The Perspective of a Six-Year-Old

In my journal on June 5, 2000, I was experiencing an especially dire time in my life. I struggled with wanting not to be alive. I was so depressed and despondent that I asked “the question” of the pastor of our church: If I kill myself can I still go to heaven? I know some people are certain of the answer to that question based on their belief system(s), but I was undecided. I wanted to be undecided, because then, when I died I could tell God, “I didn’t know any better!” Thinking that way allowed me to blame my thoughts and condition on God. I was searching for a reason, any reason, to justify my leaving this world. I was hoping to get some reassurance from my pastor. Instead he asked if he could gather a group of people to pray for me. I figured it couldn’t hurt, so a date and time was set. And if prayer didn’t work this way, it would be another way to justify my actions and blame God.
 
The pastor gathered five or six church leaders, including my husband, at our home. My daughter, age six at the time, wanted to pray for “mommy” too. Everyone gathered around me, with my daughter plopping herself in my lap. The adults did their thing, praying God would give me hope where I saw none and praying God would give me strength to battle the war within my mind and heart. As they prayed, my thoughts were, “If God wanted to heal me and give me hope, He would have already done so!” I doubted this prayer or any other prayer would significantly change my life.

Then, when the adults were done, my daughter started praying, and the prayers of the adults were quickly forgotten:

“God, thank you for my mommy. She is the right mommy for me. God, I don’t want anything to happen to my mommy. Keep my mommy safe. I know she loves me and I need her. Thank you, God, for my mommy’s faith and her great love of God.”

She continued with a list of thanksgivings: mommy cooking, mommy playing games, mommy washing clothes, mommy being a good teacher, and mommy taking care of her when she was sick. She probably listed several more things, but I don’t remember. What I do remember most was the first couple of sentences: “God, thank you for my mommy. She is the right mommy for me.”

The pastor never gave me a straightforward, direct answer to “the question.” He didn’t have to. After my daughter prayed, I had a little bit of insight that maybe I was supposed to be “here,” in spite of how I saw the world. My daughter saw things from a six-year-old perspective, from the simple place of a child’s love for her mother. I can’t say I never thought about suicide again. I continue to struggle with wanting the easy way out. (Easy for whom? It would definitely not be easy for those I left behind; my daughter, my husband, my son, and many others.)

Recently, I was challenged to not consider suicide as an option. If it is not an option then I don’t need to spend time, even seconds, thinking about it. Suicide is not a viable alternative to living my life the way it is (just as God has it planned.) When I forget to discard thoughts of suicide, I see my daughter’s picture, or her belongings scattered around the house or I see her walking up the driveway after school with her unique aplomb. It puts my life in perspective for me. I see her as that six-year-old, remember her prayers, and recognize things are just the way God designed them to be.