There have been a number of high-profile suicides recently.  And it seems that every few weeks I hear a report of a “friend of a friend” committing suicide.  A couple weeks ago, this subject hit very close to home, as a young lady my daughters have sung with in choir took her own life.

When this tragedy invades our lives, it leaves us with questions — often many more questions than answers — and I’d like to talk a little bit about what our response should be to these events.

Express Acceptance & Grace

First, we need to express — and we need to teach our children and others in our lives to express — acceptance, understanding, and grace.  In the wake of a suicide, this acceptance needs to be extended to friends and family left behind.  In the case of someone contemplating suicide, this acceptance must be extended to him or her.

Let me very blunt: there is no biblical basis for the claim that suicide is an automatic sentence to hell.  You’d better have a darn good argument for that before making such a claim.  And even if you think you do, that is not what a grieving family member or friend needs to hear.  We are to speak truth in love, and there is no loving motivation for needlessly destroying a family member’s hope.

It is also unreasonable to cast blame.  Those struggling in despair do not need your judgment.  They need your love and acceptance.  Physically-rooted depression is not the same thing as run-of-the-mill discouragement.   If someone’s neurotransmitters are out of balance, that is a physical fact, not a spiritual choice.  Chances are, that person would love to be able to just “choose” to feel better — but he can’t.  When he’s in desperate need of help, being able to trust those around him to listen with grace and love rather than judge and condemn could literally be the difference between life and death.

After a suicide has already taken place, the loved ones left behind do not benefit from your questioning whether they did what they could.  Men and women are not God and we do not know all the thoughts and hearts of those around us.  Hindsight is 20/20, but it is impossible to go back…which leads me to the second part of our response:

Recognize That We May Never Know the Whole Story

We don’t know exactly what was going through someone’s head.  Maybe there were signs, and we just didn’t recognize them.  Maybe there weren’t. Maybe there were signs and we did what we knew to do to intervene, but it wasn’t enough.  Regardless, only God knows all the details.  We have to be okay with that.

We cannot blame ourselves; we cannot blame others close to the person.  That can only serve to take hope from someone else.

Learn the Lessons We Can Learn & Ask Questions for the Future

Do you wonder what you missed — how you failed to notice that someone was hurting?  Are you thinking that everything seemed to be good with that friend or family member?  Second-guessing doesn’t help — but we can let these questions serve as a reminder of the importance of paying attention to people.

We may never know why a given individual chose this path — but we can ask why suicide and mental illness are more prevalent than ever before, to seek out potential opportunities for change (as a society).

And we can make ourselves aware of the resources available for ourselves and others, and the ways that we can help friends and family who find themselves in a state of hopelessness in the future.