for that sometime later, but today I’m just trying to survive. All I want to do is be with my Daddy and my brothers.
I can’t walk 20 steps without sobbing: “My momma, my Momma, my Momma.”
All I want is my Momma.
One Year Later
June 21, 2026
Photographs poured in from across the globe, beginning the day after she died. It was loud back then, with the whole world feeling ripples from the explosion that was the epicenter of my family’s universe.
It’s quiet today and still: we live among the ashes.
Interestingly, I did not become angry with God like I had predicted one year ago. That surprises me — I was very angry with him after Patrick died — but I suppose I outgrew that perspective.
This time, anger at God was not a battle I needed to wrestle through. I haven’t written much about God, but I’ve talked about him with many.
I’ve come to view God as far more compassionate and loving, and remembered Christ as he was known — as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. God as the savior who heals, God as the creator who gave abundant life, Christ who came to demonstrate a greater way to live on earth.
This life — my beautiful, tragical, emotional, unforgettable life — is such a gift. My family is everything, my relationships are everything, my experiences are everything.
I sat by one of my nieces this week and allowed a tender tear to grace my cheek, simply in awe of the fact that this precious little life loves me simply for being in her life. It’s an overwhelming amount of love. The joy and the beauty of simply being together, surrounded by my sweet family, thinking how wonderful it is to love them and to be loved by them.
I cannot imagine walking out of my nieces and nephews lives like my mother, aunt, and grandparents walked out of ours. They’re withholding and missing out on so much love.
That’s not God’s fault, it’s theirs.
We each have choices of whether to harm one another or to love one another, and unhealthy thought patterns ultimately lead to death in one sense or another. We are free to make our choices, for better or for worse.
Now, I’ve walked miles without sobbing “My momma, my Momma, my Momma.” I knew it was possible back then, but it was incomprehensible at that time.
It is astounding how much pain people can endure; it’s unbelievable how much pain I have endured. People often try to comfort or maybe explain [I think??] by saying “She [Momma] was in so much pain,” but her pain didn’t end: it transferred to we who survive, giving us a trauma she did not have to live through.
Love is eternal, and so is loss.
Perhaps there is a grand reunion in the afterlife, but we living will carry Momma’s loss until we too take our final breath.
Her love endures. Her loss endures. In some ways, she endures too, her blood coursing through our veins.
Her loss is irreconcilable, and it isn’t meant to be. Mommas aren’t supposed to leave their babies. People aren’t supposed to choose their deaths.
Life is hard, but our endurance should be celebrated. Our lives should be celebrated.
One year later, glimpses of life flutter from ground zero. All that is gray and dark does not last forever.
I don’t think it’s very miraculous that we can’t kill a God — I don’t think it’s miraculous that Jesus rose from the grave. It’s miraculous that we murdered the son of God and that he loves us anyway.
Jesus didn’t come to this earth to die — he came to embody love. He came to see the marginalized, to be with the hurting, to heal the broken… and humanity killed him for that.
Of course we can’t kill a god.
I think we’ve missed the point, focusing on his resurrection as if we really had the power to vanquish the creator of life.
The miracle isn’t that he died, the miracle is that he came and thenhe returned when mankind treated him atrociously. The miracle is that he knew he’d be treat maliciously and he still chose to love us. The miracle is his love and compassion and grace and dignity. The miracle isn’t that mankind couldn’t kill God, the miracle is that he came back.
We’ve missed the why.
Jesus came to offer us a glorious life where we live in community, care for the marginalized, and aid in one another’s healing and he came back even when it killed him. He came and he returned to love.
Love never ends.
You cannot kill it, you cannot deny it, you cannot avoid it, you cannot pretend it doesn’t exist. Love is eternal. It transcends space, time, memory, life, and even death.
We feel tortured and agonized and anguished in grief because sorrow is love’s winter: grief is the other side of love, because love is endless and unfathomable. Love does not end in death — that is why grief stays with us forever, because love is eternal.
Mankind cannot kill Jesus, not eternally, because Jesus is love, and love cannot be killed… just like how a god cannot be killed. Mankind absolutely murdered Jesus, but you can’t obliterate something eternal. It’s not possible, and, therefore the resurrection isn’t miraculous. The miracle is that he loves people despite the fact that we murdered him.
In the Christian world, the Easter season seems to glorify death. There’s nothing beautiful about murder. There’s nothing good about Good Friday — nothing at all. Jesus didn’t have to die to save us, Jesus died because he was murdered. As Peter declared, “You denied the Holy and Righteous One… You killed the source of life” and God raised him from the dead (Acts 3:14-15).
In his own words, Jesus said “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance” (John 10:10). He said this to his murderers and to the people who despised him. Our miracle isn’t his resurrection, it’s his love for us.
* * * *
I’ve grown to despise the Christian — perhaps the Western — glorification of death. I reject it, and it sickens me.
Yes, this is the first Easter without my Mom. She always called it “Resurrection Sunday.” She still made us Easter baskets, she even made Scott one too.
This time of year is terribly triggering for me. I spent Easter 2019 in the hospital with Patrick. I found him at a hotel, passed out and over dosed. I called 911 and they pumped his stomach. My roommate dropped me off at the hospital and I spent the night there with him as he came off of his high.
He was shocked I stayed the whole night, and I was saddened that he would be so shocked. I told him that he’s my brother, I loved him, and I would not leave him like that. He asked me if I really believed that God could set people free (John 8:36), and I sang to him Hillsong’s rendition of “Who You Say I Am.” I was 21, I felt 60 that night. I told my roommate a few days later I wasn’t sure how he could keep living like this. I pondered that the alcohol or hallucinogens would end him, but I never would have imagined that he would commit suicide less than 10 days later.
Spring ushers a multitude of mourning: Easter, my sweet friend Walter’s death, Patrick’s death, Mother’s Day, Mother’s birthday, Mother’s death.
I mourn the dead, and I mourn the living: I mourn my grandparents and my Mother’s church. Sometimes it feels like they killed me, too.
* * * *
Good Friday and Easter are about so much more than a deity’s life and death: it’s about a murder and a radical love that changed the world.
What a disastrous fallout plagued us since then, as my sweet “Auntie” wrote:
❤️🩹 We were just going through a normal day… and then everything changed in an instant.
Nothing prepares you for how quickly life can shift.
This hurts more than words can say. Missing her.
It was a normal day. A normal summer day with brilliant blue skies and tropical Florida heat. Scott and I went to the pool that day and enjoyed our new pool floaties… it was a glorious afternoon.
Until it wasn’t.
Now, we bear the fallout. This hell she condemned us to because she couldn’t speak of the hell that was within her mind. How tragic, to be trapped in a mental delusion of hopelessness. How cruel, to deny the expression of that hopelessness into words. How ghastly, to use hopelessness as a weapon. How dismal, to survive the consequence of another’s hopelessness.
Being alive means having hope. Being alive means having opportunity. Being alive means change is possible. Death, now death robs everyone of that possibility.
We weren’t meant to live our lives out of hopelessness. God didn’t create man simply to die, and Jesus didn’t come to earth to show us death is better than life — It was we forlorn and lost creatures that killed him.
Interestingly enough, the biblical [Greek] word for “salvation” [sozo] is the same word for “healing.” Think of it this way: instead of Christ coming to “seek and save the lost,” think about him coming to “seek and heal the lost” (Luke 19:10).
What if this life is about so much more than salvation? What if it’s really about healing? What if God really did come to earth, filled with compassion, to heal the broken hearted and bind up their wounds?
What if salvation actually doesn’t have anything to do with death?
Jesus’ earthly wounds didn’t disappear after he died (John 20). Perhaps our lives are far more significant than we realize, not because we have to earn our ways into “heaven” (which, by the way, literally translates to “the skies, the expanse”) and to stay out of “hell” (translates “the land of the dead” and, metaphorically, “Gehenna,” which was an actual literal place onearth).
Maybe God came to heal us, and maybe that should be our focus.
We all have our defining moments; these ominous moments of our lives marked with so much pain that they pinpoint and define the rest of our lives. We’ve all been to Gehenna, and the only way out of it is through it.
“Even when I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me…
… Only goodness and faithful love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord as long as I live. Psalms 23:6
Being alive is never hopeless. Having a hard life isn’t hopeless.
Now is the time to mourn, to heal, to change. The time to plant seeds of sorrow and anguish and healing, and these seeds will bring new life. Hope will guard them and guide them as they grow into the most beautifully wild flowers.
Abundance may come after decimation, but it may only come after healing.
“Merry Christmas!” “Happy Holidays!” “Joy to the World!” We proclaim in the darkest season, with the brightest lights illuminating our obsidian neighborhoods. The most light-centric and joyous holidays amidst the coldest and darkest moments of the year — it’s a beautiful tradition. Warm hot chocolates in our hands and cozy candles on our shelves, and sorrow in many of our hearts.
Yes, firsts are hard. First Christmas without Mommy. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. Holidays are particularly difficult because they are family-centric: extended families gather and honor traditions. Most of our siblings have kids… all my nieces and nephews have a Mommy. My husband has a Mommy, and his Momma has a Mommy too. Everyone has a Mommy… except me and my siblings. “Why don’t I get to have a Mommy?” I ask Scott, through reddened eyes. Most of us have a spouse, too, except my Daddy. She’s gone now. Holidays and family gatherings like these amplify the isolation we already feel. The void my mother left companions us always, but holidays can make it feel as though a spotlight highlights the void.
Togetherness, though, feels like medicine for this severing pain. When something like this happens to one’s family, uniting with surviving family members is like taking aleve or ibuprofen: we’re all fully aware of the gaping wound, we all still feel it, but there’s a measure of relief in each other’s company. Days leading up to the reunion pass slowly and agonizingly. We hold our breath until we can hold each other in our loving arms, united by our terribly sealed past and fighting to press on towards a healthier future.
There’s ease with this reunion. There’s a peace in shared pain, an unspoken understanding, and a space to speak about a pain only we few understand. It provides a chance to process together and to share our pain… togetherness brings healing.
This Christmas, this thought assails me: two-thousand years ago, a baby lived and died and changed the world. Six months ago, my mother died because she wanted to meet that baby. She didn’t want to wait any longer to meet her precious Jesus. These days, I often wonder if my family would have been far better off without the Church (global, not any specific church). The idolization of heaven has killed two of my family members. That’s not what Jesus wanted, I know, but our pain-saturated culture seems obsessed with this unobtainable paradise.
The point of life is not to get to heaven, and heaven is not our home… at least, not yet. Heaven may be God’s dwelling place, and it may be the land of the dead, and it may be a place of renewal and eternity, but heaven isn’t everything and it’s not the point of our existence.
Jesus came to restore the earth. Jesus came to heal the earth. Jesus didn’t come so that we would scorn and leave the earth, and Jesus didn’t come for Christians to wish their lives away hoping in heaven. On my Mom’s best days, she knew that. She taught that, she lived that.
I’m not sure if my family would have been better off without the Church, but I think dreams of heaven are dangerous to those who suffer from mental illness.
Bring heaven to earth. Bring healing to earth. Bring joy to earth. Bring peace to earth. Isn’t that why Jesus came?
The sorrow that I dreaded has made its home in my heart, where it will forever languish.
I am so sad, forever.
Perplexing thoughts cross my mind and the minds as many as people try to make sense of this situation, but it is truly senseless. My mom’s death highlights mental illness — mentally sound people do not and cannot end their own lives. There is no reason, there is no “why,” there is nothing to blame or to conclude about this situation other than the advancement of mental illness. My mother hid it extremely well. She knew well what mental illness is, and perhaps she did not realize the depth of her own struggles until her mind was too impaired.
She didn’t do this to us, she didn’t do this at us, she didn’t do this in spite of us.
There is much we don’t know and won’t understand and to a point, it doesn’t really matter: nothing will bring her back.
My Mom’s death doesn’t forfeit her love, it doesn’t forfeit what she believed, and it doesn’t forfeit all she strived to do and who she wanted to be.
In her right mind and in her fullest, she loved life. Her laughter filled the room and bellowed from every conversation. Her smile beamed brightest around her family and with her friends. She loved getting to discover the depth of others by asking provocative questions and teasing the answers out of one another. She loved Jesus and she wanted to experience the fullness of life that God promises here on earth (John 10:10). She was passionate about mental health and desperately wanted to see others healed on this side of eternity, and I think she believed that wholly for herself, too.
Mom fought a horrific battle that she could not share with us, and while that hurts us more than anything, these facts detail a torment she kept in the shadows. If only, if only she applied her studies and reached out in the way she encouraged others to do. Maybe she spent so much time encouraging others in the hopes that she, too, would find the courage to reach out.
She wanted to make a difference, she wanted to heal. She wanted so much from this life that gave her so much. Her life was beautiful and full of laughter and love, and, in her best moments, she felt that wholly.
My mom did not die because of any one thing: she died fighting an unspeakable battle, one we’ll never know how long she fought. This painful reality scorches my heart and sometimes it feels impossible to believe that my life is good and beautiful and kind, when all feels so dark and cruel.
But I know — I know, somehow, there is grace in this. My family and I have so much life left to live, and our lives will be filled with laughter and love and goodness and opportunity that we cannot begin to imagine right now. We are blessed. We are blessed with each other, we are blessed with our outstanding community who supports and mourns with us, and we were blessed with my Mom.
My Mom was a light and a gift that I will never have again, and her absence brings tumultuous tears to my eyes each day. While this is so dark, my Mom was not all of the light in the world.
I will carry this grief with me forever, but this sadness and this grief does not dismiss the many years of joy and abundance still to come.
Grief gifts us with a new understanding of God and life and the universe. It strips us bare of any preconceived ideas rooted in anything but truth, and the fire of affliction will bring about unimaginable glory.
Right now, it’s physically impossible for us to imagine or even desire a good life when my Mom was what made our old lives so good, but we will experience blessing and healing and a new good life.
This is actually my second “Day 12” post: I deleted the first one because out of my wounds, I may have wounded another. As I heard John Mark Comer state, “our wickedness is fueled by our wounds.” I was childish in venting my frustrations with a person to the public, and I owe that individual and anyone who read my first post an apology. This is not the time, place, or space to address something of that nature. Especially because I know that person is hurting, too.
It’s heavy. It’s burdensome. Thoughts and sentences and simple human interaction, right now, is hard for me, it’s hard for my family, and it’s hard for our entire community. We all need grace, and grace in abundance.
Most of the time, I simply feel sick. I have no appetite [but don’t worry, I am eating], I feel nauseous and out-of-it and sad. I feel grateful, I feel sad, and I feel numb. Humans are so complex, how is it that we feel so much at the same time?
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We have been provided for in every way from the generous people from our church: “Give us this day our daily bread,” comes alive when each meal we have has been provided, with each meal perfectly supplying enough for my family each day. That has been beautiful and heartwarming and uplifting. People have been the hands and feet of Jesus each day, serving us, providing for us, ministering to us, and caring for us, and it has been astonishing and incredible to experience.
I cannot over-emphasize how grateful I am for our community and how in-awe I am for how we have been treated and loved.
I’ve never felt more provided for or taken care of than I do right now. “God is near to the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit” Psalm 34:18. I believe that now more than ever, despite my inevitable deconstruction. I believe it’s far easier to dismiss God than to have faith and trust in him under circumstances like these — this is when faith and trust becomes real.
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Daily Tip for Communicating with Someone in Mourning — Specifically Suicide Survivors
Saying “It doesn’t matter how they died,” is dismissive. When someone takes their own life, there is no natural cause, no illness, and no accident to blame.
Someone bereaved by suicide can only blame the person who committed the act, and his/her self. Suicide creates an arduous mental cycle. For me, it plays out something like this…
• I’m angry at my mom, she did this to me
• I’m confused. Why didn’t she reach out? Anyone would have helped her, I would have helped her
• I’m sad. She was in so much pain. What was she hopeless about? Why was she despairing?
• I’m confused and wounded. I don’t know what it’s like to have or to lose a child, but I cannot imagine shewould give up life with her three living children because she was so desperate to be with her son. Her son, my brother, who also took his life.
• I’m sad, and I’m guilty. Did she know I loved her?
• I blame myself. Why didn’t I notice her? Why didn’t she want to confide in me? What did I miss?
And the cycle repeats. These are thoughts are examples of how suicide survivors think and process this type of death: grief from natural causes does not require this mental load. Thus, when one says that “it doesn’t matter how she died,” it points to their ignorance of the psychological impact and damage suicide survivors suffer.
Yes, all death is painful and comparing types of deaths certainly does not help anyone, but please try to understand the differences between a natural death and someone taking their own life.
Acknowledge the suicide survivor’s pain, and acknowledge your own pain. Vulnerability leads to life, bypassing of any type (spiritual bypassing, avoidance, denial, etc) leads to death. Take care of yourself — bypassing is not worth it.
