I always hate to hear of people who commit suicide. It grieves me terribly, because I know what it's like to want to do that—to feel such utter hopelessness, despair, and emptiness. I've contemplated killing myself many times in the past. I came within only seconds of doing that a few years ago. I had planned on driving my car off the road and over a bluff. I remember turning the wheel and hitting the rough edge of the road, and at the last second, I turned the wheel back. I honestly do think that if I had stayed on course only a second longer I would have went over that bluff. I would have killed myself. And the thing is, I really don't know why I didn't. I wasn't afraid of dying. I wanted to die. I just know that something made me turn the wheel, and I don't think that I could ever credit that to anything other than the hands of God directing mine. But I know what it's like to want to die. It's such a terrible, empty feeling. It's a miserable feeling that I don't think any words could ever accurately describe.
Last Friday, a man I knew of—not personally, but just knew of—killed himself. His name was Scott. He was a hairdresser and worked in one of the local shops. I had never met the man myself, but my brother knew him and had told me about him. Just today, my brother informed me that Scott had taken his life. I asked him how it had happened. He told me Scott's parents had found him Thursday night curled up in a ball on the floor with a Bible in his hands, and then the next day, they found him hanging from a rope in his home.
Why? Why did this have to happen? Why couldn't I have done something to help him? To show him the truth?
I blame myself in part for Scott's death. I honestly do. Because here was a Christian man, who lived near to me, who struggled with his sexuality, just as I have, who I knew of and I could have went to and I could have befriended him and helped him, but I didn't. I could have helped him! Thing is, and this is where irony or something has such a horrible way about it, I had prayed for Scott just last Thursday night. I'd thought of him, because he was a hairdresser, and in a book I've been reading, God's Grace and the Homosexual Next Door, Randy Thomas mentions going to a gay hairdresser. That had made me think of Scott, and it made me pray for him to be able to find God, and to be okay. While I was praying for him, he must have felt so awful. He must have felt so lost and empty, and confused and hopeless. And he killed himself.
Why didn't I go to him sooner? Why didn't I do more when I knew there was more I could have done? Why didn't I go to him and tell him how much God loved him?
I know Scott was raised in a Christian home, and I believe he was a Christian. I don't know how God is going to judge him, but I pray that he shows mercy upon him, because I do know that Scott was a kind, warm, loving, and gentle person. I remember how he took pity on one of my nephews when they were babies. Their grandmother has only ever favored just one of the two, and she had left one of them in his carrier without showing him any special attention as she did the other, while at the shop where Scott worked. I know Scott went to that one and held him and played with him. And I always was grateful to him for having done that, so that my nephew didn't feel neglected or alone, or unloved. I wish I had known Scott. I had wanted to meet him for a long time now, and I had just recently been thinking about going to him to get my haircut.
Do you all know that God loves you? Do you know how much God cares about you? Do you know how much he wants to be there for you and to spend time with you, and to make everything in your lives better? Don't you know that he loved you so much that he was brutally beaten and died just to save you? To save all of us. Just so that we could all spend eternity with him. God's not your enemy. This world and the devil is your enemy. And killing yourself is exactly what your enemy wants you to do. I wonder if Scott knew that. I don't suppose that he did. I'd imagine he thought as I did once—that death was the answer, and a way out. You know, God doesn't care that we're attracted to this, or tempted to that. None of that stops him from loving and caring about any of us. He doesn't condemn or hate any of us because we're gay or have homosexual temptations. Nor does he hate us if or when we give into those temptations. He loves us always.
I know that it's not God who made me different, or to have bad feelings, but the devil. I know that God is my best hope, my friend, my daddy. I know that He loves me beyond anything I could ever imagine. And I wish so very much that Scott had known that too. Like I said in my last post, I wish nobody ever died without knowing the truth. I think Scott probably knew some truth. But I doubt that he knew all of it, and I doubt that he ever had the Christian help that quite possibly could have saved his life. I wish I had helped him, and been friends with him. I knew the truth, and I didn't help him. I wish I had helped him.
Please, all of you, pray for Scott and his family, and for all those whose lives he touched. It's so close to Christmas, and I'm sure this has to be so hard on all of them right now. Please also pray for me to always proclaim the truth, and to never hold it back.
