It was a beautiful Autumn day in New England as I started my daily commute up Interstate 89 in New Hampshire. Pulling out of my local Cumberland Farms to fuel up on some coffee, I decided to tune into some morning talk radio. Hitting the dial landed me right in the middle of a conversation about Brittany Maynard.
Brittany Maynard is 29 years old and was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, just a little over a year after her wedding. After a diagnosis of six months to live she decided to move to Portland Oregon, which is a state that allows euthanasia in certain circumstances, to get a prescription that would allow her take her own life at a time of her choosing.
On November 1st of this year, a few days after her husband’s birthday, Brittany Maynard plans going to kill herself. With the help of a doctor and a suicide pill, she is going to end her life.
“I will die upstairs in my bedroom that I share with my husband, with my mother and my husband by my side, and pass peacefully, with some music that I like in the background.” -Brittany Maynard
As heartbreaking as this story is, suicide is not the answer!
Taking another sip of my now lukewarm coffee, I remembered a time in my life when I was at the very edge of giving up on life. My place of desperation was not from a terminal disease, but from falling into a dark depression of life’s failures and loosing everything.
I remember the moment well. Here is an excerpt of that moment from my book Heartstone.
Crying myself to sleep on the basement floor of my friend’s house. With my fragile, battered soul and any remaining hope ripped from me, I would simply collapse from the weight of my life. Images pounded me like the relentless, battering waves against a rocky sea shore as I replayed events in my mind. Chaos entered my life as my entire world eroded and washed away all around me. I became so completely crushed and broken that a part of me wanted to die because I couldn’t stand the torment of this deep, gut-wrenching pain. Broken and alone, I would silently drown within a puddle of my tears fading into this scene of sorrow.
My spirit ached!
My reality sucked! I desperately needed an encounter with God and with nothing left to steal my attention away, I finally allowed Jesus to walk to me and step into my woundedness. The prayer I share in my book was gut wrenching, but simply put, it went something like this: “God if You’re who You say You are…I need something… because I’ve got nothing left!”
This prayer gave me the courage I needed to choose life. Its unimaginable to think everything I would have missed out on if I made any other choice other than life. For those who have wandered into that dark places of choosing death over life…find the courage to choose life!
Here is some encouragement I found in God’s word.
1) God has a plan for your life and He created you for a purpose. “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.” -Jeremiah 29:11
2) God’s plan is for life, not death. Life is a gift to those who receive it. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 6:23
3) Jesus wants us to have life. He said: “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” -John 10:10.
4) Life belongs to God. Life is in His hands and it’s never our place to take our own life. “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” -1 Corinthians 6:19-20 or “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.” -Job 1:21
Does God promise that life will be easy? No. But He does promise to give you the power to face life’s trials with confidence, knowing that He will cause all things to work for your good. He promises either to deliver you from afflictions, or give you the strength to endure them, according to His plan for you…a plan that begins with giving your life to Him.
Matt Walsh in his article, “There Is Nothing Brave About Suicide”, shares this. Life has value! This isn’t just a Christian concept. It is the concept on which western civilization rests. Every noble ideal — justice, fairness, equity, compassion, charity — all of it, all of it, is grounded in the notion that life, human life, has intrinsic value. Not value according to its usefulness, or value according to convenience, or value according to how enjoyable it is. Value. Life is valuable because it is life. If you deny this, then you deny everything. There is no reason for justice, fairness, equity, compassion, or charity if human life has no value, or merely a value contingent upon whatever parameters we’ve arbitrarily assigned. There can be no justification even for your ‘human rights’ if we are all commodities whose stocks fall or rise like something that can be bought, sold, and traded.
This woman’s heartbreaking story stirred up many emotions in people. The euthanasia advocates have embraced the phrase “death with dignity,” and this story energizes their narrative. I get that death is very rarely dignified and it’s often painful, but none of it makes suicide a good choice.
Life has value! There are no qualifications. It’s not just valuable when someone is healthy, or as long as someone has all his or her mental faculties.
It’s always valuable, no matter what, and that is why choosing life is braver than ending it!
I love how Matt Walsh ends is article. Fortunately, it is not too late for this woman. She is still with us, and the world is better for it because her life is meaningful and important. Maybe we should all be telling her that, rather than telling her it’s a good idea for her to kill herself.
What are your thoughts on Brittany Maynard’s decision to kill herself?
