I Left Home when I was eighteen. I moved a thousand miles away. I was on my own. My parents had just divorced. My childhood home was gone forever.
In the wake of emotional devastation, I was tempted to believe death could bring me a welcome change. Confused by trying to please two sets of parents (they had both remarried), I seriously questioned whether living was a better choice than death. For comfort and answers, I turned to my Bible. One verse spoke to my heart: "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." Deut. 30:19. I really wanted to live, but I needed a life with a higher purpose to it. What saved me from suicide was the discovery that God is Life, the source of my life.
Suicide presumes death is a friend. But Life is not the flip side of death. Life is God, and God is always a friend; death is not. Over the years, a change has taken place in my thought. I now believe that Bible passage is not presenting a choice between life and death; it calls us to a higher understanding of life. Life is the only real choice. Death is not really an option, never a solution to any problem. In the presence of Life, God, there really is no death.
