Suicide happens in the abstract.
Thoughts, fears, loss; all pile, unnamed.
Pour concrete into despair
Reveal color, shape, texture, and dimension
and take a sledge hammer to
hopelessness.
Posts Tagged: hope
“Don’t call me Naomi,†she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.†(Ruth 1:20 NIV)
Planting words of love and kindness takes constant weeding, daily awareness of what is coming out of our mouths, and commitment to developing a vocabulary of blessing rather than cursing.
Words and actions someone like Naomi struggling with despair needs to hear and experience:
- Weep for what has been lost and experienced with them
- Walk with them even if their despair does not immediately change
- Speak the truth in love
- Live your own life to the fullest
- Serve
- Bless
- Be determined
But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.†When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. (Ruth 1:16-18 NIV)
Depression is a villain
masquerading as hero.
Promising romantic rescue
as he brings poisoned wine
to lips.
Depression pirates your treasure.
burying faith, relationships, desire, work, adventure
beneath the unmovable rock of despair.
He woos souls with thoughtless caress.
“I’ll always be here for you.â€
“You don’t need anyone.â€
“I am devoted when others divorce you.â€
“You can escape if you want to … but you
don’t want to.â€
Depression grips with jealous isolation.
Till blood flows thick, and fear penetrates
The last barriers of reality. Â Prying your fingers
away from the ledge of truth. I WANT TO LIVE!
Turning the Page on Suicide-Taking Deeper Breaths https://www.chirpapp.com/audiopost/egx5zrnKvM
Welcome to Turning the Page on Suicide. I apologize for the long absence. This evening I received a gentle reminder to post, even if I manage just a word or two.
In the first days of grieving my son’s suicide I posted every day, without fail. It may have been a few sentences, a poem or a thought, but there was something about the daily discipline of posting while experiencing despair. It was like taking a clean breath in the middle of thick stale air.
Tonight, it took swim lessons to remind me to breathe again. I am learning the different strokes in swimming because I am tired of panicking. As someone who almost drowned as a ten-year-old, I value air, but I have never learned how to relax when desperate. My instructor worked with me on not letting a bad breath ruin the next one. Recovery takes practice, consistency and retraining muscles to value the oxygen given. Relaxing into each moment stretches out and strengthens the power in each breath. I stop fighting and start trusting the water.
Sorrow sneaks up on us and chokes our air with business, troubles, and even well-intentioned service. Maintain your breath. I know no other way but to spend time with Jesus, study his word, spend time in creation, connect with others and apply what I am learning. Writing and now swimming teaches me to breathe deeply, even if all I get in a day are a few deep cleansing breaths.
Challenge: What helps you to breathe? Drawing, hiking, sewing, reading. Pick an activity or explore something new and focus on taking deeper breaths of the experience. What do your senses tell you in the moment? Is it easier to connect with others when you breathe life more slowly and intentionally?
Your story is worth writing! I breathe, turn the page and find out what happens next.
When the cup we pass around
the table
grows cold with doubt’s tears
and our empty souls
keep feasting on the moldy bread of fear–you come.
Pouring new sweet wine, forever bubbling generously
over the sides of our expectations.
and serve fresh bread from the banquet table of your papa, the king.
Allow new breath, though motherhood
aches, and mind screams in the tight squeeze
of despair. Each face, traced anew, is valued
from womb to grave. Every sorrow felt,
a precious jewel, shaped and hardened by the
pressure of both good and bad
experience in my heart. My children,
shimmer in the palm
of a God who loves.
“And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:15)
Dear Page Turner,
My feet have good news. Faithfully, not perfectly, I have tried to grieve with hope and walk in obedience to God’s direction. After four years of grieving with hope, I am almost done with my second book, a devotional to help anyone who has just experienced a loss to suicide.
I have also joined The Dented Fender writing team, and am developing my speaking chops so that I can share hope more effectively. I want to be fully equipped, not lacking anything. God’s love is shining into the darkness of despair, and I love getting to be a part. So many amazing things are happening, way beyond what I thought myself capable of, but with God nothing is impossible.
Four and 1/2 years ago it was painful to turn 1 page on Jonathan’s death. I have now turned over the 2007 pages. Each page has been important, even the ones I could barely turn. My initial hope, that others would be encouraged to choose life is coming to fruition. I refuse to bow to the spirit of despair. Each page, some intensely painful, have produced new joys, new discoveries, and encouragement. I look forward to sharing with you what God is accomplishing, even when we don’t understand the fullness of his purpose.
As the work on my second book is nearing the finish line you inspire me to finish strong. Writing this book has made me look back over all that God has accomplished in four years of Turning the Page on Suicide, I am so thankful.
I learn from each of you. Thank you for wrestling with despair and not letting the darkness have the final say! Thank you for choosing writing as your outlet to share hope. Thank you for encouraging others with poetry, stories, photography and scripture. Thank you for commenting and blessing one another with courage for each individual journey.
The mental health community is made up of spectacular and uniquely gifted individuals. Don’t ever underestimate the value of your words, your courage to breathe life into others, in spite of your own physical and emotional pain. If you are just getting started on turning your page on suicide, may 1 page become 2 until you look back and find a lifetime of spreading the good news, death does not have the final say. Life is worth living.
Sincerely,
Karisa Moore
Poetry Collection: Broken Butterflies
Stars lit my darkening soul.
A map of promise affixed over a sea of doubt.
God’s steady compass, commissioned above the rotating
gravity of churning experience.
Captaining my broken ship to the dock of possibility.
Morning will dawn and
I will spy the security of land.
Sucking in the stale air
of depression, regurgitating
regret day after day.
Throw open windows!
You break the seal of
our tomb.
Filtering the sunshine of unconditional love
through the curtains of our mourning soul.
Resurrecting the fresh fragrance
of hope.
Alerting our senses to the possibility of Spring.
Suicide snapped my soul,
Stripped bare flesh with
its strike. Shook out the fruits
of my labor.
Amid the screaming storm
of unnatural consequence, I became a
stump of misaligned
purpose. Expectations of motherhood
decomposed as the sun flowered once more,
and my neighbors shuddred off
memory of the horrific night, reaching
their branches to nurturing light, stronger.
Still, you watered my shocked roots in the daily habit
of your nurture. And my broken soul drank
in your presence as you walked amid your
mighty oaks. I begin to feel the tickling pleasure,
of sap-feeding life into what I thought dead. And
around my trunk sprung hundreds of tiny seedlings.
My broken body cradled new life.
Podcast posts every Monday at 10 am.
Devotionals post every Tuesday at 7 pm.
Poetry posts every Thursday at 7 pm.
National Suicide Hotline
If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call the National Suicide Lifeline at 988 or go to the website at https://988lifeline.org/