All it took to change the entire direction of my heart, mind, and soul today was just one word–“suicide.” I forget sometimes just how powerful words are. I think we all forget. The main point of the context within which this word was used today was something far different than the word itself, yet the word still rattled me to the core. I found myself fighting tears and feeling very unsettled, almost physically ill.
Perhaps it’s because this week does indeed mark the birthday of my late father, whose death was ruled a suicide. Perhaps it’s because my check-up at the cancer center, which does always put me in a rather strange humor, was earlier this week. Perhaps it’s because the holiday season is again upon us and the reality of everything my life and family is not slaps me in the face so hard sometimes that I have to catch my breath. Perhaps it’s none of these reasons or some combination of all of them. I just don’t know.
All I know for sure is that, when this particular word was used three consecutive times today in reference to three different real-life individuals, I had to revert to an old pattern that’s been very hard to cut anew–I had to run away. This life down here often does that to us, at least it often does that to me; it puts me in true flight mode. I really do wish my response had been more original. Not only did I leave but, upon fleeing, I immediately looked for a vending machine that sells chocolate (and unlike many of my friends chocolate’s not even my favorite food). I just felt like my flesh needed something. Well, chocolate was nowhere to be found. So, I was left with just myself…..and my God. And it was enough.
I’m beginning to see that what matters most is not so much what we run from but what we run to; and whatever the latter is will help determine what we choose to do with the former, with the thing that put us in motion to begin with. I haven’t always chosen to run to God. In fact, I still don’t much of the time. But, I did today, and that is a great victory for me. Just one word really can make a huge difference in our lives; and “God,” brought to life in Jesus His Christ, is the word that eclipses each and every other.
Some words will simply always be unpleasant to hear. “Suicide,” along with “cancer,” are just a couple from the storyline of my life. There are many others too that I’ve yet to share aloud outside of my own inner circle. Since the portal for such ugliness was opened wide so long ago, we’ve all had to suffer from wounds that seem to open up all over again just when we thought our scars were no longer still raw. But, it’s in that very ugliness, it’s in those wounds, that I’ve been able to glean the clearest picture of God yet and not at all because they in any way reflect who God is. I’ve most seen him there because it’s in those darkest places that I strongest sense a world beyond this one–a world where all hurt is erased.
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