Today is World Suicide Day. Not everyone's favourite topic. But a very dark reality that all too many people, even many of our Boomer sisters here, live with throughout their lives.

I was fortunate enough to survive my suicide attempt...this is definitely the one time when I can say "by the grace of God"...

MERCY

Excerpt from Chapter 6

“Even while swallowing the pills, I continued to cry out to God to understand and forgive me, begging Him to see my despair and exhaustion, and how raw my fingers of faith had become from trying so long and hard to fight my way out. I just couldn’t live like this anymore. And so I lay down to die.

Time had no meaning that morning. It could have been minutes or hours, I had no awareness in the "when" anymore. But I was definitely aware when death began to crawl over me. I could barely make it to the bathroom to be violently sick and once there, slipped in and out of consciousness while still hugging the toilet bowl.

My phone started ringing. My phone rarely rang. It didn’t make any sense to my drug-fogged brain that it would be ringing now. Early Sunday morning. Everyone I knew would be in church. I hadn’t been to church in four months. Nobody would miss me.

With greater clarity than I had ever experienced before, I realized that this was my last possible chance. The ultimate moment of choice. Answer the phone and live, or let it ring and die. I knew to the core of my being that if I didn’t answer that phone in time, I was going to die.

It was somewhere around the 20th ring when I finally reached the phone. I had just enough breath left to utter "Help" before collapsing.

Then came the dream:

In the dream, I was me, lying limp and dead in the arms of Jesus. I was white, very cold, lifeless, and unable to move or speak or do anything other than just lie there. He held me in His arms, close enough that I could feel His heartbeat pulsing against my own heart. He rocked me back and forth saying, "I love you, and I understand. I love you, and I understand.” Over and over and over again. That’s all He did. He continuously rocked me back and forth, repeating over and over, "I love you, and I understand.”

He rocked me for what felt like an eternity’s worth of time.

And then He said, “Now it’s time to give you back to the people who will love you back to life.”

And then I woke up.”


This was my defining experience of Mercy…there had been no disapproval, no scolding, no hell, no demand for penance, no reprimand, or even the slightest glimmer of reproach. There had been no such thing in those loving eyes or that life-giving embrace as me being “beyond redemption”. There had only been Love. Pure Unconditional Love.

That experience of pure, unconditional love being poured into my dying body and mind was what dared me to learn how to embrace myself with the same mercy and compassion.

He gave me back my life. I gave me back my permission to live that life.


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I may not be able to be back here for discussion on this until later this afternoon or evening. But I invite you to share your questions, thoughts, feelings and experiences here and I'll join in as soon as I can.

[ September 10, 2005, 11:06 AM: Message edited by: Eagle Heart ]