Christing Monday April 8th, 2013

Monday:

One of the things the church did was have it’s board members and pastoral staff attend pastor Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church conference in Lake Forest, CA. During this time my wife and I met Rick and his family. Although I didn't agree with some of his ideas I learned that he was a man of God who truly loved the Lord and his church. On Sunday the news hit me like a ton of bricks and tears immediately filled my eyes. Rick Warren’s son Matthew, 27 had committed suicide this past Friday.

As a paramedic attempted suicide is a call I respond to on a weekly basis. The completed and successful act is less frequent. However with every suicide I have responded to I have been met with an overwhelming sense of evil when I have walked into the area/room of the deceased. There is often times a smell of gunpowder or the sound of a creaking rafter with a rope hanging over it in the air, and always a complete darkness that envelops me, a sense of side splitting laughter by the many spirits that still occupy the room gloating over their accomplishment of stealing another of God’s children.

The gloom that I feel lingers for hours, days sometimes much longer, usually depending on the age of the victim. A constant questioning of “what could have been so bad that they felt that there was no other way out than this”? “What circumstance hurt so bad that this was a better alternative?” “Where was her family, friends and God during this selfish act?”

One idea that God always places on my heart is loneliness. That someone could feel so alone in their despair that they felt no other way is just a lie that these filthy rotten, #@$^% demons convinced him of. That in turn deepens my own despair. I feel as if we have lost another one, that they have won and we have lost.

Loneliness can be brought on by many things: transitions in life, separations, opposition and rejection.  This week we will look at each of these things, coincidentally the same things Paul dealt with near the end of his life and how he dealt with them; how the bible teaches us to deal with them.

I know that not everyone may deal with loneliness. But if the statistics are right someone you know, maybe many people you know are dealing with it. So please stick with me and if it does not speak to you personally please apply the concepts to someone else in your life.