Good morning…
“Praying for you and Steve,” she texted prayers for my husband and me. “So much grief and sadness in our community and in our world. The Lovett School has been hit hard with death in just a few weeks and I am so sorry for the loss of your friend.”
“Our daughter is at UNC,” she went on to explain. “There were two student suicides on campus this weekend. One person jumped off a freshman dorm roof in broad daylight at 10:45 am on Saturday and one inside a dorm at 3:00 am on Sunday morning. The young man who jumped made me think of the 2017 Lovett grad who died similarly the following year at UVA. Apparently, UGA, USC, and UT have all had at least one suicide since the beginning of the school year on their campuses as well.”
(At dinner that night I asked our own twenty-six year old son, who works for a campus ministry at GA Tech, if they have had any suicides this year and he said he was aware of one.)
“Praying for all of our young adults as they navigate these uncertain times to see the light of God versus the darkness that consumes them,” my friend concluded.
“Yes, suicides and suffering bond us with Christ in profound ways,” I texted back. “A friend from Florida shared with me this quote from Paige Brown today: ‘Suffering is one of our closest family resemblances to Jesus.’ I am sorry to hear of all these suicides, as this type of death leaves such deep scars on loved ones.”
Later in the day she texted again. “My desktop calendar at work,” she sent a simple caption with the photo below.
“I love this,” I replied. “God continues our earlier conversation. We must keep remembering: The Lord’s light possesses power to transform the darkness inside and around us. Suicides and our suffering are touched every day by the ebb and flow of eternal sunshine.”
At the beginning God expressed himself. That personal expression, that word, was with God, and was God, and he existed with God from the beginning. All creation took place through him, and none took place without him. In him appeared life and this life was the light of mankind. The light still shines in the darkness and the darkness has never put it out (John 1:1-5, PHILLIPS).
…Sue…
