Love through the Shadows of Suicide

Suicide is a leading cause of death among 15–34 year olds in both Australia and the US [1]. In Australia it’s number one, in the US it’s number two. Such statistics mean you almost certainly know someone who has committed suicide, have seen firsthand the hollowing out of a once animated person, the grief and disbelief that rock those left behind when this cherished person is suddenly no more. And grief becomes amplified when a Christian voice declares suicide an unforgivable sin.

How are we to respond to this complicated and intense suffering among us? Most of us are not doctors or psychologists. But we are commanded to love—to care for the physical, mental, and spiritual health of—our neighbor.

The first thing to notice is that we should not be indifferent to this type of suffering. The Bible isn’t. We know this because of how often the Bible speaks of, and shows characters wrestling with, mental suffering and deep sorrow. For example, “A broken spirit, who can bear?” laments Proverb 18:14. The accounts of Job, Jeremiah and Elijah honestly depict people at the end of their coping tether (Job 3:1–3; Jer. 20:14–18; 1Kings 19:4). Yet suicide and mental health are such familiar terms, we’re prone to tune them out. It’s easy to underestimate mental pain. I did. I knew my brother was struggling. But I was unprepared for my childhood neighbor’s voice snaking 3000km across deserts to speak words my parents could not: “Ben is dead, Jess.” Somehow, the ebullient boy who wrote stories about a frill-necked lizard who drove a Land Cruiser and foraged bush-tucker had become a man so bereft of hope, he had killed himself.

“Suicide and mental health are such familiar terms, we’re prone to tune them out.”

Secondly, we should not think we know more than we do. No untrained doctor presumes to know heart surgery. But because normal sadness has symptoms in common with the “malignant sadness” [2] of depression (often a precursor to suicide), we tend to think we are authorities on the subject. Zack Eswine, in his gentle and thorough book Spurgeon’s Sorrows, writes, “When we suffer depression, we wish that our preachers, Christian coffee shop talkers and answer-givers knew more about the prison in which we suffer before they proposed to speak about it” [3, pg78]. I would say the same about suicide.

Medical Knowledge

So what do we know?

Suicide is strongly correlated with mental illness, and psychological treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy and counseling help many who are mentally ill. But they aren’t a cure-all. They don’t work for everyone or any particular person all the time.

“For the first time, I could see the scourge of my family as an illness instead of a weakness. ”

Some mental illness is biological, part of our physical being. Kay Redfield Jamison [4], Jerome Kagan [5], and Gordon Parker are psychiatrists who have researched biological aspects of mental illness, including suicide. Their work has been invaluable to me. For the first time, I could see the scourge of my family as an illness instead of a weakness. One type of mental illness is depression. Parker has repeatedly reminded doctors and caregivers that some depression has distinct biological markers. Such biological depression, or melancholia, is also much more likely to lead to suicide but is, Parker and others argue, “inadequately differentiated” from other types of depression in current medical guidelines [6].

That suicide might be the fate of my children terrifies me. Every tantrum, every bad day, leaves me wondering “is this a sign?”

It’s complex. How biology manifests as illness depends on psychology and nurture, pointing to a propensity not a certainty. There isn’t a diagnostic test that declares “aha, you will commit suicide.”

But to not know everything doesn’t mean we don’t know anything. It is clear suicidal ideation, and the depression that often precedes it, have a biological component, a “disease” component. And a disease is not something we are usually expected to cure ourselves. So why, with depression and suicidal ideation, is this often the case? The default response so often being “buck up!” or “pray more.”

A broken mind cannot be fixed with a broken mind. Unsurprisingly, where biological markers are present, biological treatments are far more effective than psychological interventions. Biological treatments include medications—a range of medications, not just those most commonly prescribed. Do we blame those who can’t pray themselves cured of cancer? If medication has a role in disease in general, then it has a role in mental illness—especially the suicidal. To claim so is not to deny our moral responsibility or spiritual reality, but to accept our simultaneous physical reality.

Biblical Guidance

Our all-knowing God treats the suffering and suicidal with multi-faceted compassion. So we, with less knowledge, should follow his lead—within the medical field and without.

God cares for Elijah by sending an angel of the Lord to feed his body and encourage rest, ministering to him physically and psychologically. Once Elijah is sufficiently recovered, then God offers theology for his soul. God reminds Elijah with a “gentle whisper” and demonstrations of his majesty that He, Yahweh, is in control; Elijah need not despair (1 Kings 19:18). God rebukes Job’s friends (Job 42:7–8) for oversimplifying. These friends insist Job’s sufferings are simply recompense for Job’s sin. Job knows better. He knows sometimes the “wicked are spared” (Job 21:30) and the righteous suffer in this world. Jesus, when confronted with suffering, is gentle and compassionate. He speaks kindly to the bleeding woman even as he heals her physically and commends her for her faith (Mark 5:34).

God’s responses are cues for how we can care for the suicidal and their families.

Be with them. The simple act of willingly being with someone in their suffering demonstrates you value them, not just their ability to inject enjoyment into your life. You don’t need to talk. In fact, it’s often better if you don’t. Sometimes, no theology “can comfort . . ., no matter how true or kindly spoken” [3, pg36]. “Will your long-winded speeches never end?” bemoans Job (16:3), labelling his friends “miserable comforters.” When you listen, you implicitly affirm the sufferer’s unique experience rather than reducing them to a framework of psychology, physicality, or spirituality. No purely reasoned theodicy can account for evil and suffering in this world. Suffering is an experience, not a problem to be solved, and just being with the sufferer assents to this fact.

The suicidal can be intensely difficult to be around; I don’t mean to sugarcoat. My brother Ben would smash windows. I would withdraw and try to alienate friends “for their own good.” But “we weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15).

Love them. Advocate for them, make a doctor’s appointment when they can’t. Look up treatment guidelines [7] to optimize doctor visits. Cook them dinner, mind the kids. Give them space for the clamor in their head and hearts to ease. Nurse the body and mind, then offer spiritual food. Even then, be careful not to oversimplify or misappropriate theological quotes. Be gentle, remind sufferers of Jesus’s suffering—Jesus therefore understands their suffering—and of the hope to come. Remember that in their worst times, they may not be able to comprehend the goodness of God. They may not be able to pray.

So, pray for them. “Talk to God more about them than to them about God” [3, pg33]. This acknowledges a spiritual reality without placing the onus on sufferers to extract themselves from their broken mind and soul with their broken mind and soul. If demons or Satan have a role in their illness, like the demon possessed man of Mark 5, then prayer is the antidote.

What about when the dreaded happens, and someone suicides? Is it an unforgivable sin? Is their last hope for relief null and void? The priest planning Ben’s funeral thought so. But I’ve since learnt this is not a mainstream view.

Self-murder is a type of murder, and murder is undoubtedly a sin (Ex. 20:13). But the Bible does not label it unforgivable. Paul was almost certainly a murderer (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:19) but went on to be a great apostle with no sign he was unforgiven by God. Job and Elijah (as well as the writer of Ecclesiastes and Jeremiah who also lament their birth) did not act on their desire to die. But sin comes from the heart, and Jesus teaches sinful desire is as worthy of judgement as the doing (Matt. 5:21–22). If the desire for annihilation were unforgivable, you would expect God to make that clear in these biblical accounts. He doesn’t.

“If the desire for annihilation were unforgivable, you would expect God to make that clear in these biblical accounts. He doesn’t. ”

Actual suicides in the Bible number seven (see [Middleton [8]). In all cases—Samson (Judg. 16:30), Saul and his armor bear (1 Chr. 10:4), Ahithophel (2 Sam. 17:23), Zimri (1 Kings 16:18), Abimelech (Judg. 9:52–54), and Judas (Matt. 27:3–5)—the suicide is mentioned nearby a description of “unfaithfulness” or “sin” in the victim’s life. While this clearly highlights the commonness of sin, and its potential for tragic consequences, this linking of sin with suicide does not indicate suicide is unforgivable.

There is no clear biblical denunciation of suicide as unforgivable.

The unforgivable sin refers to rejection of the Holy Spirit (Mark 3:28:30), a “kind of hardness of heart” [Matthis, 9; see also Chappell, 10]. Suicide is not equitable with rejection of the Holy Spirit any more than other sins—e.g., greed, lust, envy. Further, only God can determine the true state of other people’s hearts, through their lives and up to the instant of death. We cannot. We do not have the jurisdiction to declare someone unforgiven.

Our brothers and sisters bereaved by, or contemplating suicide, should not feel ostracized from their church families. Either passively, because no one understands or will talk about the subject, or actively, because suicide is deemed the “unforgivable sin.” Help us. Be, love, listen, and pray, and when recovery of mind and soul is sufficient, remind us of God’s promises. Please don’t leave us alone.

Jessica T. Miskelly lives in Australia with her husband and two daughters. She was shown true Christian belief by leaders who engaged her difficult questions. She relishes being surrounded by a loving church family as well as many teapots and books.

References:

[1] Australian Bureau of Statistics. “Causes of Death.” Accessed September 7, 20210. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/latest-release#australia-s-leading-causes-of-death-2020. Section “Suicide and premature mortality” & National Institute of Mental Health. “Suicide.” Accessed September 7, 2021. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide

[2] Wolpert, Lewis. Malignant Sadness: The Anatomy of Depression. London: Faber & Faber, 2001

[3] Eswine, Zack. Spurgeon’s Sorrows: Realistic Hope for those who Suffer from Depression. 2014. Christian Focus Publications Ltd, Scotland, UK.

[4] Jamison, Kay Redfield. Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide. 2000. Picador, New York. Chapter 6.

[5] Kagan, Jerome & Snidman, Nancy. The Long Shadow of Temperament. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2004.

[6] Parker, Gordon. Whither Melancholia: The Case for Its Classification as a Distinct Mood Disorder. Am J Psychiatry. 167(7). 2010 July.

[7] Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists Clinical Practice Guidelines Team for Depression. Australian and New Zealand clinical practice guidelines for the treatment of depression. 30 March 2004.

[8] Middleton, Paul. Suicide in the Bible. Accessed August 14, 2021. https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/people/related-articles/suicide-in-the-bible#contrib_middleton-paul

[9] Chapell, Bryan. Is there Hope after Suicide? 2011. Zondervan. Extract published in Relevant Magazine.

[10] Matthis, David. What is the Unforgivable Sin? Hope for those feeling too far gone. Desiring God. February 23, 2018.