Review: Help! My Friend is Suicidal

 

Bruce Ray. Help! My Friend is Suicidal. Wapwallopen, PA: Shepherd Press, December 3rd 2014. 64 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Amazon

Are you in a difficult situation in which someone you know is feeling suicidal?  Are you afraid of making the wrong moves, saying the wrong words and afraid of pushing your friend over the edge?  If so this resource is for you.  This sixty four page biblical counseling resource is a must-buy.  It is the third title that I read from Shepherd Press’ “Lifeline Mini-books” series.  As of right now this is the best booklet I would recommend on the topic of suicide because of the combination of this being biblical, practical and the author speaks from his experience as a pastor and chaplain for almost twenty five years to emergency services and first responder.

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Review: Suicide: Understanding and Intervening

Jeffrey S. Black. Suicide: Understanding and Intervening.  Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, February 1st 2003. 34 pp.

5 out of 5

Purchase: Westminster | Amazon

This is a biblical counseling booklet on suicide that is a part of a series called “Resources for Changing Lives” printed by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing.  I highly recommend this series of booklets and I have found them very beneficial for my own personal spiritual growth and also as a resource in pastoral ministry.  The specific topic for this booklet is on suicide.  The booklet addresses those intervening and counseling someone who is struggling with wanting to commit suicide rather than addressing directly the person who desire to end his or her own life.  I made the mistake of not reading the subtitle of this work carefully and gave this to someone I was counseling that was feeling suicidal.  Nevertheless when I read this booklet I felt it was a treasure trove of help for the counselor and is jam packed with many insights despite its tiny size.

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Depression Poem

This is a poem that I wrote in response to a medical student I met a few years ago who was dealing with severe depression.  On many occasions, he contemplated suicide.  I pray that this poem will help you see clearly what happens in the world of a suicidal person.  Only the power of the Gospel is able to usher in light to these hurting people.

I am not sure what has happened to this young man since we last corresponded a few years ago, but I pray that the Lord Jesus will rescue him from his dismal situation.

August 14

Your on a leave of absence due to depression/

PLACING YOU IN A STATE OF REPRESSION/

This depression is like a negative chain reaction/

No satisfaction, just dissatisfaction/

SIN WANTS YOU IN A STATE OF POSSESSION/

Because your soul has a dark contraction/

Going through this self-hating, suicidal depression/

Satan wants you as a puppet on a string, as a penpal, under his oppression/

It’s been around a year and a half/

You don’t remember what its like to be happy/

Your world is dark and scrappy/

This symptom of depression makes you feel like a bird/

Trapped in a room/

Thinking, getting ready to explode like a time-bomb/

You say that you prayed alone on a parking lot that night/

You say you saw light at the end of the tunnel/

Amen, your last farewell could of ended in hell/

After hearing a message on Psalm 1/

About the happy man/

Who is not a hangman/

You feel like you could live again/

September 14

When your stomach hurted/

You did not eat/

Sin wanting you in its evil habitat/

You didn’t sleep because your head hurts from not sleeping/

Depression making you have suicidal thoughts/

Becoming prey to depression’s bloodshot, worse than a gunshot/

With very unrealistic plans/

It gets more sickening/

Sin tryin’ to destroy you with everything/

You have suicidal, unrealistic, death fantasies that are gruesome and disturbing/

Like watching yourself being hung and crucified at the same time/

Your soul is close to drowning in its riptide in this war time/

You enjoyed it/

You allowed it for a time/

Locked in its cockpit/

Didn’t fight those thoughts for a time/

Despite knowing how sin is detrimental/

Worse than a root canal/

Seems like things are hard for you/

September 24

Your last long e-mail correspondence/

Worth more than dollar and cents/

You were rushed into the ER/

Because of plus chills, nausea, and vertigo/

You had to get up and go/

You lost alot of fluids/

From watery diarrhea and vomiting like 20 times/

With everything inside at that time/

Lost 10 pounds in three days/

You vomited all over your bathroom/

On the walls and on the floors/

You had to return back to the ER/

Because the symptoms continued to occur/

Even after the meds/

You were still going back to the bathroom multiple times per hour/

Continuing to be susceptible to its power/

You say things are well/

Just 2 months ago/

You were close to that fatal blow/

That close to suicide/

Truly you live each day by grace/

I pray that God will seal you in His saving grace/

I feel your pain, but be careful, spiritual depression will rob you/

Away from God’s joy/

Enemy and sin wants to employ and destroy/

Step away from your hedonistic thoughts/

And step into this thought/

The Christ who suffered for our spiritual blood cloths/

The Christ suffered from 9:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M./

For six hours Christ became a curse/

For those who would repent and believe that live in the universe/

For six hours divine wrath was inflicted and received by the One alone able to do so/

He took blows from His Father in order to forgive His foes/

For six hours—silent, willful submission, by the Lamb of God, the Servant of Yahweh/

While sinners sin day by day, night and day, Christ gave us the right of way/

For six hours—Jesus bore the full burden of sins past, present, and future/

He bore out trespasses—100 percent for sure, for Christ spiritually poor/

For six hours—the Father smote the Son with full wrath He alone could render/

So salvation could occur from him and her/

This was the spiritual darkness that was covering the cross/

God turning away from His Son was severe/

The atonement was never at loss/

The wrath of God came from God the Father/

It was a direct act of God/

When He cracked and smacked His Son/

The Christ had to suffer/

He dranked the cup of the full wrath of God/

For the vice squad and sinful squad/

Read 2 Corinthians 5:21/

Christ died for sin/

So sinners won’t experience His wrath in the end/

Sinners who sin time and time again who belong in the trash bin/

The Father treated and regarded Christ as if He was a sinner/

When Satan saw this he taught that he was a winner/

All sins were charged against the Christ as if He had personally committed them/

Listen, don’t you understand an innocent man was condemned/

Christ was punished with the penalty for them on the cross/

So that those who were supposed to be condemned won’t suffer a loss/

As a result He experienced the full fury of God’s wrath/

Worse than those who suffer from a bloody warpath/

It was at that moment when Christ cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me”/

So you could be set free as a guarantee because your Christ’s electee/

Christ never sin, but was perfect, but because He took on sin He was left in solitude/

Mocked by the crude multitude who had demonic sinful attitudes with no gratitude/

Listen, this was the darkest moment/

The Christ, in frequent torment/

In that last few hours of His suffering, it was spiritual solitude/

Worse than Him being nude or mocked by the rude/

This was the most painful part/

Left Him alone without child support/

The Father stepped away from Him/

Because of sins grim/

So I ask you—repent and believe in the Gospel so you could flee from the wrath to come/

A path that you won’t overcome/

Don’t be deaf and dumb or continue to be a sinful slum/

Listen to the prophetic outcome that is the rule of thumb/

I tell you/

Come to the Christ if you are depressed and weary/

Your hard-pressed and you think your eerie/

Come to Christ, be blessed, and don’t think this is a theory/

The Gospel is your treasure chest, your day of rest when your suppressed/

Unpublished work © 2013 EvangelZ

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My Space Causes Child Suicide

A 13 year-old hung herself, October 16, 2006, after being harassed online from a failed MySpace romance. Megan Meier, struggling with attention deficit disorder, depression, and a weight problem, fell in love with a fictional MySpace character, Josh Evans. After about six weeks, the fictional Josh Evans started a “campaign of vilification and online name-calling that ended when Megan took her own life.” “Megan’s parents said Megan received a message from him on Oct. 15 of last year, essentially saying he didn’t want to be her friend anymore, that he had heard she wasn’t nice to her friends.” Megan told her mother that “electronic bulletins were being posted about her, saying things like ‘Megan Meier is a slut. Megan Meier is fat.'”

Josh Evans was created by Megan’s friend’s neighborhood parents, after Megan and a friend had a “falling out.” The friend’s mother, created and used the fictional character to see if Megan was talking about her daughter behind their backs. A total of three people, Megan’s friend, the friend’s mother, and a friend of the friend, monitored and communicated using the fictitious account.

The Meiers blame the parents for their daughter’s death. They were interviewed on the Today Show a year after the suicide in order to “continue for justice for Megan because we knew what they did. Although the case is still open, investigators told the Meiers, “that while the hoax was cruel, it was not criminal.” The Meiers hope to press criminal charges under a federal law passed in January 2006 that prohibits online harassment.

Of importance is that the parents closely monitored their daughter’s online activities, and were still unable to prevent her death. The parents had the password to the account, preventing her from signing on without them. “[They] had to be in the room” when she was online. The parents were also aware of the relationship, and warned Megan to “not get too excited,” and her mom warned Megan daily about the online relationship. The parents have since, gotten a divorce.

What could have prevented this sad story? The parents had closely monitored and talked to their child about her internet activities and she still was not protected. Ultimately, I don’t think this could’ve been prevented without dealing with the issue of sin. One of the most dangerous aspects of any relationship, online or in real life is the potential for idolatry, worshiping creation rather than the creator. Love, can be twisted from it’s original origin in God and lead to depression and ultimately suicide. Josh Evan became the over-riding authority Megan desired to please rather than God or her parents. Although the article suggests that close monitoring and dialogue with a child will help prevent such a tragedy from happening again, a child must be taught by their parents how to seek God’s pleasure before all others. Sin is the true problem, and the solution is in Christ.

Source: MSNBC’s Today Show

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