Welcome to Day Five of the devotional series taken from the book, “Taking It to Our Knees – Rigorous Prayers for Life’s Greatest Challenges.”

Today’s Theme is “The Agonizing Tragedy of Suicide.”

The Quote for Today Is This:

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

• I Corinthians 6:19-20

Life is precious. Therefore, the loss of it goes deep. There are losses that are a natural part of our existence. They hurt, but at least they make sense. But then there are the losses that don’t make sense. The losses that didn’t need to happen. The losses that were premature, unnecessary, avoidable, and entirely out of step with life as we know it (or would like to know it).

Suicide is one of these. This loss was a choice. In all likelihood it involved the convergence of many things dark and weighty; hopelessness, despair, life gone wrong, self-hatred, incessant failures, the inability to find a niche, dreams smashed, relationships lost, faith gone. And the pressing compilation of such things tips the scales and renders death preferable to life. At some point of darkest desperation, a decision is made and an action is taken. And suddenly we are left with a loss that doesn’t make sense. A loss that didn’t need to happen. A loss that was premature and unnecessary. A loss that doesn’t fit because it shouldn’t. And despite our best effort to understand it all, resolution eludes us and people continue to die.

And all of those who live out their lives in those places are eventually left asking the question of “why?” But maybe we need to replace the question of “why” with the question of “how” because that question holds the answers to what we need to change in our lives, our families, our communities, and our nation to save the next life.

Prayer

Dear God:

Yes, I want to heal from those I’ve lost through suicide. But I don’t want to heal so much that I forget the desperation that can cause a human being to forsake the privilege of living. I want to be sensitive to how difficult life can be and how fragile all of us can become, including myself.

Help me to hate it when the gift of life is snacked away at the hands of the very one to whom this gift was given. But more than that, help me to love the person so much, and to see the value in the life that they lived that they never become identified by the choice that they made. Rather, might they always be identified by the person that they were.

Today, right now, there are many, many people who are weighing out the value of their lives as held against the suffering in their lives. And in the weighing, they are finding little reason to live. Remind them that they are made in Your image, and that such an image is something at which to marvel.

And so, I ask You to crush the dark voices within these people. In their place, I ask You to speak into their lives an equally formidable sense of their worth, their value, and their immense potential. I am asking You to create a compelling feeling of self-love within them, a surging passion for life that won’t be denied, an electrifying vision for their existence, and a belief that they have a place that no one can fill but them.

I pray all of this in Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Here’s a thought to carry with you today:

“Although the limb fell to the weight of winter’s snow, the tree did not. And as I deal with my losses, I work to remember that I may lose a limb, but a limb is never a tree.”

• Craig D. Lounsbrough

Thanks for joining us today on this thirty-day devotional series taken from the book, “Taking It to Our Knees – Rigorous Prayers for Life’s Greatest Challenges.” You will find “Taking It to Our Knees” on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or wherever books are sold.

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Have a great day!