Category: suicide

“Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?”

Leonard Ravenhill

While pondering this quote by Leonard Ravenhill, my mind traveled back to when I was twelve.  I hated my life and can remember spending much of my early adolescent years seriously assessing it. I carefully considered the hand life dealt me and weighed my options. To me, life felt totally unfair.  To be forced to live a life I did not ask for or want was just wrong. I had experienced a lot of bad things and had no hope that anything good could or would come from my life. All I could see was what I perceived as my deficits, those of being poor, being Black and being emotionally scarred from growing up in a dysfunctional family while living on Maryland’s Lower Eastern Shore in the 1960s.  No matter how hard I tried, I could not understand why some people got to be born into families where they were loved, wanted, cared for, protected and provided for, while others, like me, struggled just to survive.  I felt it all was random, unfair, unjust and unbelievably cruel! 

As I mentally processed this, I asked myself questions like, “Since you did not choose or ask to be born, why are you alive? Since you’re miserable and hate your life so much, why suffer through it? And since you are doomed to fail in life without anything good, why continue going through all this agony? Why do you have to continue living it?  Why live a life of misery without hope?” Then I answered, “I don’t!” And I decided to kill myself. I was twelve. Please hear me! By the time I was 12 years old, I had taken a careful assessment of my life and concluded that it was of no value. The pain and suffering I had experienced in childhood and early adolescent years coupled with the fear of being trapped into an unjust and hopeless future without escape, eclipsed every other thought in my young mind.  Continuing to live the life handed to me with no way out of it was unthinkable, so when no one was around, I grabbed the pills I found in the medicine cabinet, downed them all, and went to sleep, hoping to never live another painful day.   

When I woke up from my intentional overdose, my head was spinning, everything was fuzzy.  At first, I thought my suicide attempt had been successful, but as my head cleared, I realized that I was still very much alive.  Devastated and angry, I called myself every demeaning name I could think of. “You dummy, you’re so (screwed) up, you couldn’t even kill yourself.” I had failed to end my misery.  I lied there defeated. Then, I heard, “You cannot die until I say so.”  I looked around.  Who was talking to me? I was alone. Even though it was not audible, that voice was real. One would think I would be awed or something, but no, instead, I was irate!  Who had the nerve to tell me that I could not end my own life? until they said so?  Who felt they had enough power to keep me alive when I was determined to die; To keep me living a life I did not want to live? I now know Almighty God did. I did not know Him then and it made absolutely no sense to me. Why did anyone care whether I lived or died. One of the reasons I had chosen to die was because I did not believe anyone cared. You see, I had picked up the responsibility for my life when I was eight.  I trusted no one, and I felt no one cared about me; so, this was confusing. Someone that had power over my life cared about whether I lived or died.

How does this relate to Leonard Ravenhill’s quote?  “Are the things you are living for worth Christ dying for?” By twelve, I felt there was nothing in my life worth living for. The fact that I am alive today is a miracle of God’s grace. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, I would be dead today had it not been for God’s intervention.  As I correctly assessed at twelve, my life has not been an easy one, but even though checking out of it crossed my mind sometimes during its most difficult seasons, I never again attempted to kill myself. The one who holds my life in his hand has used those hard times to reveal Himself to me.

Now, in my seventies, I can joyfully say “For me, to live is Christ.” God touched me at the local Baptist Church that same year and gave me the grace to believe in Jesus and to get baptized. I was able to understand that Jesus Christ died for my sins, and He rose from the grave signifying that God had forgiven me for the bad things I had done, but that was about all I knew. Not much changed in my life. Years later after being devastated by my failed marriage, I started reading and studying the Bible. That was when I began to understand what Jesus Christ died for. That was when life began to make sense and that was when I got a glimpse of what I was living for.

The God of the Bible, the God that created us in His image and likeness, loves us.  Remember John 3:16-17: “ For God so loved the world that He gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him.” Jesus died so we would not perish but have eternal life. In John 10:10, Jesus tells us he came and died so that we (you and I) would have life and have life abundantly.  It became clear to me that Jesus Christ died to redeem our lives from destruction, deliver us from the power of death and give us life overflowing and eternally. In short, Jesus died so we could live the life God created us to live! Our “LIVING” is what Christ died for!  

Romans 5:8 tells us that “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus died not only that we would have a full life and eternal life, but also that we would be able to receive the joy of knowing Him and knowing how deeply we are loved. Knowing, not just being told He loves us, but by Him dying to demonstrate His love and the Father’s love for us. Since coming to know our precious Lord and His love and being blessed to experience the life He created me to live, my heart and life overflow with gratitude. All I can do is thank God for loving me and giving me life to live it with and for Him.

So, what things are you living for? Is it riches, fame, romance, status, material things?  Are they worth Christ dying for? Thank God, I now joyously choose life and answer, “YES,” by God’s grace and with his help, I choose to live my life fully for Him. He is worth it.  He is the only one worth it.  He is worth everything I have ever gone through, no matter how difficult, embarrassing, humiliating, sorrowful or painful it was.  He is worth all that I am, everything I have, and all that I ever hope to be or have.  He is worth living for, and because of Him I live today.  I pray that Jesus Christ is what you are living for, as well.  To me, it is the only thing one can live for that is worth Christ dying for.  “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.” (Galatians 2:20 NASB) What about you?

Eartha Harris