Dear God, I was scanning through The Athletic for some college football news (it’s Saturday, after all) and I found this video series on Suicide in college athletics and what some schools are doing to address mental health. I’ve put a link there. Since it is a pay site, I don’t know if people will be able to click on it or not. I would hope that that The Athletic would make the series freely available.
Anyway, it got me to thinking about suicide. It must pain you to see us in such pain. When you’re watching people attempt or succeed in taking their lives, are you weeping? I imagine you are. Our lives are so precious. Our time here is so short. It must be maximized, at least to some extent. To cut it short for any reason seems like a slap in the face.
But having been around enough people who have struggled, I can see how people would get to the point where they just give up. I never considered myself suicidal at the time, but looking back to some of the struggles I went through six years ago, I can tell you that there were times when I was on a bike ride that I would think that if a car were to hit me then the pain I was experiencing would be over. Even typing that makes it sound much more stark or powerful than the thought felt at the time. I would actually compare it more to the little thoughts Satan plants to tempt us. “Hey, wouldn’t it be nice.” No, sorry, Satan. You can’t get rid of me that easily. But he must have sensed that I was at a weak moment to throw that at me.
I’d like to sit here and come up with what is going through people’s minds when they are suicidal and then think about your response, but the truth is that I don’t know. I know that, for my own mental health, the best things that I do include these prayer journals to you and exercise. I know that when I put myself in the mindset that “I consider my life worth nothing to me,” (Acts 20:24a) then I start looking for ways to use my life for your glory and not give up because there is no glory for me. I know that when I am feeling good physically and getting the right hormones going through my brain then the brain you gave me responds and clears up a lot of bad thinking. You designed our bodies for motion and activity. You designed us to move, give, love, and serve. If we aren’t doing those things then our bodies will not respond correctly.
Of course, I’m not trying to minimize clinical depression or other forms of mental illness. I know that it’s not always as easy as just saying a prayer and hopping on a bicycle for some situations. But I also think that we are over consuming antidepressants in our country simply through lethargy and selfish, self-indulgent lifestyles.
Father, I pray over my own mental health, the mental health of my family, and the mental health of those who are in my sphere. Help me to be a source of your love and hope to them. I will spend some time with a friend later who is walking a dark road. Help me to know what to say and how to be there for him. Help me to love him. Help me to reveal your essence to him.
In Jesus’s name I pray,
Amen
Emails to God 