Making a Courageous Pact to Live Honestly

“Put our [suicide] plans down,

and we let them be blown off by the wind.”

— Pastor John Wilmot

BROTHERS and sisters are not just of flesh and blood, as if DNA had a say over a kin relationship.  I have a brother who has been so courageously honest to publish a video where he makes a pact not to end his life.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve had only four serious suicidal ideations — one so close to being converted to reality — enough to know that dim wretched place of soul where hope has gone to the bleachers.

His pact to continue living, to not abandon his family and friends, is met, of course, with more relief than any solitary life can know.  Indeed, it’s his agreement with pain — to subsist within it, to be honest in its presence, and to be valiant especially in the quieter, loneliest times — that is so brutally inspiring.

Life is pitiless.  But God isn’t.  And yet, as we live this life, we get that sense that faith doesn’t help that much, unless we’re courageous enough to set the truth free.  God can help us, but only if we can help ourselves to the simplest, rawest knowledge — what smacks us in the face every moment of our existence.  There’s nothing to be gained from a life lived abiding in lies.  The honest person is the winner who takes it all.

Pastor John’s inspiration ought to be shared over the globe, but it also needs to be replicated over and over again just to prevent even one of those many thousands of suicides each day.

Let us be proud of each other’s honesty.  But better still let’s be blessed by God, for the fruit of honesty is peace, even within pain.

Australians have a word for courage that gets to the truth.  Courage is about guts.  Pastor John, you have guts!  Pastor John, I love your guts.

© 2016 Steve Wickham.