The $7.99 Message, Anyone Whose Ever Felt Despair, Must Read

I walked past it. Didn’t even know the price yet.

Still, for some reason it peered and leaned, reached for me….with arms, almost unnoticed.

But then I stepped back, spoke loudly to my daughter standing next to me, “I really like those words”.

$7.99 is all it cost.

And yet, I wrestled and toyed with whether to make such an investment.

Had I known what would happen…

I would have ripped it off the shelf and clung to it without question.

But I didn’t know. Couldn’t have know. Could I?

Finally, I toss it on the counter. Pull out the exact change. Then, slide it in the back of my white crossover….

Taking a route I usually never drive home.

I hear a beep, look down, and there it is, a text on my phone.

It changed my world.

And it seems life is more of a crap shoot than a mathematical equation.

You never know when you will get a message or phone call, an e-mail….or a doctor’s report that can twist the trajectory of your life, forever.

It is then, the foundation of what you have built your life upon will be questioned…

The truth of what you’ve placed beneath your feet will be rocked and tested…

It is there where the very core of all you are inevitably surfaces.

I wept. Instantly. It couldn’t be.

They say that little boy who smiled wide, with white teeth.  The one that lived over at our house the summers after he found us one fourth of July…

The child who stuck to us like a magnet, and bounced around our house with unequivocal joy and enthusiasm….

Is gone.

And either we can live the gospel with smiles and warm questions…

Or we can leave the lonely isolated, the lost wandering. The needy seeking someone…

Us too busy to reach to those we are really intertwined with in spirit, fellow humans, the children needing someone to enrich them.

There was something special about John.

He had contagious laughter, a heart of unhypocritical kindness. He had this ability to forgive and forget…everyone else, but himself, supposedly.

I remember when we saw John around Christmas. He had a light colored wool sweater on, the kind English men in GQ magazines might pose in.

His longer blonde hair and big dimple greeted me. He hugged me tight, and told me he was into Jesus, and going on a missions trip.

I looked up at that now grown boy who once graced my house with giggles and playfulness, making home movies, and jumping on the trampoline with my son who was his best friend.

And I wanted to hug him then, forever…

Say more than, “That’s so good, John. We are so, so happy for you.”

Because who knows when the world will start turning? When powder blue eyes looking at you, will start to haze over with bar drinks, and confusion.

And the little boy that laughed will lose hope and grow discouragement. The one with purpose will move to Seattle and start to drift with the wanderers looking for someone to love them.

And who knew that long, hard hug, would be the last time I would see him?

I look down at my text. “John committed suicide.”

The words strike like a fish hook, or a cat of nine-tails, ripping me in pieces…

Piercing down deep somewhere inside where days of summer times, lemonade stands, making peanut butter sandwiched for who knows how many times, for that little boy around the corner….

Seemed easier than sending home the boy whose single mother worked tirelessly to care for over a half a dozen children.

Those eyes. Who could turn down the hungry looks of a child who seemed like flesh and blood, who could have been my biological son?

I sob like a surrogate parent there in my car with those words that I just bought…riding quietly in the back seat.

Remembering taking him to Chuck e-Cheese saying, “If you ever need anything, please call us. We think of you like one of our own kids.”

But the mission-field life, the Jesus-serving smile somehow faded, and nobody said anything.

Silence swallowed up hope, and a Bible in one hand was traded for a beer, or a cigarette, or who knows what else.

And in two and a half years, a life completely slipped away. Slipped away.

Just. Like. That.

And we all were far too busy with our business to notice it.

Where had all those ones who had loved him been? Where were his friends? His extensive family who seemed to prize and adore him?

Where were all of us when clouds come in, and questions search us with un-ending aching, demanding explanations, or insisting we be perfect…

Without recognizing…we all are sinners?

And who judged him?

Took their doctrine and shoved it in his face, before choosing to embrace a young man, with questions, and hurt he must have hid?

When the flag of the rainbow covered his smile, did he get teased, condemnation, a whole bunch of Christians spouting out how he is a sinners…and sinners go to hell?

Where were the lovers of Jesus? The ones who came down to where real life is, instead of living in their penthouses of self-righteousness, demanding infallible faith and perfectionism.

Did I love when I could of? Or did I just think I was pretty darn righteous because I didn’t post my doctrine about those with alternative lifestyles on Facebook?

And now he is gone.

Where were we? The loving ones? The people? All those who drove him to vbs or traveled with him to missions trips?

Did we turn our backs on him because we think somehow John stopped being John?

I tell my own son, face running down with tears…

“We got John during his best years. Right between childhood, and teen years. That perfect time when the world is still carefree and uncomplicated, big and spacious, yet simple and wondrous.”

And although we thought we were benefiting him, sharing our lives with a boy who seemed to show up with the most gorgeous grin…

It was our life that was gifte with John.

I bought it before I knew. $7.99.

“You are worth more than you know. Capable of more than you think. And loved more than you can imagine.”

This is my message for John…

The is my message for my own kids.

The is the message for every child out there that struggles with who they are and if they really do belong.

These are the words I wished John would have read, before he chose to take his life.

These are the words that ride in my car, as I put down my phone, wipe away my tears, and try to imagine…

How a blonde, blue-eyed boy, with a smile that lit up any room, a laugh so contagious you would be taken in and had to laugh too…

Could come to think, in this world he had nothing to contribute, and taking his life was the only answer to his hurt.

My son sprawls across the floor, his six-foot-four frame now stretched out on our clean, white carpet. My husband sits near him and lingers just a little bit longer tonight, after dinner.

The text message sinks into deeper sorrow. The words from the store are now hung high above the staircase for all to see before they sleep, from here on out…

Until forever.

We hug a little longer. Kiss each other goodnight. But our hearts are all heavy, for the boy who graced our lives…

The child who was like a son, a brother, a best friend, a gift to all who knew him….

Who now has passed on, leaving the world a little more robbed from his joy and beautiful, blue-eyed presence.

Us, left with deficit. Us, filled with questions. A world failing John, by never really and sincerely telling him…

“You are worth more than you know. Capable of more than you think. And loved more than you can imagine.”

 

I write this today with deep grief over the enemies ploy to take out a young, beautiful, gifted generation.

I don’t know your experience with suicide…

But what I do know is that God is grieved, and heartbroken, and saddened when a life quenches the “Ruach Elohim”, the breath of God inside them.

If you have a young person, or know one….will you stop and text, call, write, email them, and tell them just how much they mean?

Label what their gifts are, the strengths you see in them. Give them encouragement, even if it’s small, or may somehow seem insignificant.

Do it for all the John’s out there. Those hurting while nobody sees them. Do it for the future, and for the purposes God has planned and predestined for each young person trying to survive.

And as Christians, can I just ask, no plead with you…..please let’s stop judging people.

Let’s stop pulling out the scale and evaluating sins as if our own weaknesses or sins don’t matter somehow.

Let’s love first and let His grace and mercy cover people, exactly where they are.

Lastly, will you share this post about John? John’s legacy cannot go on, on it’s own.

His voice is silenced forever. His smile, in time, will slowly distance itself from the faces of those who love Him….

But His story can touch many.  Will share his message. The message that love is the greatest communicator, hope is the greatest motivator, and faith is a gift we can give each other….

So the world will know, no matter who you are or where you came from…

“You are worth more than you know. Capable of more than you think. And loved more than you can imagine.”