The BBC aired an assisted suicide the other night. They broadcasted the entire suicide from start to finish. The man was dying from a neurological disorder and did not want to experience a slow and undignified death. With his wife at his side he slipped into a deep and unending sleep.
I’m not sure how I feel about suicide, let alone one shown on television. At the outset, it seems that we could easily take one side or the other. There are probably more reasons a person would want to die than we can imagine (or understand) and to simply dismiss it out of hand with some glib cliché seems to be insensitive. And as I get older, the more I feel this way.
Many of us are fortunate in that we will never feel that unfathomable hopelessness, or know such irreparable regret that ending it all seems to be the only solution. While many do experience discouragement, we do not all feel it to the level that suicide becomes an option.
Health problems present another conundrum. What if we want to “pull our own plug?” What if we know how it will end, and the process of our demise seems just too horrible to go through or put our families through?
No one has the “just right” answer.
No one has the corner on the truth. But I happen to believe our Creator, our Father, knows all about the created and remembers “that we are but dust.”
I cannot tell you, just now, sitting at my computer, what I may believe when the time of my personal decision comes, but I do believe that if I have lived a life of sustained contact with that Creator, the decision will be much easier.
Pray every day.
For a helpful workbook on prayer, visit: www.therealprayer.com .
