Welcome Back! Well, you’ve probably been back; I am still unpacking from our Christmas trip, and trying desperately to wrap my mind around the task of putting our large tree away. It might be up til St. Patty’s. Stop by if you want to get a head start on your 2013 family Christmas photo.
I’ve missed you all and it’s good to be back in this community again. I am so pleased to open the new year with our first Shameless Man of 2013. (Anyone else think a calendar is in order?)
Sean is currently taking classes online with Moody Bible Institute, and is a ministry partner of Community Fellowship church in West Chicago. Ideally, he would like to be a pastor, husband, father, and author someday, but as long as he’s following the will of the Lord he knows he will be okay.
Sean blogs at http://wegogiant.blogspot.com,you can also find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/wegogiant.
Sean blogs at http://wegogiant.blogspot.com,you can also find him on Facebook at www.facebook.com/wegogiant.
Sean shares openly about the pain of his father’s suicide in 2009. I’d ask that you take some time to comment below as Sean’s story is an especially vulnerable and powerful one.
In light of the events at Connecticut, I feel a burden to bring truth to light. If you have a story to tell, I’d love to share it. Let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page.
Shame
There was a kind of shock in the room. A stunned silence that felt like it went on for minutes, although really it was only a few seconds before one of them spoke up.
“Wait, when did this happen?â€
“I didn’t quite hear, what did you just say?â€
“How was this not mentioned sooner?â€
In July of 2009 I went on my first summer staff assignment for Young Life. To be brief, Young Life is an international youth ministry aimed at evangelizing to high school students. They own and operate several camps throughout the country and in the summers these camps run on volunteer work. Summer Staff is what they call the volunteer session for college students.
For four weeks, twelve young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-two shared a single dorm. It’s amazing how the gospel connects people who are thrust into that type of situation—how it becomes almost easy to live selflessly, to drop your pretenses, and forgive flaws. In particular it’s amazing how quickly your walls come down and those little bits of info that just seem to change the ways people perceive you can just come out…
We were nearly a week and a half into our session, and this was the first time I told anybody why I was really here. “It happened in May,†I said, “and it’s not a very easy thing to talk about.†I could feel my fingertips tingling as I repeated the words “my dad committed suicide.†It seemed like everybody had more questions, but we were all getting ready to go to dinner and had very little time.
Just like that, my identity changed. To these young men, I had become the survivor of my father’s suicide, and perhaps even more drastically, the person who decided to spend a month away from family on a volunteer assignment only sixty days after it happened. I had opportunities in the remaining weeks to tell most of them the whole story. The usual response included a desire to pray, and very often people told me that they wouldn’t have had the strength to undertake the endeavor of a summer staff session so close to such a traumatic event.
I found little comfort in that, although to be honest there wasn’t much of anything that gave me significant comfort.
Now, I can barely go two weeks without someone from church letting me know how much my father meant to them and how proud he would have been of me. They knew a better him, but I knew him better. The last thing I want to do is tarnish his reputation, so for the most part I never really talk about him. Conversations on that subject always get weird and awkward anyway, but here goes:
I will forever be the survivor of my father’s suicide. For the rest of my days I only have my memories of him. I have no chance to reconcile what was a very broken relationship. I have no chance to ask him why he did what he did. My Earthly father did (or rather, neglected to do) a lot of things that caused me pain, but for all the imperfections and all the expectations never fulfilled, I have a Heavenly father who shows me what a real love looks like.
My father on Earth willingly accepted death when it was not needed or desired.
My father in Heaven willingly gave his son in death, even death on a cross, because by no other means would he have been able to save me.
My heavenly father has done his work, he has adopted me as his son, and there is nothing that will take that away. There are no money troubles, no divorces, no foreclosures, no lost jobs, and no infidelities that can push him away. There is no insomnia, or medicinal dependency, or depression to take him away from me, and there is no deception or neglect to deter me from pursuing God.
As it says in The Heidelberg Catechism, “I trust him so much that I do not doubt he will provide whatever I need for body and soul, and he will turn to my good whatever adversity he sends me in this sad world. He is able to do this because he is the almighty God; he desires to do this because he is a faithful father.†(Question 26)
Even Jesus says in the beatitudes “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.†(Matt 5:4) This comfort he speaks of is not merely the closeness of friends and family after a loss, but of the grand comfort of truly understanding the work of God the father (or at least as far as we can understand it).
I believe that my father is in Heaven, and I believe I will see him there someday, but even if he’s not, God is still faithful, he is still sovereign, and he is still restoring everything that brings pain and death to the world.
That includes my father’s soul
and my breaking heart.
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If you or a loved one are in need of any type of emotional support, The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline provides free and confidential counseling for people in suicidal crisis
or emotional distress 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Call: 1-800-273-TALK or visit: The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
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Sean, I am so proud of you for sharing this story and for being so vulnerable. I know you will minister to others because of your honesty. You've brought glory to God without trying to wrap up your pain in a neat little bow. I admire that and am proud to have you on my blog to kick off 2013. Thank you!
Sean, I have known you and your father Steve since your days in youth baseball. I remember sitting on the sidelines watching you and Ryan, and nummerous conversations on various subjects. We met again through CF about a year before his death. I remember the Sunday I saw you in church and you told me what had happened. I asked you if you wanted to go to the cross and pray with someone.
I can tell you for sure that your father loved you; and he loved Jesus or Yeshua, as he would sometime say. I don't know how he came to his drastic decision. I can only guess from knowing him, that before hand, he probably said, "God forgive me for what I am about to do.". I say that because I know that he believed despite whatever earthly demons he encountered. I think of your father kindly and I pray for you as I am sure he did. God bless you. Your earthly and heavenly fathers are proud of you. Live in peace and love.
Sean, thank you for your courage to share about your fathers death. In my 40 years of life I have knowv the darkness that brings that thought that death is the only way myself but I also know of what you speak. In 2003 I lost a dear friend to suicide. The pain of both is great but different. Having the opportunity to understand what my actions back in the 90's did to my parents help me to trust in the Lord and also take comfort in the beatitude, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted"
I posted this on facebook too not realizing I could post here…
Sean,
My baby brother.
I have never really heard you come out and say to much about dad and what he did or your feelings toward it. I've always wondered what goes on inside.
I know what you mean by who he was and what people think they know and how it can feel awkward. I want you to know that I knew a dad who loved us all so much. A dad who had his demons and lived a good lie. Yet he was never living a lie with us kids! I forgave dad the day it happend for what he did. we both know dad left us 2 years prior to his death. On occasion I would force dad to come back and I would get a glimpse of who he used to be. He was sick. He let his sickness get to him before the cure. Dad left us wanting us kids to think he was happy and we could be happy with him. He met us at my place that day because that was his goodbye. He told us his fantasy on where he wanted us to think he went and left after quickly. I believe because the pain of knowing what he said was not true would hurt him to much. Sean, dad told you everything he did about florida and school because he wanted his last times with his kids to be happy ones. He loves us that much. Dad protected us from his lies. His suicide was the one thing he couldnt protect us from.
Remember sean. Please remember the good in dad. Remember how excited and proud he would get when he would talk about your football or singing. He stood so tall when he did.
I know your faith has been your comfort in all of this and I am so happy you were able to find comfort there.
Please know your family is here with open arms waiting to comfort you too.
I love you.
Your big sister
As long as a person who wants to die can't say it out loud in church and be surrounded by others who will "weep with those who weep", there will be suicides. I have lost a friend to suicide; I have counseled parents whose children have attempted suicide; I have sat in the hospital with people who tried to kill themselves. I am watching our suicide rate inch upward as soldiers return traumatized. And I keep asking myself: why is church still a place where people have to appear already perfected? Why are we not instead comforting one another with the comfort which we ourselves have received? Is it because this would require admitting that we ourselves have suffered? Why won't we admit that we have suffered, when Jesus told us we would?
That is a strong question. Why is the church still a place here we have to appear already perfected? It's a twisted lie, and it's time for a change.