Tomorrow Needs You: The Fight Against Suicide
The author wishes to thank To Write Love on Her Arms for the inspiration for this post.
Yesterday marked the last day of World Suicide Prevention Week. But for some of us, we will fight to prevent it all year long.
One organization that offers hope in the fight against suicide is called To Write Love on Her Arms (TWLOHA). In honor of this week, they launched the “Tomorrow Needs You” campaign. I received a card in the mail with the words, “Tomorrow needs me because…” at the top and instructions to fill it in and share it on social media.
Tomorrow needs me because…I stared at the card, laying on my kitchen counter, for a whole week. The words challenged me. Beliefs about myself came clattering out of hiding like skeletons from some eery graveyard. Thoughts I dealt with long ago found a voice again and began to taunt me. Negativity hung heavy in my heart like a thick, gray cloud.
It has been 29 years since I tried to stop all of my tomorrows. It has been less than seven months since someone very important to me made a similar attempt. As I sat by the hospital bed on a cold February morning praying for the one dear to me, I could clearly see the value of life and fight for it.
So why now, faced with the question staring at me mockingly from the TWLOHA card, could I not see my own life’s value? Tomorrow needs me because…
I have been asking myself that question all week, and in the end, I must admit it is hard to believe, nevertheless boldly finish the sentence with even a semblance of confidence.
The value of life has grown small in our eyes, and this truth is made evident by the fact that suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. Christianity Today reports that “…suicide occurs among Christians at essentially the same rate as non-Christians.” (Read more here.) Life is slipping through our hands, and people are suffering in agonizing silence.
In my journey to value life, I have found that there exists a greater power, a greater love for me than what I have had for myself on even my best day. It is that love that has rescued me from myself, time and time again. Such love comes from God, the one who knew me before I was knit together in my mother’s womb (Psalm 139). He loved me before I had done a single thing right, or wrong. His love for me is timeless and unconditional. My life matters to Him, and so does yours.
My own value of me fluctuates, an inconstant river of emotions and achievements. My self-love is pitifully performance based. On high-achieving days I’m soaring. On others, I am weeping. This is my flawed self.
Maybe you can relate. Perhaps you are appearance-based, or people-pleasing based.
Maybe you are a workaholic, determined to work your way to worth.
Maybe you have carefully built a strong wall between you and others, convincing yourself you don’t need them when deep down you wish you had a true friend you could trust.
We all have our flawed perspectives.
We need a greater one, in order to finish the sentence: Tomorrow needs me because…
Maybe tomorrow needs me because, like you, I have discovered that my perspective about my self-worth is flawed. And I have learned that until my self-worth is squarely planted in a greater truth than my own performance and abilities, it will always let me down.
The greater truth that changes the sentence of my future is found in Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord. “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Tomorrow needs me because… God Himself has crafted my future, and it is filled with hope, not harm. This is a promise for me and for you. We have a future, promised by God. He has plans for us. And they include other people, beautiful people whose stories are wrapped up in our own. We are part of each other’s grand narrative.
As the one dear to me, who survived a suicide attempt early this year, said, God has done his part. Now, I just need help to take the initiative and let others in.
Don’t fight alone. Please choose to live today. You matter to me and to God. Will you be brave enough to finish the sentence with me?
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