"No single determinant, including mental illness, is enough on its own to cause a suicide. Rather, suicide typically results from the interaction of many factors, for example: mental illness, marital breakdown, financial hardship, deteriorating physical health, a major loss, or a lack of social support." - Statistics Canada
These are the primary reasons that people are committing suicide. Of course there are others factors that could be added. Euthanasia is meant to 'serve' those who are struggling with a physical disability or even multiple disabilities. There are many cases where a person commits suicide due to having witnessed or experienced a trauma. Other's had a family member or friend who took their own life and made the same decision. I in no way want to diminish these situations, or any combination of them, for they are trials that are extremely hard to bear. However, I believe that hope can displace despair and that those who offer death, including doctor assisted death, are causing harm to the person and in no way doing them a service. I have not personally experienced many of these circumstances, so it would be correct to say that I can not fully understand just how difficult they are. Which is why I want to direct you to the perspective of people who have!
During the Holocaust, the Nazi forces moved the Jewish citizens of occupied territories into ghettos. For many, the ghetto was the precursor to the concentration camp or the gas chamber. The conditions in these places were horrific. Among other things, the population that was forced to live there far exceeded the capacity of the space, families were often separated, disease was rampant, and the dead were left in the streets for days sometimes. The following is a journal entry, written by a man who was living in the Warsaw ghetto, in which he further describes their circumstances. In his writing, he made note of a remarkable resolve that was present among the ghetto's inhabitants:
"...One of the most surprising side-effects of this war is the clinging to life, the almost total absence of suicides. People die in great numbers of starvation, the typhus epidemic or dysentery, they are tortured and murdered by the Germans in great numbers, but they do not escape from life by their own desire. On the contrary, they are tied to life by all their senses, they want to live at any price and to survive the war. The tensions of this historic world conflict are so great that all wish to see the outcome of the gigantic struggle and the new regime in the world, the small and the great, old men and boys. The old have just one wish: the privilege of seeing the end and surviving Hitler. I know a Jew who is all old age. He is certainly about 80. Last winter a great tragedy befell the old man. He had an only son who was about 52. The son died of typhus. He has no other children. And the son died. He did not marry a second time and lived with his son. A few days ago I visited the old man. When I left – his mind is still entirely clear – he burst out crying and said: "I want to see the end of the war, even if I live only another half an hour!"Why should the old man wish so much to stay alive? There it is: even he wants to live, "if only half an hour" after the last shot is fired. This is the burning desire of all the Jews." - Journal Entry of Avraham Levin, Jewish Virtual Library
These people were facing cruel treatment and intolerable living situations every day and yet they were not willing to throw their lives away! Instead they were "tied to life by all their senses, they want(ed) to live at any price. These people had no way of knowing how long it would be before the war would end, or if they could even survive to see that day and yet they hoped to. In the midst of suffering they were clinging to a hope of seeing its end.
"I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." (Psalm xxvii. 13)
The had hope of seeing good again and they were persevering in the midst of trial. As Christians,
"...We also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." (Romans v. 3-5)
"My Brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience." (James i. 2).
Many of us have learned to view tribulation, or suffering of any kind, as a bad thing; something that we should try to avoid or escape from. Yet God's word tells us that if we are willing to walk through tribulations we will learn patience or, as Romans v. said, perseverance. Trials are not a test of how fast we can run but rather how long we will be able to walk. People are in need of God's grace to walk through difficulties, for if they rely on their own strength they will soon falter. Those who are suffering without God resort to running away because they know that they don't have what they need to bear the trial they are facing and they want to get as far away from it as they can while their strength lasts. They want to escape. Escape can come through a variety of means, including suicide, but God has asked us to look to Him instead of trying to escape through our own means.
"No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it." (1 Corinthians x. 13)
You may not have realized, but God actually promises us a way to escape trials! That escape doesn't mean turning and running in the opposite direction, or that the trial is going to instantly end. Instead it is a form of escape that allows us to endure the trial. To stay the course. To walk right through it!
In His word, God is revealed as the one who gives life, which doesn't only mean that He gave it to you when you came into this world, but that it is He who is sustaining you each and every day (Acts xvii. 28). Therefore, if you wake up tomorrow morning you can rightly assume that God has chosen to have you live another day. If you are questioning the wisdom of that decision allow me to remind you that the bible also says that God is omniscient, which means simply that He knows all. So lets apply that information to tomorrow morning when you wake up: God knows exactly what you have been going through up to this point and what you will have to face in this new day. He also knows your breaking point; how much you can take. After all, it is He who created you, who literally knit you together in your mothers womb (Psalm cxxxix. 13). So with all this knowledge at His disposal, God has chosen that ________ (insert your name here) is going to live another day! You may not like this decision, but it was God who made it. With the trial, or the temptation, He will be faithful to provide that which is needed to steady you. He will help you through it. In the end, He has promised that a trial, however difficult, will strengthen you and teach you perseverance. The trial will not destroy you if you accept God's way of escape instead of trying to find your own. Walk through it trusting in Him.
These promises and facts are not for you alone but are meant to be shared to encourage others who are struggling. There is no reason sufficient to justify suicide because God is infallible - He doesn't make mistakes. If He doesn't decide to end someone's life it is for a reason. It isn't a mistake that He has given that person another day to live. Even the trials will be for good so we need to trust Him to provide what is needed to bring us through! Christians have been given a hope, that we will see goodness in the land of the living, for even in trials we have the goodness of God to sustain us, and that hope was meant to be shared with a struggling and dying world!
In Christ
quiana
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