Loser language (i.e. let's talk about suicide)

Before I go on with this post, let me share with you some resources.  First is the Suicide Prevention Lifeline.  Their website is: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/  Their toll-free number is 1-800-273-8255.  Also, what I am about to share are personal anecdotes and should not be construed as professional advice.  If you need professional advice, seek help immediately.

Okay, with that being said, let's chat.

It was my freshman year of college, 1991.  I won't share the circumstances surrounding this event--my first real suicidal thought--but I remember riding the elevator to the top floor of the 12-floor student residential hall.  This might have been sometime during the winter, but I went to the window . . . opened it . . . and gazed down at the ground below.

I felt like a complete loser.  A failure.  Why wouldn't someone want to be with me?  Okay, so I wasn't as good looking at Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise, but then again who was?

I thought of how difficult it would've been for me to squeeze my way through the window, and even then I didn't know if it would work.  I came to the realization, rather quickly, that I didn't want to die.  But I came as close as I ever been.

And it certainly wasn't the last.

There have been times over the years that I couldn't find a single day where I didn't contemplate suicide.  "Hemingway or Williams," I would ask myself.  Hemingway shot himself.  Robin Williams hung himself.  Neither appealed to me, but who cared?  I didn't have to clean up the mess.

Then I thought of what I would leave behind.  My wife (who passed away less than a month ago) and three kids.  I had a decent job.  Nothing spectacular.  And my writing career was nothing to call spectacular, but I had fun doing it.

Starting in early 2019, I made a further commitment to read the Bible more, read more non-fiction Christian books and devotionals, give more to my local church, and even attend more often.  Prior to this, I prayed but starting in 2019 I also made a commitment to pray more often.  I would carve out time each night, alone, in the bedroom and pray/read.  Even at work, I would spend more time improving myself.

And you know something?  Thoughts of taking my own life have dwindled.  Oh, sure, those thoughts would creep in every once and a while, but it was rare.  And I attribute it to simply having a greater relationship with God.  The more and more I talked with Him, Our Heavenly Father, and the more trust I put in His Holy Hands, the less time Satan had to allow the loser language of suicide into my thoughts.

Have you ever thought of yourself as unworthy, a loser, a complete waste of humanity?  I sure have.  But remember that all of us were made in God's image.  And what God has created in us is good.  Not only are we His finest creation, He sent His only Son Jesus to earth, to be among us, to teach us and guide us toward a greater relationship with God.