The Peace That Comes

We can never understand the mind of another person.  We can only do our best to put ourselves in their shoes and see life from their perspective.  Though the fact of the matter is, we will never be able to completely do that.  You see, our own life and perspectives are colored by our own experience, beliefs and perceptions of what we have seen, done, heard, smelled and touched.  Our experiences are unique and no one has ever or will ever have our own personal perspective.  Many things influence the way we see the world but there is no other person alive that can really walk in our shoes and see things as we do.

As often as I labored to get into the mind of my son Stephen, by pouring over his writings, looking at the pictures he had taken and replay in my mind all the things I saw him do, or heard him say, I cannot begin to fathom what was in his heart and mind and understand the things that drove him to take his own life.  The part of me that continues to make sense of his action and understand may never end, and I accept that for myself.  The part that I do understand is that Stephen got to a point in his life where he could no longer deal with what he thought life had dealt him.  He had lost all hope completely and could not cope with the day to day routine of getting up, going to work and dealing with all the mundane and tedious parts of our days that makes all of us weary.  The lack of hope, that nothing could give him the courage and the will to go on, had defeated him in his twenty five years of life.  That still breaks my heart.

Pastor Jerry who is on our web staff at iammybrotherskeeper.org picked up on one of the things I said early on in one of my posts.  He talked to me about my feelings of anger that I felt and that subdued my thoughts and heart.  He asked me if I could share with you about that consuming anger I experienced.  After prayerful consideration, I am going to try to convey those feelings and the results to you here.

You see, Stephen was raised in a Christian home with the advantage of having his grandmother Ruth to live with us.  My mom was visiting with us in Houston, TX early after the twins were born only to become ill and and need medical attention.  It was determined that she had stage 3 colon cancer and would need immediate surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.  The decision was made for her to stay with us to undergo all of the medical advantages of living in Houston.

Stephen was very close to his grandmother Ruth and would spend hours with her as he was a small child gaining a very special understanding of a Christian life from his grandmother.  She would read to him constantly from the Bible and from many other books.  She would give him grandmotherly counsel when he would become upset with his older brothers and would often go to her for consolation.  Stephen was getting a double dose of a Christian perspective not only from us, his parents, but from his Grandmother Ruth.

Stephen was a bright eyed inquisitive child and was always seeking to learn and understand.  He often would pick up on concepts that we thought were far advanced for such a young mind to understand.  He had a brilliant mind from a very early age and absorbed as much as we could teach him.  He grew in understanding as well as in physical stature.  He also grew spiritually as well as he accepted Jesus as a young boy and had a very strong sense of morals and ethics.  He also had a very tender and soft heart.  This is the Stephen I remember with fondness and much affection. 

Fast forward to March 5, 2018 when he took his life on a lonely shore of a local lake while looking westward at the setting sun.  As his father, my heart was totally shattered as I tried to understand my son and what he was thinking and feeling.  I remembered the foundation of faith and hope that he enjoyed through his youth and how he would in some way walk away from that perspective and hope to be capable of taking his own life.  My emotions transformed from despair to waves of emotional grief that I thought would never end.  As the days passed, that despair would change to shades of anger.  The anger went every direction, trying to assign blame upon every negative influence in his life, even anger at myself for allowing this to happen to my son.  As the days passed, the anger moved toward Stephen himself.  How could he do this to himself and cause such pain for our family and those that loved him?  My anger toward him grew as we went about the business of taking care of his debts and his automobiles.  It progressed to even more anger as I dealt with the preparation of his cars to be able to sell.  My anger toward him would grow with each detail of his life that we had to deal with in that how much he left for us to take care of.  His death was not just simply a single action, it was continually picking up the pieces of life that goes on after death.  

For me, this kind of anger was something I had not experienced before with the loss of parents or close friends and other family members who had gone on before.  I was very confused by the anger and realized that I needed to turn to the God of my Salvation for help and to deal with this anger toward my youngest son for taking his own life and causing so much hurt and pain for so many people.

The anger I knew did not pass away slowly but it took time.  I know that anger is part of the grieving process.  Just as we cannot ever really know or understand the mind of another person because we are not exactly the same, the grief that any person experiences cannot be the same for any two people.  The grief we experience can manifest in similar ways but no two experiences are exactly alike.  Grief has many different faces that can move from one shade of emotion to another in the blink of an eye.  We all seek that peace of mind that helps us come to terms with our grief.

As I sought desperately for the peace that comes from God, I began to pray earnestly for God to somehow turn that anger toward my youngest son for taking his own life away from me and releasing me from the anger that was in my heart.  As the days passed, I was somehow driven to feed on God’s Word daily and spent many hours in prayer that He would somehow bring to me the peace that only God can bring and take away this anger from me. 

I am here to tell you that God’s Word is true and sure as He did bring me the peace I needed little by little each day and that anger has faded away.  Only by seeking the face of God that comes from reading His Word and time talking to Him daily in prayer did my heart find that peace.  Is the anger totally gone toward Stephen?  I can say through Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior and through His Word, that I am free from the anger toward my youngest son for taking his life.  I am human and I still think about the lost possibilities and opportunities for Stephen that were extinguished in that moment, but the anger is gone and has been replaced with God’s peace.  I find hope in the knowledge that someday I will see God face to face and will be reunited with my son.