Death and Suicide, part one?
Last year, when I went on tour with my drama team we had to give a testimony every few nights. We took turns. This is the one I wrote:
Hello, my name is Quinn, and I just completed my first year of Bible School.
I grew up in a Christian home, and there was never any question for me about my faith: I simply loved Jesus with all of my heart, that was all I knew. As I grew up that was all I wanted to know. My sunday school teacher led me to Christ through prayer, and I gave Jesus my heart. The next morning I woke up and ran to my brother's room and told him he had to accept Jesus into his heart too. At six years old I wasn't completly sure what it all meant, but I knew it was very important and a good thing to do. My brother, being four at the time, was very agreable to anything his big sister said, so I led him in prayer.
Since that time in my life I have gone through a lot of different seasons and emotions. I often search for that same excitement and charge from God, looking for that same insistence and jy that came with the experience of being a witness for God. Thankfully, God has granted me that pleasure. However, somewhere in my journey as a Christian, fear set in and I didn't want to speak up as much as I once had. I now had my reputation to think about, and when you are a preteen and a teenager, the worst thing is being rejected by peers. I knew that would be what would happen if I expressed my relationship with God too much.
Since being at Bible School I have struggled with my past of silence, of not sharing my faith. I used to ride the bus with a guy named Tom. For a whole year I saw him and talked to him every day. I knew he wasn't a Christian, basically because he and his friends would tease me and my brother for our faith.
Thankfully, after a year of that, God moved my family and I continued to grow further in His love. About eight months later I found out Tom died in an accident. For a while I struggled with that fact and how I could have been a better witness. I live with the fact every day that Tom died without knowing the love of Jesus. I had been too scared that whole year to share God's love with him. I was too frightened that perhaps the teasing would get worse. Now I look back and I can hardly stand it that I didn't have faith taht God could use me. I shouldn't have craed what Tom and his friends though, but instead I should have focused on what God thought. I should have thought about how these boys could spend eternity in hell without my witness, but I was selfish.
God worked through these feelings and the sadness with me. He let me know that he had forgiven me and I should not feel guilty anymore.
At the beginning of my year at Bible School Satan really attacked me. I felt the feelings of guilt returning. He made sure to let me know how worthless I was, and I felt that God couldn't love me after I had failed to be the kind of witness he called me to be.
Well guess what. I'm back where I started. I do feel like I could have helped save Tom's life. I wrote this poem this morning. Pretty much sums it up.
I looked into your eyes
As the light left them
I held your hand
As it went limp
I called your name
Even as your ears stopped working
You left me.
You took yourself away
When you said you would never go
You took that gun
That noose
That poison.
On purpose
You knew my love for you
Or maybe you didnt
Did I tell you?
Would it have made a difference?
I could have saved you
I could have stoped you
Reached out and took the gun
Took the noose
Took the poison
Right from your hand, away from you.
My fault.
I hate it.
I hate myself.
That wasn't written for Tom... but I did write it.
Wanna know something weird. I was sitting here, bawling this morning, calling to Jesus for comfort. I went to the bus, sitting there waiting I was just barely holding back the tears. I got on the bus, and what are the people in front of me talking about? Probably every person they have ever heard of who has killed themselves. I couldn't even try to hold back the tears then. I just let them slide down my face.
It's dumb. I don't even know what to do, how to act. All I know is that it hurts so bad, but another thing... I feel comforted. I see Jesus reaching out to me, embrassing me, holding me, telling me he's got it covered. He's got my back.
Hello, my name is Quinn, and I just completed my first year of Bible School.
I grew up in a Christian home, and there was never any question for me about my faith: I simply loved Jesus with all of my heart, that was all I knew. As I grew up that was all I wanted to know. My sunday school teacher led me to Christ through prayer, and I gave Jesus my heart. The next morning I woke up and ran to my brother's room and told him he had to accept Jesus into his heart too. At six years old I wasn't completly sure what it all meant, but I knew it was very important and a good thing to do. My brother, being four at the time, was very agreable to anything his big sister said, so I led him in prayer.
Since that time in my life I have gone through a lot of different seasons and emotions. I often search for that same excitement and charge from God, looking for that same insistence and jy that came with the experience of being a witness for God. Thankfully, God has granted me that pleasure. However, somewhere in my journey as a Christian, fear set in and I didn't want to speak up as much as I once had. I now had my reputation to think about, and when you are a preteen and a teenager, the worst thing is being rejected by peers. I knew that would be what would happen if I expressed my relationship with God too much.
Since being at Bible School I have struggled with my past of silence, of not sharing my faith. I used to ride the bus with a guy named Tom. For a whole year I saw him and talked to him every day. I knew he wasn't a Christian, basically because he and his friends would tease me and my brother for our faith.
Thankfully, after a year of that, God moved my family and I continued to grow further in His love. About eight months later I found out Tom died in an accident. For a while I struggled with that fact and how I could have been a better witness. I live with the fact every day that Tom died without knowing the love of Jesus. I had been too scared that whole year to share God's love with him. I was too frightened that perhaps the teasing would get worse. Now I look back and I can hardly stand it that I didn't have faith taht God could use me. I shouldn't have craed what Tom and his friends though, but instead I should have focused on what God thought. I should have thought about how these boys could spend eternity in hell without my witness, but I was selfish.
God worked through these feelings and the sadness with me. He let me know that he had forgiven me and I should not feel guilty anymore.
At the beginning of my year at Bible School Satan really attacked me. I felt the feelings of guilt returning. He made sure to let me know how worthless I was, and I felt that God couldn't love me after I had failed to be the kind of witness he called me to be.
Well guess what. I'm back where I started. I do feel like I could have helped save Tom's life. I wrote this poem this morning. Pretty much sums it up.
I looked into your eyes
As the light left them
I held your hand
As it went limp
I called your name
Even as your ears stopped working
You left me.
You took yourself away
When you said you would never go
You took that gun
That noose
That poison.
On purpose
You knew my love for you
Or maybe you didnt
Did I tell you?
Would it have made a difference?
I could have saved you
I could have stoped you
Reached out and took the gun
Took the noose
Took the poison
Right from your hand, away from you.
My fault.
I hate it.
I hate myself.
That wasn't written for Tom... but I did write it.
Wanna know something weird. I was sitting here, bawling this morning, calling to Jesus for comfort. I went to the bus, sitting there waiting I was just barely holding back the tears. I got on the bus, and what are the people in front of me talking about? Probably every person they have ever heard of who has killed themselves. I couldn't even try to hold back the tears then. I just let them slide down my face.
It's dumb. I don't even know what to do, how to act. All I know is that it hurts so bad, but another thing... I feel comforted. I see Jesus reaching out to me, embrassing me, holding me, telling me he's got it covered. He's got my back.
posted by Gurly239 at 11:58 PM
1 Comments:
Hey that is pretty nuts, I mean I can't directly relate but I do feel that I don't say enough. That I don't stick out enough. At the same time I don't if it just needs to be every word out of our mouth. Jesus, Jesus and more Jesus. I love him. Our life isn't sitting in the halls of our school trying to convert people and I do believe from personal experiences that there can be a lot of condemnation in a situation like that. However we do need to show God's love, how I am not sure. We need to though. There will be oppurtunities that we should take and speak up. I don't know how that all works though and it is something that I have struggled with a lot. I haven't however felt responsible for someone going to hell cause I did not witness to them. I mean maybe I really need to step up in that area I need to take this to heart. Not to feel responsible but to bring praise to God, to lead people to the love of God. I want to know how, when and where. I probably do though, everywhere, all the time...and how well that is a little different perhaps. I want to tell you though Quinn it is not your fault. You are not responsible. Lots of struggling though, wow. I am sure that hurts. I would say just use this experience for good, don't hold back when you feel led to tell someone something.
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