This past Thursday evening I attended my thirteenth consecutive Talent Show at the primary school where our oldest two children were pupils and where our youngest is still  a pupil. In 2002 our oldest daughter started school.  It was also the year our youngest daughter was born.

This past Tuesday I attended a memorial service for a fifteen year old who had committed suicide.  She had also been a pupil at the same school and as I watched our grade seven’s perform their traditional end of the Talent Show dance, I could not help but reflect that two years prior to this evening that fifteen year old was performing a dance in the same school hall on the same stage.  She was vibrant and full of life, just like the grade seven’s performing their dance in the video below.  Her whole life was ahead of her.  Just like the girls below.

How did we as a community allow this to happen?
How do we prevent this from happening to the children below?

Maybe we all need to take some time to reassess our lives.  Invite other families into our homes.  Go camping.  Eat meals together at the table.  Have family dates where social media is banned.  Play board games and charades.  Pray for each other.  Stop isolating ourselves from each other in our busyness.

There is no stigma in suicide.  No one family is responsible for a death by suicide. Sometimes the depression is too deep, the darkness and hopelessness overwhelming BUT MAYBE if we spend more time with each other as a community, if we take the time to be more aware of each other, we can help lift the darkness a little bit.

As believers we have a powerful weapon in prayer.  We need to take to heart the words in 1 Thessalonians 5:17

“pray without ceasing”

Don’t pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it. A man is powerful on his knees. ~ Corrie Ten Boom

If you are considering suicide and even if you are not – please click on the following link.  The article is entitled “The morning after I killed myself”

 http://imgur.com/4swX4N1