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Be Not Afraid Despairtendency to lose hope in dark times. To quoteThomas Merton’s paraphrase of verses from Luke andRevelation, “In the time of the end there will no longerbe room for the desire to go on living. Men will callupon the mountains to fall upon them, because theywish they did not exist; they will wait for death, anddeath will elude them.”None of this is to imply that suicide is a good orvalid choice for a severely depressed person. Like mostbelievers, I feel that because killing oneself almostalways entails rebellion against God, it is wrong.But my point is this: it is not for us to pronounce itan unforgivable sin. Almost everyone struggles withsuicidal thoughts at one time or another, and whensomeone actually tries to follow through on suchthoughts, they need understanding, not judgment.Earlier in this chapter I told of Sheila’s attemptedsuicide. Prompt medical intervention preventedher from dying, and after a two-week stay at alocal psychiatric ward where she turned the vitalcorner – from wanting to kill herself, to wanting tolive – she was back at home with Jim. But that washardly the end of the story. Before long, her old demonsreturned, and some weeks she found herself battlingsuicidal temptations almost daily.1