Prayer
for Those
Contemplating
Suicide
O
Lord and Giver of Life, may we all recognize the great value of the life you
have given to each one of us. But look
in a special way on those who no longer find any meaning in the life they are
leading.
You can see every movement of the
human heart and you know what depths of despair, discouragement, frustration,
loneliness, or self-hate have led them to the edge they are standing on.
Have mercy on them and open their
eyes to see that the road has not ended.
Fill their hearts with new hope.
Place people in their lives who will love them with your own love, and
who will give them a reason to live again.
Make them know they are worthwhile and needed.
And Lord, if you wish to use me as
your instrument touching someone, feel free to do so. Amen.
A Letter
of Consolation
by Shenri
Nouwen
Real grief is not healed by time. It is false to think that the passing
of time will slowly make us forget her and take away our pain. I really want to
console you in this letter, but not by suggesting that time will take away your
pain, and that in one, two, three, or more years you will not miss her so much
anymore. I would not only be telling a lie, I would be diminishing the
importance of her life, underestimating the depth of your grief, and mistakenly
relativizing the power of the love that has bound you together for all these
years. The longer we live, the more fully we become aware of who she was for
us, and the more intimately we experience what her love meant for us. Real, deep love is, as you know, very unobtrusive,
seemingly easy and obvious, and so present that we take it for granted.
Therefore, it is often only in retrospect——or better, in memory——that we fully
realize its power and depth. Yes, indeed, love often makes itself visible in
pain. The pain we are now experiencing shows us how deep, full, intimate, and
all—pervasive her love was.
I want to comfort and
console you, but not in a way that covers up real pain and avoids all wounds. I
am writing you this letter in the firm conviction that reality can be faced
and entered with an open mind and an open heart, and in the sincere belief that
consolation and comfort are to be found where our wounds hurt most.
What did death do to you? If your experience of her death is in any way
close to mine, you were “invited”-—as I was——to re—evaluate your whole life.
Her death made you stop and look back in a way you had not done before. Death
has given you new eyes with which to see your life. Death simplifies. Death
lays bare what really matters, and in this way becomes your judge. As we review
our lives long—forgotten events return to our memories, as if they had taken
place only recently.
All these times have passed by like friendly visitors, leaving you with
dear memories but also with the sad recognition of the shortness of life. In
every arrival there is a leavetaking; in every reunion there is a separation;
in each one’s growing up there is a growing old; in every smile there is a
tear; and in every success there is a loss. All living is dying and all celebration
is mortification too.
As the days passed, our hearts came to know that she is gone, never to
return. And it was then that real grief began to invade us. It was then that we
turned to the past and saw that death had been present in our lives all along and
that many farewells and goodbyes had been pointing to this dark hour.