Tag Archives: Satan

How To Deal With Suicidal Thoughts

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Most people have had thoughts of ending their life.  When you are grieving the loss of someone you love, or when you are lonely or afraid, it is common to think of it.  But it is one thing to think about suicide and quite another to feel a compulsion to kill yourself.

Since my husband killed himself nearly two years ago, thoughts of suicide have been my frequent companion.  Several times these thoughts have resulted in my going to the hospital for evaluation.  Sometimes, but not always, I am also depressed when I feel this terrible compulsion to kill myself.  I call these compulsive thoughts of suicide the Whisperer because it feels like someone is urging me to kill myself.

I have worked out a strategy to handle suicidal impulses.   It isn’t a sure-fire solution but it does help.

First, I pray.  I can find comfort and assurance in prayer.  Reading the Bible and reading authors whose work I can trust also fall under this dictum of prayer.  I  find especially helpful a couple of books by Patrick Reardon, The Trial of Job and The Jesus We Missed: The Surprising Truth About the Humanity of Christ.  Understanding that Jesus  was really human, that when he underwent temptation he felt tempted.  When Satan took Jesus into the desert at the beginning of his ministry and told him to throw himself off the mountain because God would save him, we know that Jesus was genuinely tested.  He wasn’t walking through it like playing a part in a film.  He felt the temptation.   This makes him a savior I can relate to.  If you search back through my other posts you will find that Job’s trials helped me to understand the impulse to kill myself as a trial by God.  God isn’t standing aside being repulsed by my urge to kill myself, he is loving me and giving me the spiritual strength to endure.

What if I can’t pray?  Then I ask the Holy Spirit to pray for me as described in Romans 8:26.  I also ask friends and fellow Christians to pray for me that God will comfort me and strengthen me.  Send me a comment asking for prayer and I and others who read this site will pray or you.  Not just once but every day.

Second, I do the things I love even though I don’t want to do them.  This takes tremendous will.  I love to hike and since I  live in New Mexico near the Sandia Mountains I am able to hike when I want.  It always helps.  I come back restored to who I really am.  Sometimes I go every day.  Just knowing that I can go hiking the next morning gets me through those terrible nights with the Whisperer.   I also take photographs when I hike and sometimes I  go out in the city to take photographs in the evenings when the Whisperer afflicts me.   Seeing through a camera lens changes my perspective and cleanses me of my own preoccupations with age, loneliness and fear.  In the evening  I go to places where people are shopping or eating in restaurants and take photos of faces and grouping that catch my eye.  Amazing how purifying that is.

Third,  I seek out people.  Since I don’t have many friends, I usually go to a restaurant where I know the servers and talk with them.  We just talk stuff.  None of them know my problem.  They tell me about their kids and problems with jobs and sick parents.  Somehow caring about another person helps me to forget myself.   It always takes an effort to get beyond myself but when I do I find it liberating.

Fourth,  Send me an email at msscholz@aol.com and I will respond as soon as I get it.  Let me know your telephone number if you want me to call you.  Maybe we can pray and talk and that will help.  If you don’t want to email me then call the national suicide hotline and they will connect you with local help.  The number is 1-800-273-8255.

Just remember, Friend, that if you can make it until the morning or for a couple of hours you will see things differently.   Whether you are lonely or afraid, abused or old.  Whatever the problem, it won’t go away but it can get better.  There are people who care.

I care and want  to help you.  I will pray with you, listen to you and give you a shoulder to cry on.  Just don’t take that final step.  You will be glad you didn’t and so will I and a lot of other people who read this blog.

God’s Final Word to Job

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Presuming on God is a dangerous business and I wish not to be guilty of it. By comparing my trial with that of Job I don’t compare myself to the great Job. But I believe we are given the story of Job to understand what it means to be tried by God. Right now, I wonder if my temptation to suicide is subsiding and may not continue. What am I to make of this trial? What lesson am I meant to learn? What is the meaning of this experience? Of course, this may simply be a lull in the Whisperer’s attack.

God addresses Job who is silent before God. Why? God hasn’t answered Job’s questions about his suffering. Yet God has satisfied Job because God has spoken to him and that was what job really wanted. God then asks Job who is more righteous God or himself based on the evidence.

In Job 40:8 God asks:
“Would you discredit my justice?
Would you condemn me to justify yourself?

So what did Job gain from this trial? According to Fr. Patrick Reardon, “One observes in Job’s repentance that he arrives at a new state of humility, not from consideration of his own sins, but by his experience of God’s overwhelming power and glory. When God finally reveals Himself to Job, the revelation is different from anything Job either sought or expected, but clearly he is not disappointed.”

The modern world does not greatly value humility. Certainly it is rare for parents to stress humility as a virtue for their children. You need self-confidence is a common dictum to children. I am no different. I have valued my independence and self-reliance as much as or more than most modern people do. My husband’s suicide and the subsequent deterioration in my mental state with suicidal ideation has certainly caused me to reconsider my reliance on self. In my current state self-reliance seems delusional. In my temptation to suicide God’s power and my weakness are exposed to both me and all the world. Fr. Reardon says of Job’s trial “Instead of pleading his (God’s) case with Job, as Job has often requested, the Lord deals with him as with a child. Job must return to his childhood sense of awe and of wonder. It is the Lord’s last word in the argument.” Certainly as a result of my temptation and trial I am more aware of my complete dependence on God. Every breath I take is because he wills it. This is something I have always known intellectually but it now has an immediacy and actuality that is more real than all my human concerns.

In wisdom literature the doubling of Job’s fortune and life and God’s direct interaction with Job are definitive. In my life I learn more slowly and I must wait to see if this trial is ending or if it is simply an interlude. In either case I am grateful for the much-needed rest.

Waiting at the Closed Door

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Finally the door is opening. The Whisperer hasn’t been heard from in four days. Maybe because I’ve faced the closed-door in my life and made some difficult decisions.

On Friday I decided to move from Albuquerque to Santa Fé. This was unthinkable before because by moving I am leaving my husband behind, or at least our last years together before his suicide.

It’s strange but this town has never felt right. It isn’t a fit for me and I don’t know why. I suspect it has to do with all I suffered here.

I feel friendless although I do have what I would call practical friends. Those who share a meal with me at a restaurant, those I see at church or even those I exchange birthday cards with. But I haven’t met anyone in Albuquerque who shares their life with me. Perhaps the best way to characterize Albuquerque is that it is an antiseptic that may have been good for my wounds.

This morning, Sunday, I went to Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Santa Fé. I used to tell my therapist when I lost my faith that I missed God and I missed liturgy. When I received my faith back, I got God back. Today I got liturgy back. With it, I prayed with all my senses as well as with my mind and my soul. It was glorious and exhausting. I guess it was a return to the very thing that brought me to Christ.

The Orthodox church this Sunday commemorates the women who came to the tomb carrying myrrh to anoint Jesus’ body. The priest said the women were the first apostles. I like that. He pointed out that timing was everything. Had they come to the tomb sooner the stone would have still been in place. Instead they waited and when they came the stone was rolled back and they were the first to know that Christ was no longer in the tomb. The priest said that to wait for a closed-door to open or in the women’s case, a huge rock to be rolled back is not a vacant activity devoid of meaning. It is a time of active waiting and often yes, a time of suffering. But if we don’t wait for God’s time then we may miss the resurrection.

All of this makes me think of the trial of Job. Fr. Pat Reardon says that Job didn’t know that God was trying him. His friends said that because God was just then Job’s punishment was for sin he wouldn’t admit. Job knew he had not sinned. However, God knew, Satan knew and the Bible reader knows that Job’s suffering was a trial that gave God glory in light of Satan’s taunts. That Job suffered because God allowed it. The odd thing is that God never told Job why he suffered. But it was enough for Job to understand how great God is. He understood that his questions needed no answer in light of who God is.

Now that is an example I would like to follow.

The Whisperer is Back

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Today I was going to talk about aging and suicide but the Whisperer is back and I need to talk about that. He’s got my number. He’s telling me that because no one has the answer of how to help me they don’t care.

While I have a couple of Job’s friend types in my life, most of the people I talk to don’t even know what I am going through. The ones who do, they care. I could call a couple of people now and they would try to help. But they just can’t. Frankly I don’t want to ruin their day by saying what I have already said repeatedly. They pray for me and that is really the only thing that can help.

The gut churning confusion prevents me from praying eloquently. Mostly my prayer is to ask the Holy Spirit to pray for me. God reads my blog long before I write it so he knows what’s going on. I guess today my blog is my prayer. Dear God, I am not asking you why, I know this is a trial. I know that you intend to carry out something with me, though I don’t know what that is. I know that if you made it easier for me, you wouldn’t achieve your goal. It just has to feel this way because that is what changes me.

You who follow my blog strengthen me with your words and with your prayers and I know you will do that when you read this. Many of you have a Whisperer as well and you are fighting the same fight. I pray that my trial will strengthen you and make yours easier. God bless you my friends.

Give me strength Lord to bear it.

The Kindness of Strangers

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Often I am aware of how alone I am. I have no family and my friends are the practical kind, we sometimes do things together.

I made arrangements for my own funeral and body disposal since there is no one to do it when the time comes. I carry a device which allows me to call for help if an emergency arises no matter where I am. I depend on the kindness of strangers in an emergency.

My worst fears are living in a public nursing home, left in my mess to lie for hours while unfeeling staffers ignore me knowing I can’t cry out. That I have no one to help me. So many have passed the end of their lives this way. A final suffering of indignity. To be utterly unwanted and unnoticed. Their passing just a blip on the surface of time.

Yet I know a couple who have a son who cannot see or walk or talk but he can and does smile. He is in his thirties and knows he is loved. The mother’s life revolves around her son. I have never discussed it with the couple but I’ll bet they have made every arrangement to have him looked after when they no longer can. But I am sure they must fear for him.

One person in a loving couple can probably depend on the care of the surviving spouse. But that spouse may have indifferent children or none at all and face the same fears I do.

Suicide is a solution. Surely Job thought about it as he sat on the ash heap with only uncaring friends and a wife who wished him to die. Why didn’t he do it? God wasn’t there for him as he had been in the past. He wasn’t answering Job’s questions about why this was happening. His friends were telling him it was his fault because he sinned. They told him God would never had done this if Job hadn’t sinned. Yet Job knew himself to be innocent.

People speak of the patience of Job yet what choice did he have? The one thing he knew was that God had loved him in the past. I think he was sure that contrary to what he was experiencing God’s nature had not changed. That there was something in the situation he didn’t understand. And he sure did ask. But God remained silent.

We know what Job didn’t know. That God was allowing the Devil to tempt him to prove that Job was a truly good man who loved God. But God never did explain this to Job. He asked him “Where were you when I created the earth?’ Job 38:4. He then asked him the same question about God’s creation of the heavens and all the creatures of the earth. God pointed to his creation and his power. Finally Job understood just how small he was in comparison to God and he said:

“You said, ‘Listen now and I will speak;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me’
My ears had heard of you,
but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42:4-6

Did he repent for a sin he just remembered. No. He repented for not recognizing God’s absolute power over his creation.

So it seems that my only recourse in my fear is to remember Job and endure just as he did because I know that God is good. Also I pray for kindness of strangers.

Friends, write to me and I will pray for you and ask your prayers for me.

The Suffering of Job

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I gained more insight into my own struggle with suicide from “The Trial of Job,” by Patrick Reardon than from any therapy or any pill I have been given.  In this meditation I will use his insights without further attribution.

The Book of Job had always been difficult for me because I could not relate to Job, a righteous man.  I know that I am a sinner.  Not a day passes that I don’t need God’s forgiveness.

Patrick Reardon’s commentary reveals Job as having no idea why he is suffering.  God had allowed Satan to try Job’s faith by bringing tragedy on Job’s entire life.  God insisted that Satan protect only Job’s person.  God, Satan and the reader of Job know that God has allowed this trial but Job does not.  How could he?   As a Gentile, not a Jew, he had never heard of God’s trial of Abraham and Isaac and so he didn’t have an inkling that his suffering had this terrible meaning.  Job’s faithfulness in trial pleased God. That is, the faithfulness of Job gave God glory.

Throughout the gospel of John, Jesus speaks of his upcoming death as giving glory to the Father.  So the trial of Job is a precursor of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.

I realize that God allowing  man to suffer would be no comfort to an atheist or agnostic or a modern Christian who does not believe that sin offends God.  i believe that man can need a savior only if he has personally sinned.  Jesus’ death on a cross has redeemed me from being an outcast to God and given me eternal life with Him.  I am grateful and love God because he first loved me.  Therefore if it pleases God to try my faith through loss of a loved one or the temptation to suicide, so be it!  So easily said  yet so hard to bear.

God must have had a lot of confidence in Job’s love for him to allow Satan to tempt him to despair.  God also knew that if Job stayed true, his faith would grow.  In contrast Satan was sure that Job when he lost all his good things would curse God.  In other words, Satan is sure that man is inherently selfish.  That he loves God only for the benefits that come to him.

After Job loses every earthly blessing, his children, his flocks and his homes, he does not curse God.  So  Satan must once again go to God and propose that since Job only endured the loss of his wealth and children that if God allows him to lose his health then he will curse God.  God continues in his belief in Job’s love for him and lets Satan have his way with him.  God afflicts Job with all kinds of sickness Perhaps even leprosy.  Job is left sitting on an ash heap scraping his itching, rotting flesh with a pottery shard.  While Job is in terrible pain, I believe that his greatest pain  must have been his mental confusion.  I wonder if he considered suicide.  He cursed the day he was born and his wife encouraged him to curse God which he would not do.  While he no longer praised God, he did endure silently and would not curse God

Having lost, Satan permanently exits from the story of Job.

However to make matters worse for poor Job, his friends arrive to comfort him.

Is It Possible for Suicide to Have Christian Meaning?

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This blog is a meditation on suicide and its effects on those whose lives are forever changed by it.  I invite your comments to help me in the search for Christian meaning

In the past year and a half I have experienced both sides of the issue of suicide. In July of 2010, Richard, my husband of 22 years, committed suicide after an 18 year battle with bi-polar illness. Coping with his suicide has triggered profound questions that have forced me to seek answers that are beyond human knowledge

About a year ago I fell into a deep pit of depression and suddenly was dealing with my own suicidal desires which continue to this day. Ironically, I now live with the other side of suicide but the questions of meaning are the same.

What sources of help did I try?

When I learned of Richard’s death I called friends, one was from a church I had previously attended.   About a year prior to my husband’s death, we had stopped attending this church where we had received much support.  We both were overwhelmed by the degeneration in Richard’s condition and hadn’t the energy or desire to continue our church connection.   An amazing thing happened when my friend told the church of Richard’s death.  The members descended on me and helped me every step of the way.  The kind support they gave to me as a church member who had dropped out without explanation was a revelation of the meaning of Christian community.  They have continued their kindness to this day.

Meanwhile help of a different kind came from the therapeutic community.  Professionals of all kinds explained the progression of illness, coping mechanisms and prescribed medications to mitigate the intolerable pain caused by the loss of the very meaning of life. How could I live with this terrible pain which sapped from me the very desire to live?

A few months previous to my husband death I had seen a psychologist for insomnia.  It was a simple matter to reopen that relationship for help with Richard’s death. I had a willing counselor with superb therapeutic skills.  My therapist gave me his unconditional support, especially in the beginning; he sat with me to read the suicide note, he offered to go with me to visit the site where Richard had killed himself and he sat with me for many hours while I wept for my loss and questioned my own complicity.  But what he could never help me with was the why.  Could life ever have meaning in light of this one deed?  He could only see my need for “real meaning” as a failure of courage.  For him meaning was contingent and almost momentary.  For me this led to madness.