Despite the spiritual warfare, Andrew went back to work and courageously delivered two very powerful messages on mental illness in the Hot Mess series. He used his own experience to shine a bright light on a subject few pastors have the courage to touch. He had done his research, he knew the facts, he had memorized the statistics, and he even gave out the suicide hotline number and encouraged others to use it. He wasn’t back to 100 percent yet; he was still healing. And he was very honest about where he was on the healing journey. He told our family and our church he was at about 65 percent capacity and was hoping to ease back into his responsibilities as lead pastor over time.
At home, behind the scenes, he was still struggling. One night he came into the kitchen and noticed I was feeling discouraged and sad. He asked, “What’s wrong, Kayla?” He made eye contact with me from across the counter, his big blue eyes searching for some sense of connection with mine. He was wearing a white tank top and swim shorts, the same outfit he had worn nearly every day over the summer. The muscles in his shoulders and arms looked strong. The hours he had been spending lifting weights in the garage had clearly paid off. But it was just a façade. Despite his obvious external strength, there was an internal weakness he couldn’t shake.
I heard his question, but I looked away before I said, “I’m just tired. I feel like I’m doing everything on my own. Our house feels like a war zone. The boys run around yelling and fighting all day, and I’m at my wit’s end with it all. I can’t keep up. I feel so alone.”
When he didn’t respond, I looked at him. He was tracing his fingers on the brown speckled granite. Then he said, “I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you like you need me to be, like the boys need me to be. I was up again last night, in the middle of the night. I was standing right here in the kitchen. I had papers spread all over the counter, trying to come up with a new organization chart for the church and feeling really overwhelmed and confused. And I thought about killing myself.”
My stomach sank. He was looking for compassion and connection, but I had nothing left to give. I was running on empty. I had told him I was tired and overwhelmed, and now he was telling me that he was just going to leave me?
“Andrew, you know that is the most selfish thing you could ever do, right? What about me? What about the boys? Andrew, you couldn’t do that to the boys. They love you so much. How far did you think about it? Did you google it? Did you research how to do it? You wouldn’t actually do that, right?” I was mad, confused, and stunned. He was being vulnerable and honest, and my mind wasn’t in a healthy enough place to handle it.
“Kayla, that’s not what you say to someone who is talking about suicide. You need to do some research and come up with something better to say. No, I didn’t google it. No, I don’t know how I would do it. It was just a moment. It was just a passing thought. It was there and then it was gone. And then I put my papers away and went back to bed.”
I wish I could say I got off my stool, walked around the kitchen island, and gave him a big hug. That I heard the utter despair in his voice and responded with compassion. But I didn’t. I was upset. It felt like another blow, another thing added to my already overflowing plate. It was devastating to hear that he thought the solution to our problems was for him to die and leave me all alone to figure things out.
Worst of all, I didn’t think he was serious. How could he be? He had everything he could ever want. He was at the top of his career, we’d just moved into a big, beautiful home. He had three boys who adored him, a wife who loved him deeply, a family who would drop anything and everything to be there for him, and a church who was cheering him on throughout his health journey. I didn’t believe he would actually kill himself; I was so deeply convinced of this truth, I never brought it up again. That night at the kitchen counter was the one and only time Andrew ever mentioned suicide. This is a regret I will live with for the rest of my life.
I’m still asking myself, Why didn’t I take it seriously? Why didn’t I seek to understand and empathize? Why did the word suicide erupt so many emotions inside of me? Why did I react instead of respond?
It’s difficult to know what to say when someone we love shares such a deep, dark thought with us. This was the first time in my life that someone close to me had ever talked about suicide. I was so ill-informed, so inexperienced, and so completely overwhelmed that I brushed it off. I didn’t listen; I didn’t sympathize. Instead I criticized. What I didn’t understand is that when someone expresses thoughts of suicide, it’s time to pay attention. It’s time to ask questions, listen intently, and respond with a heart of love.
A Better Response
The word suicide has become a taboo in our society. Instead of talking about it openly and freely, it is something we keep private and tucked away. Why is there so much shame and fear surrounding suicide? And what can we do to change it?
We have to change the way we talk about it. There are too many good men and women, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, coworkers and friends dying around us every single day. These are real people with seemingly beautiful lives who are silently struggling in the dark with agonizing thoughts of ending their pain forever.
The statistics don’t lie. Suicide is a worldwide problem. Roughly 800,000 people die by suicide in the world every year. Broken down, that’s one person every forty seconds.1 In the United States alone, suicide is the second leading cause of death among individuals between the ages of ten and thirty-four.2 In 2017 there were more than twice as many suicides in the United States as there were homicides.3 We have to find a way to save more lives. If people are brave enough to share their darkest thoughts, the best thing we can do is respond, not react. Here are a few ways to do that.
LISTEN
Let them talk! Let them vent. It’s good they feel safe enough to talk about it. Lean in, be fully present in the moment, ask questions, and talk less.
OFFER EMPATHY
Instead of being shocked or angry, remain calm. Let them know their feelings are valid, tell them how important they are, and remind them this is not the end and help is available. Don’t use the word selfish like I did. Although it may appear that way, suicide isn’t selfish. Those suffering from suicidal ideation genuinely believe everyone would be better off without them; they believe their death is the solution to their pain. Labeling them as selfish only heaps more pain onto their already broken minds.
TAKE IT SERIOUSLY
Any talk of suicide should be taken seriously. Follow up and ask questions like:
“Do you have a suicide plan?”
“Do you know when or how you would do it?”
“How often do you think about it?”
“What problem are you trying to solve through suicide?”
These questions can help lessen pain and can lead to unexplored solutions.
REACH OUT FOR HELP
We must do everything in our power to get them the help they need. Call a crisis line for advice (suicide hotline number: 1–800-273-8255), encourage them to seek professional help, and find a way to ensure that a friend or family member goes with them to every doctor’s appointment.
KEEP SHOWING UP
Don’t just say, “Call me if you need anything.” Be love in action. Show up at the front door. Keep calling until they answer. Invite them, include them, and continue to reach out until they get better.
When we shut down someone who is struggling with suicidal thoughts, the chances of the conversation surfacing again are slim to none. If we aren’t careful, we may miss the one and only opportunity to save a life. Typically, our first reaction is not our best response. If you are taken by surprise like I was, take a moment to pause and remember those four powerful words: “I have no idea.”
The Unimaginable
We believed Andrew was improving. Our family, our staff, and the medical professionals all thought he had turned the corner, but during Andrew’s third week back to work, everything changed.
Andrew was having a good week. He was full of anticipation for the message he was planning to deliver on Sunday. He was also gearing up for a big team rally on Friday night, something our church called “team night.” It was a full week, but he was excited about what God was going to do in and through him. I knew he was excited because he expressed it through our conversations and even on social media. On Wednesday morning he posted a video to his Instagram story from his home office. It was a peaceful morning. The sun was shining, his window was cracked open, and a slight breeze was blowing through the trees. Our small front-yard waterfall was trickling. He wrote, “Can’t complain about the sounds and views from my home study.”
However, by Wednesday night, fear and anxiety began to cloud his mind again. The boys were asleep, and we were sitting on our zero-gravity chairs in the backyard. Andrew had his computer open and was working on his talk for team night. He was feeling anxious about it and wasn’t sure if he would have the capacity to deliver two separate messages that week, one on team night and a different one on Sunday. Like we did for most of his messages, we sat in the backyard and worked it out. He talked, I listened, and we came up with solutions together. I loved together. I loved what we were building. I loved being his wife. Leading the church with him was and still is one of the greatest honors of my life. I found value and purpose in supporting the call God had placed on my guy. His calling became my calling.
However, it wasn’t always easy. Being at the top of any organization isn’t always easy. It’s true what they say: it’s lonely at the top. Harsh, hurtful emails find their way into inboxes at the top. Leaders are easy to blame for things that go wrong, and at the end of the day, the top dogs are responsible for the success or failure of a business. Andrew would often refer to himself as the “linchpin,” the one holding everything in place, and in some ways he was. He had done everything he could to hold the church together through his dad’s leukemia journey. Now he was grappling to hold the church together through his own mental illness journey, but it was slowly slipping through his fingers.
After we worked through the fear and anxiety surrounding his messages that week, we went back to our bedroom to pray. We lay on the bed, he gently rested his head on my lap, and I ran my fingers through his coarse brown hair as I’d done countless times before. Then I prayed. I could tell his mind was still sick, that he was pushing through confusing fear and pain. Everything in him desperately wanted to be better, desperately wanted to be back to 100 percent. It frustrated him immensely that this was slowing him down. We all wanted freedom from his mental health complications, but freedom always felt out of reach.
When I finished praying, Andrew immediately stood up and walked outside. He seemed frustrated all over again, and it broke my heart. I’d hoped praying together would help him relax and lead him back to peace, but it didn’t. All my efforts to help, no matter how pure, sweet, and nurturing, couldn’t touch the war raging inside his mind. As he was pacing around the backyard, I remember saying out loud, “God, why is he so unhappy?”
The next day I woke up early, like I did most mornings, to spend some quiet time alone. This is the prayer I scribbled in my journal before anyone woke up, before our lives changed forever:
God, thank you for another day. Thank you for helping me have a better, healthier, fresh perspective on life, my husband, and our boys. Thank you for helping me discern what to say or not to say. Thank you for giving me joy for my kids and peace. I pray over these next few days. I pray that Andrew’s meetings today would go really well. That he would be calm, that he would be strong, that he would connect well. Please help him to weather all of this well and to grow out of the pit he is in. I miss my husband. I miss the Andrew he was before all of this. I pray he would have newfound hope, newfound joy, newfound peace, and that he would run to you. I pray that the right people would come to the team out of nowhere. I pray that he would be able to organize the staff well, so it best supports him.
God, thank you for giving me the energy and compassion I need to be supportive. Please continue to fill me up so that I can continue to pour out every day. Please continue to give me wisdom; thank you for growing me in so many ways, for stretching me beyond my limits, and for walking beside me through the fire. God, I cling to you, your hope, your words. Please lead my mind, my heart, my spirit, and my soul. Please help me to love others well today and be a light for you. I love you, God, amen.
Hope is what I had.
Hope we would one day find solid ground again.
Hope this was just a temporary darkness.
Hope healing was waiting for us off in the distance.
Hope Andrew would rediscover himself.
Hope this was just the beginning of our lives, not the end.
A few hours later, Andrew called me, and he was in the middle of what I can only describe as an “episode.” He had received some unsettling information during a meeting at the office, which his broken mind couldn’t process rationally. His healthy mind would have been able to shake it off, come up with solutions, and move on with the day. But he wasn’t healthy; he was still sick. With the help of our immediate family, we were able to move Andrew to a quiet, safe location. We surrounded him with love, care, and empathy. We listened to him talk for hours as he processed his pain out loud.
As Andrew continued to process his emotions, anger grew inside of him. We tried to better understand where the anger was stemming from, but all Andrew could say was, “Anger is fear!” I didn’t understand what he meant by fear. I didn’t know where the fear was coming from, and I didn’t know how to help him. I had been living with the extremes of his mental illness all summer. I was tired, and I reached my own breaking point. I excused myself from the situation and drove home crying. I needed to pause. I needed to clear my mind so that I could better respond to Andrew from a place of love instead of exhaustion and pain.
I drove home alone, and I didn’t call anyone. To be honest, I still felt like I couldn’t call anyone. I felt confused and very far from the hope I’d had in the quiet calm of the morning. Hope for a good day, hope for a better life, hope for healing—it all seemed a million miles away.
The next morning, I dropped my oldest son, Smith, off at kindergarten, stopped by a local donut shop to grab breakfast for my other two boys, and then went to meet with a few immediate family members to discuss the next steps to take for Andrew’s health. As a family, we had worked through his health complications before, and I was confident this was just another hurdle; we would find a way to move forward from this too. As we made phone calls and scheduled meetings, the unimaginable took place. Andrew, who had been left alone to rest, attempted suicide.
As I arrived on the scene, I began screaming, yelling, asking over and over again, “Is he dead? Is he going to be okay? What happened?”
I was out of my mind, out of my body. In complete panic, I cried, moaned, wailed. I made sounds I didn’t even know I could make, and I pounded on the floor. I was in disbelief. After what felt like hours, the paramedics were able to find a pulse. They loaded Andrew into an ambulance and took him to the hospital. I followed in a car close behind. My mind was spinning out of control, tears were streaming down my face, and I was deeply confused. The husband I loved and adored, the father of our beautiful boys, the pastor of our incredible church—this could not be happening to him.
I prayed the same prayer over and over again during the twenty-minute drive to the hospital. “God, we need a miracle. God, please.” I deeply believed God would save him, God would pull him through, God wouldn’t allow another tragedy to hit our family and our church. This wouldn’t be the end of Andrew’s life.
I arrived at the hospital and waited in a cold, small room with another family member and a member from our staff. After the doctors ran necessary tests and hooked his fragile body up to numerous machines, they gave us the green light to enter his room. I ran in, flung my body onto his, and wept. Through my tears I whispered over and over again, “I’m so sorry.” My heart was shattered. Guilt weighed heavily on my body and my soul. I felt like I should have done more, like I could have prevented this from happening, like it was all my fault. The man I loved, the man whose head I’d cradled in my lap just a few nights before, the man I’d built my life with, the man I’d made a family with, the man I had hoped to grow old with was just inches away from death. How could this be happening?
This is suicide.
The blindside we hate. It’s unpredictable, irrational, and tragic. Our finite minds have no place to categorize it. We weren’t created to process this kind of pain and death. Sadly, my story is one many have lived or will live. In the wake of my husband’s suicide, I’ve learned there are many painful misconceptions about this type of tragedy, and we need to do better. We need to change the way we approach and talk about suicide. By seeking to understand and empathize, we will begin to break the stigma and can come alongside those who are struggling—those who are experiencing suicidal thoughts or those who have lost a loved one to suicide.
Myth #1: Suicide is an unforgivable sin.
This is a common misconception that’s been debated in religious circles for centuries. The theological framework for it was first introduced through the bishop Saint Augustine in his book The City of God. In the book, Augustine states several arguments against suicide, claiming that those who take their life into their own hands look away from God and commit murder. He justified this through his interpretation of the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” (Ex. 20:13 KJV). He considered suicide an unforgivable sin—a murder of self that allowed no room for repentance.4
As this philosophy spread, suicide became regarded as a sinful crime. People who died by suicide were punished and even denied a Christian burial. Attempted suicides also had harsh consequences that could lead to punishment by excommunication. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the Catholic Church began to see suicide differently, and for the first time the catechism of the Catholic Church acknowledged, “Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide. We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for . . . repentance.”5
I’ll be the first to admit that prior to Andrew’s suicide, I may have actually believed the words of Saint Augustine. I remember leaning over to my mother-in-law, Carol, in the hospital room and whispering through my tears, “Will he go to heaven?” She quickly reassured me, and I am confident now: our acceptance into eternity doesn’t hinge on how we die; instead it hinges on our salvation, our personal relationship with Jesus. I was relieved by her response and now confidently believe this to be true. Although Andrew’s life was cut short—and I truly believe suicide was not God’s plan for his life—I can rest knowing his salvation is secure and he is at peace in eternity.
Myth #2: Suicide is selfish.
The ripple effect of suicide is terribly destructive, but can suicide really be considered selfish? The main question I received after Andrew’s suicide was, “How could he do that to his family?” It’s a question I ask myself all the time because the Andrew I knew would never have wanted to cause me, the boys, our family, or our church pain. The Andrew I knew loved his life. He looked to the future and saw hope, not doom. There’s only one appropriate answer to this question that I can reconcile in my mind: it wasn’t him. His mind was sick, and I will never fully grasp or understand what those final moments leading up to the suicide were like for him.
As I have wrestled with this notion, I have also done research. The truth, I have found, is that the suicidal mind is in an altered state of consciousness, which causes significantly distorted thinking.6 Reality becomes blurred as the mind fixates on the idea that the suffering individual is a burden and won’t be missed. These toxic thoughts lead to isolation, and soon suicide seems like the only solution to escape unbearable pain.
Self-proclaimed “suicidologist” Edwin Shneidman coined the term psychache to describe this kind of unbearable psychological pain. In his book Autopsy of a Suicidal Mind, Shneidman described psychache as a pain that darkens life. A pain that is “unbearable, intolerable, unendurable, and unacceptable.” And in this type of pain, it becomes better to “stop the cacophony” than to endure the noise.7 Shneidman theorized that unresolved psychache results in suicidal behavior. Through his extensive research he discovered psychache to be the cause in nearly every case of suicide.
Andrew’s mind was broken, and he was in pain. I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around what those moments must have felt like. Imagine the torment and torture it must take for any human being to go against the human will to survive and ultimately die by suicide. Although there are times when I feel angry at Andrew, and although I still have questions he will never be able to answer, I do not blame him for his death. He was sick, his mind was overcome with pain, and his death is a tragedy.
Myth #3: If you truly believe in God you will never have suicidal thoughts.
Andrew loved God and ran to him in his depression. He filled his alone time with worship music. He spent time reading Scripture and sitting with God in prayer. He leaned into his faith to carry him through some of his darkest moments. Just like Andrew, we see heroes of our faith struggle with the darkness of their minds all throughout Scripture:
• David wrote in a psalm, “How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?” (Ps. 13:1–2)
• Jonah in his anger with God prayed, “LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!” (Jonah 4:3 NKJV)
• Moses, in his feelings of disappointment and betrayal by his own people, cried out, “But now, please forgive their sin—but if not, then blot me out of the book you have written.” (Ex. 32:32)
• Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, overcome with anguish, declared, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death.” (Matt. 26:38)
The difficulty of life sometimes takes a devastating toll on our minds. Although we serve a God of miracles who is powerful enough to rescue anyone from the grips of depression or suicidal ideation, the truth is sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes those who are suffering feel much like David and are asking God, “How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?”
The Wilderness
Even our darkest thoughts will never separate us from the love of God. He is with us in the wilderness, and he is with us as we wrestle with our brokenness. He is with us as we ask the hard questions from our places of pain. He is with us as we fight to make it through each day. If you are silently struggling with suicidal thoughts and you are thinking about leaving for good, please fight to stay. I know your overwhelming pain is real. I have wrestled with thoughts of leaving this place and my pain forever too. But learning to live with the pain is possible. And building a beautiful life around the pain is possible too. To stay is a brave choice, maybe the bravest choice you will ever make. And if you can’t choose it for yourself, then please look around and choose to stay for the ones you love. They need you, we need you, and we don’t want to stay here without you.
Continue to wrestle, continue to fight, continue to push through one more minute, one more hour, one more day. Let the breath in your lungs be a reminder of the grace that covers everything. It covers the darkness, it covers anxiety, it covers depression, and it covers suicidal ideation. His grace is how we all make it through another day. We are all broken people, we all carry pain, and we are all covered in the light of his mighty love. A light that is strong enough to pierce through every dark, confusing, and isolating place. A light that offers real, true hope—a lifeline light that reaches through our pain and leads us back to peace. You may feel completely surrounded by darkness, but I promise you, friend, if you look hard enough, you will find a glimmer of light, and maybe a glimmer is enough for today. You are not alone. You are loved. Your life matters.