Christian Pioneer - Thoughts of Suicide?

			Christianity was supposed to be about becoming like Jesus.
					We went in the wrong direction.

Thoughts of suicide?

		Types of suicide
Event driven		Disconnected		Progressive conclusion

There are painful life experiences that can be amplified by suddenness such that there seems to be no hope. The death of a child or spouse, the loss of a job or imprisonment, or when people have found themselves unexpectedly refugees from war are just some examples of these events.. The loss of foundation can create stress in life that is both unbearable and seemingly hopeless.		As a person grows, he builds upon his surroundings. This can be his family, school, town, religion, even philosophy. We often seldom consider how much of what we assume about the world we live is built upon these assumptions of life. When things happen to move us from one environment to another, we can find that we lose those things that gave us certainty and assurance. A person can even be unaware that he has had those things upon which he has built his life eroded.		There are people for whom mental illness or other condition accentuates a self-focus as well as establishes a social barrier or stigma that amplifies both isolation and self-preoccupation. Sometimes people will attempt suicide as a manipulative tool to break down the isolation they feel only to find people even less inclined to connect with them. People can spend years considering suicide and finally act to complete what they see as the only option they have.

			Military Suicide
			Alien environment Even if someone never goes into combat, the military environment can be so different that it can seem like living on another planet.
			Alien culture Sometimes the strangers you live with become closer than brothers. Other times these strangers seem to exclude you or follow a social patterns that you wish to be excluded from. Often alcohol and indiscriminate fornication do not provide enough distraction to make tolerable the transition to a new life.
			Alien oversight Sometimes a person in the military has a "boss" for the first time in his life. Sometimes he finds his first experience working with or for someone who is incompetent, petty, vengeful, or malicious.
			Relating to a machine Humans are designed to live in families. The military like much of modern life is an organizational system. Systems are unable to fill the need humans have for relational attachment. No matter how many programs and procedures are initiated, the organizational life will always be alien to humans. The intentional manipulation of people to robot-like performance makes people more suited to organizational systems, but incurs a cost in making people less suited to relationships.
			Between two worlds Just as the Indians that were taken from their tribes and raised in white schools were not able to fit into either world, military experience often creates people who feel disconnected from the world they knew and unable to find a world where they can fit in.
			Shattered illusions Sometimes a person will enter the military in a wave of patriotic enthusiasm. Often the grind of reality replaces this with cynicism from seeing politicians exploit naiveté for their own purposes.
			You can't go home again An author once wrote about the passage of time that, "You can't go home again". Military experience accelerates this such that a person is left with a much deeper sense alienation. This is magnified if there is no replacement "home".
			Alone in the universe A person who has lost his former foundation in life can come to see all possible futures as hopeless and meaningless.

	How firm a foundation

			As we grow out of childhood, we bring with us connections with out family, ways of looking at the world, and a sense of fitting into the world in some way. While we may not even be aware of these things much less appreciate them, They serve to give us a foundation to our life. The transition to an alien life such as military experience or the encounter of sudden tragedy can expose the strength or weakness of the foundations upon which we have built our life. The loss of foundation can be more catastrophic for a person who was unaware of how much he depended on it.
	Family
			First and most important foundation We live in a time when family has been reduced to both parents working outside the home and children taken from the home to go to school. "Home" is mostly a place where four "roommates" reside each going in their own direction. There are people for whom even the truncated family would be a step up. Single parent homes, homes where there is drug and alcohol abuse, and homes where children are under constant anxiety can produce even weaker foundations.
	Values
			What is important Usually originating in family, values are the beliefs and ideals that shape how we look at others in relation to ourselves. We often value money, easy work, avoiding consequences, feeling comfortable, and having people admire and respect us.
	Culture
			Automatic pilot Most of us go through our daily life with little thought about why we do things. We seek to get what we can, do what we have to, and get out of what we don't want. We are mostly unaware that our habits that have been accumulated over a lifetime provide a cushion against reality so that we do not often have to face the discomfort of truth.
	Future
			Expectations We often come to have expectations for our future based on our assumptions drawn from our family experience, values, and culture. When anything happens to shake our foundations, we can lose our hope for the future. Crumbling foundations frequently result in a proportional feeling of hopelessness.

			How to fix a foundation
	Patch
			Reducing pain People can generally tolerate a large amount of pain in their lives. When pain gets too great, the most commonly sought remedy is something to make the pain fall back into the tolerable level as opposed to fixing something. Sometimes people divorce or quit their job. Sometimes people take drugs or alcohol. Sometimes people move to another town. Often steps taken in the short term can contribute to even greater pain down the road.
	Repair
			Identifying the faulty component A person may go to medical school, marry and build a family only to find that his working 80+ hours a week destroys his family. He may decide that his desire for money or the personal prestige of being a doctor is not worth the loss of his family.
	Replace
			Building a new foundation Sometimes a person has to dig deeper in his life to find what is wrong. When many foundational elements have been eroded or damaged, it can seem an insurmountable task to build something new.


		The true foundation
Jesus
		Jesus the solid rock Many people discount Jesus as a foundation because they feel he is not real. People fail and die. Banks fail and close. Governments go in debt and fail. The very earth quakes. Storms come. Drought saps the life from the land. Wars come. Thieves plunder. Jesus created the world. He created us. He died for our sins. He is eternal. Jesus is more "real" than all the other things in which we trust.
		On Christ the solid Rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand;


		The suicide advantage
Being set free
		At first it is difficult to think of any way in which thoughts of suicide could be beneficial. However, frequently when a person considers suicide, he begins to feel relief and even peace. Unfortunately this is often mistaken as confirmation of a decision to commit suicide. What happens when we begin to mentally detach ourselves from those thoughts of hopelessness is that we find a freedom not previously known. If we reach a point where life and death do not matter, we can find that lesser matters matter even less. This break in perspective is not a replacement foundation, but it helps to free us from being dragged down by failing foundations.


		Accepting less than Christ
Churchianity
		There was a woman named Glenda who was going to go home one night and commit suicide. On her way home she picked up a tract about Jesus and was saved that very evening. At first she started attending a neighborhood church. She said she went from thinking she was the only person who had not heard about Jesus to thinking she was the only one who had. People who have been set free from the superficial, trivial, and foolish things of the world have less tolerance for them than those who incorporate them into their own cherished foundations of life. As a result, A person who has been to the brink may not find comfort in traditional and popular Christian church practice. The alternative is to seek out individual Christians from whom you can learn to be more like Jesus or to whom you can minister and show the love of Jesus.


		Fitting in

		A foundation built on Jesus does not mean finding acceptance in the world. It means the peace that passes understanding. It means peace in difficulty, strength in adversity, and certainty of an eternal home with our Savior who loved us so much as to lay down his life for us. We see the world as passing away. We see the foolish, vain, petty, sad, and pathetic things of this world as they are and find value only in love, truth, wisdom, and all good things which flow only from him upon whom we have built our foundation.