Good morning…
At Sunday’s Out of the Darkness Suicide Prevention walk, I learned of an amazing opportunity. One of my top five favorite books in the world is Choose Joy: Because Happiness is Not Enough. The book’s author, Kay Warren, will be here in Atlanta, speaking at Peachtree Road Methodist Church on February 1st and 2nd at the Step Out and Speak Out Suicide Prevention Summit.
Hosted by the One Lamb Initiative at PRUMC, on Sunday, February 1st at 5:00 pm, Kay will be the keynote speaker. Then on Monday, February 2nd, the church will host a Suicide Prevention Training Day, with sessions for community members, clergy, and clinicians. These free events will equip us with practical tools for suicide prevention.
Kay Warren is the wife of Rick Warren, founding pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life. Kay and Rick are the parents of Matthew, who took his life on April 5th, 2013 at age 27.
In the introduction to Choose Joy, Kay writes about the horrendous experience.
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Excerpt from Choose Joy by Kay Warren, pages 11 and 12
When I wrote Choose Joy, I revealed that I had a close family member who was living with a mental illness. I spoke about the challenge of choosing joy in the face of a struggle that was very dark and scary at times – both for my loved one and for me. As you may know, our “struggle” became catastrophic loss when our twenty-seven-year-old son, Matthew, took his life in April of 2013 after two decades of intense, painful – even torturous – mental and emotional suffering.
…The night before I did not sleep, I was so full of anxiety and grief because I was pretty sure he had died. So when I got dressed that morning, I deliberately reached into my jewelry drawer and selected a necklace that said Choose Joy. I was sick to my stomach, shaking from head to toe, and terrified that what I had dreaded had actually happened. But I put that necklace on because, somewhere in the dim recesses of my frozen mind, I was certain the only thing that would allow me to survive the loss of my son was what I knew and believed about God . . . and joy. That morning I possessed these three things: the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be okay, and the determined choice to give my praise to God – even on April 5, 2013.
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Is it possible to prevent suicide? How?
Gathering wisdom from a mother who spent over two decades walking beside her son, as he struggled with the mental and emotional suffering which ultimately led him to take his life. This feels like a very good place to begin. Might we also learn how to choose joy amid life’s most excruciating sorrow?
Please mark your calendar for February 1st and 2nd, and plan to join me and all of our One Lamb friends at PRUMC.
Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy (Psalm 126:5, NLT).
…Sue…
