Crash and Burn

People who are doing okay don’t light their own lives on fire.

It’s really easy to make judgments about people who are making reckless decisions in their own lives. Especially when those decisions are harming us or others.

One of the things I think it’s important to pause and recognize is that the people who are destroying their own lives are not okay.

This doesn’t mean the solution is to allow them to continue as they are. Sin is still sin, even when the sinner is hurting. Tough conversations can be essential. Setting boundaries can be essential. You aren’t loving someone when you are allowing them to continue sinning.

However, the way you view those individuals can adjust to show more grace. When we insert our own sense of self-righteousness and indignation we can become blocked from truly loving others. Our pride is our greatest weakness. If you are consumed with your own victimhood, you will likely be ill-equipped to productively address the behaviors of someone else.

God cares about us and our pain, even though it is often self-inflicted. He would have every right to sit back and allow us to suffer the consequences of our own actions. However, He loved us so deeply that He stepped into our mess to break the power of sin and save us. His compassion for us is unfathomable.

At the lowest point in my own life I was (in hindsight) very obviously self-sabatoging. During that time, I was actually being a brat (PG language applied here).

God’s mercy is far greater than I could ever explain to another. I will never be able to fully grasp it myself. But it is His goodness that I am still here, and it is His goodness that I am writing. I feel very humbled that He had so much healing in store for me.

I don’t know why His plan for me has held so much healing that I know others don’t get. I think one of the best things I can do to honor that gift is to share about my own experience. People are often blindsided by suicide. There is so much pain in the aftermath, and we wish we had seen the signs. The signs aren’t all just staying in bed sad. Some of the signs are really ugly. Some of the signs are really hurtful.

You are never responsible for keeping someone else alive. It is not on you to allow someone else to continue to hurt you because “they might be suicidal” (or even “they are”). You are called to trust God. He knows their story and He has a plan.

But the reality is that sometimes a perspective shift can give us a bit more empathy, a bit more humility, and a bit more grace.