Suicide Loss

There are so many ways to lose a loved one, each a unique and often seemingly unbearable burden. What can be said about suicide loss?

One very prevalent question for survivors of any loss is why? Why did this person have to go at this time? Why when I needed them, when they had more left to do in this life, when it is so hard to go on without them?

Those who believe in God often ask, why did Thou call this child back home? Are Thou aware of how much I needed that person? How so many others needed that person?

Suicide loss is one of the situations where it can be hard to see God as being in control. His child chose to leave this life. Why did they do it? Why didn’t they care enough to stay? Why didn’t they see the worth of their own life? How could they not see the consequences of this action that would last for so, so long?

Was it me?

Who can I blame?

And why did Thou choose not to intervene, God?

The only honest answers to these questions are going to paint a picture of mental illness racking a person’s life for a long time before they left. God sent us to a mortality where our bodies would falter in so many ways. Our bodies are so varied and physical disabilities can be such a heavy burden. Differences in our brains are just as varied, but because it is invisible to us, it is often easier to throw a quick judgement than to look deeper into why a person acts the way they do. Developing a deep compassion for unique and unseen struggles we each face is to become a bit like Christ.

Whether born with a brain that is different, or changed through traumatic experiences in life, we cannot truly see why a person does what they do, and how their experiences in life might be so much more difficult than the person next to them.

To those who have experienced the suicide loss of a loved one, we are all children facing things that seem much too hard to handle at times. From one learning child to another, please accept the humble answers gleaned on my own path.

First, know you were not the source of the child’s mental illness.

 Second, no matter how you may have fallen short, you would never have chosen to take that child’s life and neither would the others in their life.

And third, no matter how wrong it was for that child to leave this life early, Jesus Christ has power to turn even the most horrible of life experiences into a beautiful strengthening change in us. We will be better able to serve His other children because of all we learned. And truly, to be back in the presence of God is the one place we would want that loved one to be if he or she wouldn’t be here with us.

I cannot recommend highly enough conversing with the One who knows us best, loves us the most, and has a plan of love and happiness for every one of us. Hearing His answers and feeling of His love for us will change our lives forever. I don’t know what your particular answers will be on your journey of healing and growth, but I do know you will make it and that you do not have to walk this journey alone.