Turning the Page on Suicide—Finding Hope in the Authority of God Over Mental Illness
Read Mark 5 for next week. https://www.chirpapp.com/post/WYKQy0gKBy
Posts Tagged: suicide
Turning the Page on Suicide—Studying despair and God’s response
Read Matthew 8 https://www.chirpapp.com/audiopost/apND85dNzR
Your bones feel picked dry of hope,
yet still,
truth echoes in the souls you touch.
Poetry Posts every Thursday at 7 pmÂ
Turning the Page on Suicide-It Takes More than a Whisper
www.lookwide.com/audiopost/BdKy6pWNwZ
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35)
Deadlines are awesome…when they have to do with writing, but the word’s origins are steeped in death. Prisoners could not cross a “dead-line ” without being shot. By choosing hope, I have crossed the dead-line Satan attempted to draw into my life. “You can do your christian thing, but stay in your religious box and do not touch the other side.”
But on the other side, I see a neighbor who just got fired from his job, the teenager who can’t look you in the eye because they are so tangled in sex, drugs, or doubt they feel no one can forgive them. I am aware of the preacher, who feels stuck in the muck of depleted finances, a wife and two kids, and righteous sinners critical of his work, contemplating a way out. The businessman who has scrapped the way to the top and is lonely and finding success hollow and shallow, now holding onto the amber bottle of escape. And that child not given a chance from birth, whose only known pain. They are all on suicide’s doorstep.
So I cross that line. At nineteen years old God crossed the dead-line for me. He plucked me from suicide’s grave and even now when Satan thought he’d have the last laugh with my son’s death to suicide, I find abundant life in grief.
I was given a new dead-line. Cross over into despair and possibly be swallowed whole by Satan while pulling others to safety is worth the risk. Finding the words to express God’s love became my diligent work in grief. My deadline is Heaven with Jesus, and I want you there with me.
Devotionals are posted every Tuesday at 7pm
“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23 ESV).
(Originally Shared October 2014)
Fall is my favorite season, and as I hiked through the woods, I was reminded of why. It isn’t just the fall colors or the cool nip in the air that revive and remind me of the divine. It is that even in death, life is given.
Take this log for example. It is brimming with life! Fall reminds me that death is not the end of God’s story. There are millions of possibilities that lay hidden beneath the surface ready to burst forth and display his provision and splendor.
Some of us feel like an empty shell, dead inside, nothing could possibly grow from us. I declare to you with complete confidence that there are a million seeds of life planted inside you ready to spring forth! I once thought that I was without purpose, but I see clearly that life is in every cell of my being! I want to give that life to you.
This season is one of hidden possibility. But God’s promises are true. They are observable, and repeat I’m nature and the testimony of many the world tossed out as dead. Trust God’s provision for your life and let him reveal the life growing inside of you.
Love you dearly!
Karisa
Devotionals are posted at 7pm every Tuesday.
I am elevated emptiness
puffed up with my will.
I cradle and nurse fear like a
mother with starved child
I breathe deeply, as I pinch your oxygen
I am the shiver that shadows your spine,
always creeping in the open doors of
crowded confidence.
You can’t escape me,
human gods. You elevate to
pedestals and put crowns on achievement.
I find the cracks in
your stoic status and crumble
saints and sinners with the
tap, tap,
of my chisel of
doubt.
Poetry is posted every Thursday at 7pm (Garment of Joy Next Week)
One of my favorite ways to write poems is to respond to other poets. Are you up for the challenge? How would you respond to someone battling the Spirit of Despair? How would you offer hope? What weapons would you use? Link back to this post and place your link in the comments.
“Jesus straightened up and asked her, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?'” (John 8:10 NIV)
My son Daniel brought home “mistake” artwork. His teacher drew on each of their pages, and they had to transform the mistake into a new picture. Daniel had the two humps you see in the middle and what emerged were gravestones. “I didn’t see what they were until I turned the page a different direction,” he explained. Life is full of mistakes, and they are usable, even our worst sinful failures, in the hands of a creative God.
The nameless adultress woman could be any of us. Your sin is exposed. Standing in front of Jesus, and the high and mighty who don’t care what happens to you. They just want to trap Jesus. After all, “thou shall not commit adultery” was written in stone by the hand of God. Yet, Jesus offers grace to both the accusers and accused. “You who are without sin, cast the first stone.” He kneels down, begins drawing in the sand. Maybe he is sketching a new, beautiful, healed picture of you.
God has every right to judge us for breaking his law. But instead, he takes our mistakes, the sin that so easily entangles, and transforms us with his love. Jesus isn’t glossing over sin. He tells the woman to go and sin no more. He expects us to live a transformed life. Justice and grace unite on the cross to form a new picture for humanity. He is not distant from our struggle, he is intimately aware of what we have already drawn on our page. Christ drew resurrection over death, transforming our sin warped picture of his original design.
What new picture is God drawing of you?
Devotionals are posted every Tuesday at 7pm.
Concrete life is ground up by grief
Exposing the naked foundation of what I believe.
Slowly you softened my soul with tears,
fill me with the mortar of faith
And build brick by brick, a temple of Grace
Love and Hope for others to come in.
“And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (NIV).
The devil whispered, “You are not good enough.”
I just returned from a writers conference. I learned more about the writing market, my skills were honed by great speakers and faculty. Interest in my current manuscript was tangible and God forged relationships with other warrior writers. But among so many amazing people the ugly accuser crept, seeking to reveal weaknesses.
I made an embarrassing mistake, and every last one of my insecurities erupted making it hard to breathe.
And the devil hissed, “You are not good enough.”
But unlike my childhood self, I now know the truth of Romans 8:28. I love God, and his purpose for me redeems even my worst mistakes. Errors are not permanent, and there is a purpose in every experience. I still couldn’t get my body to catch up with my head knowledge of that truth. I was exhausted and felt awful. I sought out the prayer warrior on the team. She prayed in a way I could not, and I agreed with the reality of who God says I am. The feeling of unworthiness passed.
Are you coming into agreement with who God says you are? Here are steps to take:
- Don’t dwell in the attack/ fight back
- Acknowledge/confess, any sin causing you to stumble and repent
- Claim the truth of Christ found in scripture
- Pray for the spirit of despair to leave
- Stand firm though feelings may not match
God has a good plan for you, and when you choose to love Him above all else, the enemy cannot defeat the purpose God determined for your life.
The devil may accuse, “You are not good enough.”
But God shouts back, “In my image, I created her/him!”
Devotionals are posted every Tuesday at 7pm
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/