For those of you who don’t know I’ve been diagnosed with bipolar disorder with psychoses. I don’t hear voices or have hallucinations. Just strong dellusions (sometimes paranoid) about myself and the world arround me. If I’m not on my medications I can get really depressed at times. I have contemplated suicide in the past. One of the things that has helped me in the past is the belief that if you kill yourself you go to hell (eternal suffering). I don’t know if it’s true or not but I’m not going to try it and find out. Granted today I am more motivated by faith hope and love (not fear) to stay alive but I can see how someone would commit suicide if they could just ease the pain and live forever in eternal bliss. This is one of the reasons I remain agnostic about the issue of hell. I think I’m just going to trust God. He is a just judge and in the end it will all work out.
PM sent
Michael,
I appreciate your candidness and honesty concerning your medical conditions and your anxieties. I hope that the belief in the “the greater hope” will allieve some of that anxiety and comfort you in knowing that God loves you no matter what. I know God has good things for you and would encourage you to pursue the purpose that God gave you in this life. Life is precious, we all know that. And as far as this present mortal life, it is short. Short enough already! Knowing that, and knowing that God loves you and has purpose for you , to use you for His glory, I would implore you to refrain from any thought of disrupting the plan God has for you before His time. Suicide is never worth it, because you are saying your life doesn’t matter, but your life DOES matter, it matters to God, it matters to those you love and who love you. You can make a difference in somebody’s life, you can bring people closer to God, you can tell them how much God loves them.
Suicide solves nothing. Even in believing in a “greater hope” of Universal Reconciliation, it is still running away from something YOU think is unbearable. But where are you running away to? Do you really think that things will just “poof” away by ending you mortal life here? You problem will just follow you. I, for one, believe that if we try and usurp God’s plan for us by trying to end it, He’ll just deal with us wherever we end up. But I don’t think we ought to do that because we will just make matters worse, we need to deal with our problems here. What ever purgatorial hell awaits, it is much, much better to see things through here. We don’t want to try and fix things in whatever hell or chastisement God would put us through there. It may be a worse situation, for we would also face the shame of not allowing God to be God of our life.
I believe in a God who heals. I believe in a God that can help you deal with your hurts, pains, anxieties, your confusion, your anger, your sorrows. Rest in the knowledge that God has your best interest at hand. Cast you care upon Him, for He cares for you, give Him your life and see what He will, do with it. Don’t deny Him the life that He gave you and the life He created in making you. He created you for* something*. And none of us has the right to take that life away. God is the God of all comfort and will bring you peace, if you’ll give Him the chance. And He will see you through whatever problems you face. I can only attest to what He has done for me.
Just wanted to encourage you not to give up, Michael. I am glad He hasn’t giving up on me, or I’d probably be gone a long time ago.
Thanks!
Thanks Michael,
You write with a lot of clarity. We christians cannot always agree on every subject, but once we find Christ we really do have something to live for and something worthy of proclamation. There are many MANY people on forums and churches who have very similar conditions as yourself. You are not even a minority. Christians are struggling with life and with the disappointments and heartaches. There are many tough times for many people. You are doing the right thing in working through biblical issues. God’s word, and the focusing on our Christ, is healing for us. Don’t let anyone get you down, including me if I ever challenge your comments. I do not do this to challenge you as a person, I try to better understand the nature of our thought processes, and sometimes I reject an idea for reasons that are too complicated to spell out briefly. I like your reason for accepting the possibility of hell. I believe God had written in this way for the very reason you have outlined. The strong terms about hell hit us deep and hard - or at least that is the intention.
Steve
Alright Michael, I understand you better now. Good thing you explained.
I do also think that suicide is sadly a symptom of the fallen worldly perspective of death. I wonder if it is that we are so scared of it that we attempt to make it seem less horrifying than it is and so death is portrayed as a sort of ‘friend’, which may in turn have lead to things like euthanasia and abortion being made more acceptable.
Another reason I’m going to remain agnostic about hell is because the scriptures aren’t that clear about it. There also seems to have been disagreement about it early on:
The Universalists here spoken of by Augustine are referred to as Christians. In fact, he never condemns them as being outside of Christianity. He thought they needed correction but their views were never condemned by him.