Gone too soon, again and again

I'm sure by now you've seen the news.

Before we being, I need to make a disclaimer. I have never heard a Mindy McCready song. I'm not a fan. I've barely heard of her, truthfully. Somehow I didn't even hear that she had an affair with Roger Clemons, a pitcher for the New York Yankees at the time I think, more than 15 years ago.

I have no identification with McCready. None.

And yet.

McCready was found on her front porch yesterday, dead from a gunshot. It was an apparent suicide. She was but 37 years of age. She left behind two small children, including a nine-month-old. She joins in death her boyfriend David Wilson whose death is still under investigation but is thought to be suicide, as well. He, too, was shot dead on the same front porch.

But I have no identification with McCready, my mind keeps telling me. But my heart, oh, my heart tells me a different thing, till finally I see the connection so clearly. There but for the grace of God go I.

McCready, you see, battled addictions, and after the sudden, dramatic, tragic death of her boyfriend, she pretty much gave up, gave in, gave away her life. She, like so, so many are gone too soon.

Something was too much for her. Too much for her heart. Too much for her soul. Too much pain. Too much loneliness. Too many pills, too many drinks. Too much. Just too much.

I'm reminded of a young woman in one of my churches years ago. One day in a bitter argument with her husband, she ran out of the room, into her bedroom, got a gun and shot herself to death, just as McCready did.

I struggled to see how one could do that, leaving two beautiful young ones to wonder more than I ever could or would. I didn't have the words; simply didn't have the words to explain any of that away.

I'm sure of this much: That edge of the cliff called suicide can only be a consideration if we don't realize how tragically expensive suicide is.

 First, it's the ultimate act of defiance toward the God who made us. In Psalm 139:12  and 16, it says, "You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother's womb ... All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Only the One who gave us life has the right to end it. And He's the One we meet the moment our life is over. 

Suicide is also the ultimate act of selfishness toward the people who love us. They'll never recover from the awful agony of this decision. I know someone else who attempted to kill himself by shoving a gun under his chin and pulling the trigger. He's been on disability since. His life was altered by one quick decision made in haste and in anger.

Seems to me that suicide is the ultimate waste of the life Jesus gave His life for. He didn't die on that cross just to have us throw away the life He gave everything for.  That couldn't be right.

The tragic truth is we want to fix things ourselves, and we can't. We just can't. If we're hurting this bad, we're tip-toeing around the edge. Jesus will take our burdens, he said, but we're so close to the edge that we can't even see him walking toward us, can't hear him talking to us.

The truth is, when we're in the midst of our addictions, we are close to that cliff. Each. And. Every. One. ... Each. And. Every. Time.

Jesus can bring us back from the edge of that cliff, but the truth is that even that hurts because guilt builds up like callouses on our hands, and sometimes, just sometimes, we lose the ability to reason that Jesus loved us so much he died for us. Interestingly, there is no mention of suicide in the Bible in any of the translations I checked except for the New Living Translation where some 12 Jews wanted to know if someone was talking about suicide. The someone was Jesus. The 12 were the disciples.

McCready spent some time on the Celebrity Rehab that is run by Dr. Drew Pinsky. She had tried to kill herself three other times.

"Mental health issues can be life threatening and need to be treated with the same intensity and resources as any other dangerous potentially life threatening medical condition. Treatment is effective. If someone you know is suffering please be sure he or she gets help and maintains treatment," Pinsky said.

Ironically, Pinsky treated McCready not for addiction to drugs and alcohol, but for addiction to love.

He said, "A love addict basically is somebody that really didn't have a good model for intimacy in their childhood, often times traumatized in one way or another, thereby intimacy becomes a risk place, becomes an intolerable place."

I'm reminded of another country song, not one of McCready's, "Looking for Love in All The Wrong Places."