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Welcome to Truth Talk Live. Today we're in the studio. I'm with Rusty Lamb. Known Rusty a long time. We've got a lot of history with our families. And Rusty, let's see, how did we meet each other? You give us some history.
That's a great question. I was thinking about that last night. And so it started before we actually were in life together. I was in a fantasy football league with your husband. Okay, I didn't know that part of the story.
There's the shame of today's topic. But we actually met in 2003. And we were transitioning from churches. You folks were moving. We were moving to Winston and you were moving to Raleigh. And we passed each other. That's right.
Along Highway 40 somewhere. That's right. So we actually in Jerry in Harriet Reagan's class. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Remember that? I do.
I do. That was a great class. A lot of a lot of saints in that class. So and then when we moved back, I knew I knew a few people. And I remember the first Sunday that my wife and I attended and I saw JT. Oh, yeah. And the rest has been history.
There you go. So our families, our kids kind of grew up together. We did a lot of ministry at Calvary with the youth. I UJT a bunch of guys taught the fourth, fifth and sixth grade boys. I can't believe y'all survived that.
I can't believe the boys survived that. But that was a interesting time that we went on to work in the youth choir together vertical generation and when I went all kinds of places with a bunch of crazy kids. But it was a great time. I remember a term called choir tour. Choir tour. That's right.
With Richie King's more than Lee tuning. Yeah, absolutely. And we served for a decade. Yeah. With our children.
What a blessing. Absolutely. Well, we're going to get right to it. Today, we've got a tough, a tough, deep subject to cover, but we're going to be talking about suicide. So we're going to break the silence around suicide. And I'm going to kind of turn it over to you, Rusty. It's a topic with a lot of pain.
What motivates you to have a discussion on this topic? Well, thank you, Alicia. It's first and foremost, I want to start with a prayer if I could.
Absolutely. And we're going to go into Second Corinthians and just pray that the Lord would bless our time today. So blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us and all affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ, we share abundantly in comfort too. Amen.
Amen. Thank you for that. So this story of loss started in 2010 when my sister took her life to suicide and Sandy Lamb Hall was her name. And Sandy was my only sibling and the apple of my eye. And she was an incredibly gifted woman. They had been through a her her husband and her had been through an incredible, difficult season.
And Sandy was a matter of days away from retiring from the school system. And she was a licensed clinical social worker and graduated from Chapel Hill. And the one thing that I learned about my sister was that Sandy came into this world to help everyone. But in the end, she couldn't help herself. She struggled with helping herself. And so she had several injuries. And through a course of medication and then the normal things that we deal with as we get older, she struggled and they compounded into a mental illness.
And inevitably she chose to take her life. Yeah, I remember that, Rusty. That was a that was a devastating time for you, for your family, for your for your mom, just all around. And, you know, you I'm sure that made an indelible mark on your heart, on your soul. And just coming out of that, you know, here we are 14 years later, you said 2010, 2010, 2010. Today, that's part of, you know, the reason behind why we're having this discussion. You know, when I talk to you in the last few days, we've talked over what we wanted to talk about today.
And, you know, you just said, I want to bring a message of hope. So that's what we're doing today. Yes. Yeah. Yes. You know, you've said we really need more voices of hope and healing and help in this discussion. And we need a Christian perspective, a biblical perspective on life and death and even suicide to be able to navigate these really, really rough waters.
Anything you want to add to that? Yeah. And let me sort of hit the brakes or pump the brakes for a second and say that this is the beginning of a fairly lengthy discussion. And we're not going to be able to get through many of the things. Alicia and I met and we're like, how do we culminate 400 hours into 40 minutes? And then as a challenge, we landed on only God.
But today really will be a pinprick. Yeah. To start the conversation. We said this is going to be a marathon, not a sprint.
We'll probably have some follow up episodes from this one. And so one thing I wanted to say is what this what we want to do today is discuss how suicide affects those left behind. We want to frame the discussion from a Christian perspective, from a biblical perspective. And we want to bring a message of hope, healing and help. Yes.
Yeah. What we're not doing is addressing this this issue from a comprehensive perspective. There are a lot of things we are not going to talk about that I'm sure if you're listening, you're like, well, they didn't address that or they didn't, you know, point out this. We're just coming at it from where the Lord has led us today. And we'll have some follow up discussion around it. But we hope that this is going to reach some hearts, that it's going to bring hope and healing and some encouragement to those of you who've lost loved ones to suicide. Or if you're in a really dark place that this will be hopeful that this is not the end.
It's just the beginning that God has a lot more in store for you. So when we come back, we're going to unpack a few statistics and then tell some more stories. So we'll be right back with Truth Talk live.
You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Welcome back to Truth Talk live. I'm here in the studio with Rusty Lamb and we're talking about some deep waters today. Our topic is suicide, and how to bring hope, healing and help to those who've lost ones to suicide, as well as people who might find themselves in a dark place of hopelessness.
Rusty, welcome back. We're going to start out. I have one question for you before we go much further. Suicide survivor is a phrase that you use.
Unpack that for us. Well, I think it's important that for those that are listening today to know that we actually work with a group of people that have suffered a loss of a loved one. And so when we started the work, a dear friend of mine, Mary Lynn Birkendoll, and I have been doing this ministry for almost five years now. It's a long story, but I'll tell you the short and quick of it. One day in church, Mary Lynn and John were sitting up front. They looked over their shoulder and they saw five people that had been affected by suicide.
Mary Lynn stated that we have nothing for these people. So after many months and hours and days and almost a year of studying it, she found only one biblically based program in the country. Just one. Wow. Yeah, that's a that's a real loss to not have more than one. And so that was Saddleback Church.
Yeah. Rick and Kay Warren. And Rick Warren, Rick and Kay had suffered the loss of their own son to suicide. And out of that developed a ministry and curriculum and I think have helped, I'm sure, thousands and thousands of people through their story and their loss, their grief.
And they had some preemptive feelings about that. It's called out in Rick's Purpose Driven Life book, but they were incredible. They blessed everything to us. And we became what we call the the tent post across the country between two, two churches. And so we've recently learned that they they're no longer leading a group, but we just felt compelled to help those. And so we prayed about it. And a dear friend Gary Byron came through and he actually served in our first season.
And he and Mary Lynn helped me get the help that I needed. And I'll tell you a little bit more about that when we talk about statistics. Sure, absolutely. Well, we want to let you know as well that we're going to be putting some resources for you on the website. That's going to be on the OasisMinistriesNC.com website. And we'll let you we'll remind you about that. We're gonna have some books, some other resources that you can use if you're navigating some of this.
And we'll tell you a little bit more about Rusty's ministry, Mary Lynn's ministry. But I want to take us to some statistics about suicide. You you shared this with me and you know, there you just feel the crushing weight of some of these numbers.
Go ahead and share some things with us. Yeah. And let me say this, that the unfortunate thing about these statistics, Alicia, is that as soon as they're printed, they're already out of date.
Yeah. And I think we can assume that whatever you share, if it's even two or three years old, coming out of COVID, a lot of our issues, struggles, depression, isolation, anxiety are are out the roof. And so I'm sure these numbers have increased.
But tell us what you've got. Yeah, we all know that mental health is is a pandemic, and it's certainly growing and leaps and bounds. So here's a few statistics, over 800,000 suicides per year worldwide. And in the United States, and this is as of 2022 49,000 deaths a year, which equates to around 135 a day. But here's something more sobering than that.
That's every eight minutes. So the time we have together today, the 40 minutes of precious time we have together today, five people are going to take their life. And I don't know how that washes over you, right?
It just simply breaks my heart. And we'll talk about suicide prevention a little bit. If we have time today, that month is coming up here in September, right?
It's just around the corner. So nearly 1.8 million people attempt suicide in the United States every year. And around 60% of those victims suffer from clinical depression or have a history of chronic mental illness. And sometimes that's an even higher percentage. I think this was a staggering statement, but most people with mental illness do not die by suicide. Men die by suicide nearly four times more than women. And women attempted three times more than men. And then another statistic is that every suicide has 15 to 30 people that it intimately affects.
And a recent study places that number affected around 135. Yeah. So, you know, obviously this is a very multifaceted topic. So many nuances, each story is different. You know, sometimes mental illness is involved.
Other times that has nothing to do with it. Circumstances, you know, so many things lead a person to a place where they make this, make this choice. And so we just have to understand that this is a very complex, very complicated thing to try to even unravel and tangle. And so there's just a lot to it. And those statistics, you know, Rusty, I love statistics.
I'm a math person, but, you know, sometimes when you listen to statistics, they feel a little cold. I want you to speak to that. Well, I can.
One of those is my sister. Right. Yeah. And so I can. You have a face behind those numbers.
I do. And so Sandy's life affected thousands of people. Right.
And for anyone that came to her funeral, they saw that they had to keep the lights on for an extra 90 minutes at her viewing because that many people came. And so we often misunderstand the reach that we have as people. Right. So, but I think, I think the most important thing around the statistics is that each of that, each number is a person and a family and a community that's been affected.
Right. You know, my life, when I thought about it, my son in law, Andrew, his brother, died in 2019. And, you know, we loved we loved Timo and so many people loved Timo. And my grandfather also took his life by suicide. And that's before I was born. But it had a tremendous effect on my dad. And honestly, I was thinking as I was processing some of the some of these things, my dad really never talked about that. And I think he did not want us to know his dad just from that perspective. And so he shared that with us as we got older. But it, you know, it affected our family. And it has because he wasn't here to be part of, you know, seeing his grandkids and all that. And God has worked through all that and so much redemption. But definitely those things have touched my life as well. And you said, you know, it used to be everybody knew someone with cancer.
But now it's it's shifted. It's everyone knows someone or has been affected by suicide. Yeah. So, you know, there's a there's a verse in Psalm, Psalm thirty four eight. The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Does crushed in spirit and broken hearted describe most suicide survivors? Amen. Yes.
Yes, it does. Yeah. And praise the Lord that we do have his word that we can hide in our heart. Absolutely. When we come back, we're going to talk a little bit more about your ministry and then we're going to talk about how people navigate this loss.
We'll be right back. Today we're talking about the issue of suicide. A very deep issue, one that elicits so much pain for so many people. But we're trying to speak in it to it from a biblical perspective, a Christian perspective, and bring hope, healing and help into the conversation. We know that this is a conversation that a lot of people don't discuss. And I think we want to spend a few minutes talking about survivors.
What is their experience? How do they navigate grief and emotions? How do you lament in times that are just so dark you don't even know where to go with your emotions? So we're going to start with Rusty, you've shared with me that suicide grief is complex. When you say that, what do you mean? Well, you know, as we learn together, the traditional curve for grief is different than this, the grief or trauma a person experiences from suicide.
And I can speak personally. And the one thing I remember when we were going through it the first time is that Gary used a whiteboard and we drew a path from here to the beach and he talked about, you know, it's okay to stop at Home Depot and Walmart, but it's when you stop and start to hang a shingle somewhere, then it becomes a disorder. Well, for me, it was never linear. And I'm a linear person. I'm a scientist by nature, but I think we're just going to walk right through those phases. And then, you know, in an exact amount of time, we'll be on the other side. But it's not like that, is it?
No. And what became clear to me was that it wasn't linear. It was it was rather cyclical.
And so where I struggled was that there was a cyclical force similar to what you would see in a tornado. And through the, the different events and triggers, I experienced a whole different level of grief. And I want to go back to a statistic that we didn't talk about is that the average person waits nine years before they get help. Wow.
Before they reach out. And what's really crazy is that I was nine years really to get help. Wow. And those numbers that when Mary Lynn pulled those together from Saddleback, it was just a moment of reality. I bet that jumped off the page for you. Well, it affirmed that I wasn't any worse or better. You know what they say about average or as far from the top as you are from the bottom. Right.
And you know, I do subscribe to the C's earns degrees program where my sister was magna cum laude. But bottom line, the reality is that people wait and it's hard. It's difficult. So it's it's traumatic. It's there's there's complicated grief. Right. Which is the combination of both trauma and grief. Wow. Okay. That makes sense.
That makes sense. You know, you had listed some of the things that survivors experience as far as emotions that maybe other people don't feel to the same degree with another type of death. I wrote I had written down here, guilt, shame, stigma, silence, bargaining, scapegoating, guilt as punishment. There are a lot of things that are additional layers of of trauma that go beyond the actual death.
You know, maybe talk about one or two of those that maybe other people would not understand that that people who walk through this with a loved one that they experience in a different way. Well, we've gone maybe why it takes so long to work through the process. Great, great, great points. We've been through multiple seasons now with several dozen people.
And the one word that always is a sticking word is the word bargaining. And we had one couple this this is very heartbreaking. And, and let me let me say this, if anyone's out there and you're, you're feeling like you're at the end of your rope. I want you to know that we're here praying for you. The staff is here praying for you. Elise and I are praying for you.
There's a group of people praying for you today. You can get help. You can dial 988. You can call this number here. But don't don't sit there and be alone.
Know that there's help for you. But the one thing with bargaining, we had a couple that actually was on their phone for nearly two hours. And then their son killed himself while they were on the phone with them. There was no bargaining for them.
It didn't work. And so one of the things we've learned through, you know, the the attributes of grief, which you've named many of them, is that at the end, there's a broken part of the brain that doesn't function like most people's brains do. And so there's really no logic or reason there.
Yeah. And let me share one of the thoughts. You said this to me yesterday. We're not doing MRIs or CT scans on people right before they take their life. So we'll never know exactly why. But the way we've equated to this is that it's like having a thousand piece puzzle and we're missing two pieces and we'll never have them.
You know, that takes us. I was going to go into this a little later, but we'll just jump over here now. You know, we so many people, they want to know why. And that's the logic piece that really can't take us to healing. I was reading and some of the material you gave me.
Let's see here. Logic drives survivors to understand why. Albert Sue in his book, Grieving a Suicide, explains why knowing why doesn't bring peace. He said, what we need is someone to heal our broken hearts. That's right. And he said, ultimately, we need each other and we need Christ.
So the why question, the fact that in this type of death, you don't get the answers that you so desperately want. That's got to be so hard. It's and it's so different in the fact that the blame game typically rear its ugly head, right?
Yeah. And so many people work through their the normal amount of anger and despair. But the blame piece, many people spend a lot of time talking about what could I have done differently? And the reality is that we, as believers know that God is sovereign.
There was nothing you could have done different. And I think where I've landed with this, Alicia is that on this side of the cross, it's going to be broken. Sometimes God cannot fix people here on earth.
He chooses not to fix people here. Yeah. And so he brings them home. And the one nugget of hope that really resonates with me that when I close my eyes, and I think about these families that we've been walking through life with is that they know one day they will be together again. Right. And that's the hope we have as Christians. You know, one thing that came up and you know, now I'm kind of like going rogue off of our script, but we don't really have a script anyway. But is the question around, you know, just to debunk a few things, like is suicide the unforgivable sin?
And where that came from, I tried to research and I really couldn't find an origin, but there's a lot out there. And clearly as Christians, as believers in Christ, we believe that we're saved by faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We're not saved by our works. And we don't lose our salvation by our sin. At the cross, he paid for all of our sin, past, present and future. And that's how someone goes to heaven, through faith in Christ.
And so an unrepented sin is not going to keep someone out of heaven. Now that being said, suicide is a serious move. It's a serious choice, because it destroys the image of God and it puts an end to the possibilities.
There are a lot of reasons why, and you said it, you said you want to tell people, there's another way. There is another way. This is not the choice. That's not God's plan.
Yeah, not plan A, B or any. And the reality is that if you think of the seven stories of suicide in the Bible, I would say Lazarus would be at the top, not Lazarus, Judas. Well, I'm thinking of Jesus weeping over Lazarus. But Judas, and I think it's important to be crystal clear that it wasn't the suicide that kept Judas from joining everyone in heaven. It was his denial. Yeah, his rejection of Christ. He rejected Christ. And that is the unforgivable sin. If there's one, and there is, it's rejecting Christ, rejecting the Holy Spirit, fanning the flame of faith into your heart and walking away from that. And that's not forgivable because that's it.
There's no other sin that's unforgivable. So some clarity on that, because I don't know where that came from. And we'll keep going. But I really want to talk about lament. Yeah. You know, and I think I was thinking of Lazarus because of partially in the fact that I just watched The Chosen again. And that scene resonates with the guttural demise of Christ.
He just falls on the ground. And I knew the Greek said he was sobbing uncontrollably. But to see that in The Chosen is very moving. And to think that he came for us. Right. For something, he voluntarily came to save us for something that we'll never earn.
Right. And he looked at that tomb. And he cried that death is a part of our lives.
And he also knew that he was going to overcome death. So there's a lot there. We'll keep going as soon as we come back. But we're on Truth Talk Live. I'm here with Rusty Lamb. Well, I'm here with Rusty. We're going to close out this last segment by talking about a few more things.
Just want to say to start with, Rusty, thank you so much for being here. I asked you to do this. And I'll tell you what his text back to me was.
That's a hard ask. And I know it is. But I know this is your heart. And you came back and circled back and said, if it could help one person, I'll do it. So I just really appreciate your heart and speaking out of your experience and your own loss and grief. You know that that's if you are going through something, you want to know the truth from someone who's been through that. And that's why you're so powerful.
That's why you really can help people in the ministry that you have. So I just want to say thanks for being you. Mita, your whole family's amazing. I know you've got a rock star wife behind you holding you up and just loving you well. And so I'm just so thankful for your family. Well, I'm thankful for your family.
We could sit here and just go all day about that. But I think I think what's important is that I go back and I think about how I committed and promised Sandy. I would honor her. Right.
And this is also honoring God. Absolutely. You know, there's a need. There's a need that's not being talked about.
And I think it started maybe a decade or so ago, but now it is. And while it's still taboo, we're talking about it. We are. And so I think the big emphasis now is to how do we shift towards the front of the spear? And how do we get in front of that?
And that's a conversation we can have later. Absolutely. You know, there's a there's a need, Alicia, for many of not just people that have experienced this, but for people to be equipped. And as my dear friend Alan Cole says that we all have that responsibility. We are all equipped to help. And helping doesn't mean you have to have the magic potion or the wand or the crystal ball.
It's going. And as Mary Lynn always says, just go. You have to pray yourself into it and sit with the person.
Right. There are no words. Part of this today is just helping us know how do we love each other? Well, how do we love people who are walking through this?
What does it mean when we're going through something like this? But I hope that as people hear this, this show and this podcast, that they'll feel more like they have more insight and understanding of people who are walking through this and, you know, maybe more sensitive, more compassionate. So I do want to circle back to something that we touched on. But you it was really important and you wanted to emphasize it. So what would you say to anybody right now who is contemplating ending their life?
I would tell you that it's real. It's happening. As we talk, someone is doing it. Unfortunately, people become isolated and disconnect. And it happens often.
Pastor Will to be in church about two months ago, preached a sermon. And one of the sentences that he stated was that we know people, but we don't know people. Right. It's right before us. We've seen that happen. Timo was a great example. He had a he had just a rock mountain top experience with Pastor Kyle.
He did hours before and then he ended it. And so what we know is that things just happen. And so, you know, my prayers that you don't do it, that you reach out for help. And for us, as the rest of us, that we're aware of it, we see the signs. We have to be better. We've got to do better. And doing better to me is often listening. I don't know why I struggle with listening. We could we could preach if a couple I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say my female perspective, but you go right.
Well, I don't need to I don't need to I have an incredible conviction that wears me out. And so, but we need to look and listen for the cues. Right. And the thing for me is that people love people. God put us here to love others to not be alone. Right.
He never designed us to be isolated and alone. So don't do it. That's the that's the main message.
Just don't do it. I want to bring up a passage from Acts Chapter 16. Paul and Silas had been thrown into prison for sharing the gospel.
And they're in there. And amazingly, they're singing hymns to God. And there's an earthquake and they're freed from prison as as they start to leave the jailer realizes that his prisoners have escaped. And this Roman jailer knew because of this escape, he would be killed.
And so we read in Chapter 16, verse 17, it's when he saw that the prison doors were open, he drew a sword and he was about to kill himself. And Paul cried out with a loud voice, Don't harm yourself. We are all here. And I think that's the message for anybody. Like, you have people who love you, people who will walk with you.
And even Christ is like, I'm here for you. And so just, you know, to add to what you said, we have to be there for each other. But we also have to know each other deeply. And so we're going to segue into really talking about the hope that we have through our relationships and through Christ. But I want you to share some resources with us.
You know, I think it's important to recognize that if we hadn't have had a connection with Saddleback, it would have been a difficult launch for us. But there are there are many places that we can get help. There's, there's local agencies, there's Christian counseling, we have great churches, you know, and that's one plug, I will say, if you're not engaged and involved in a, in a good Bible teaching, expository teaching church, do it. You know, we both come from that background, whether it be Calvary or two cities, wherever it is go.
And if you're if you try church, and it's not for you try another one. But, you know, building a foundation before you need it is a big deal. Building people into your life who know you, who can speak into your life, who can you be who you can be honest with, but keep going on your resources. Well, I think I think the most important resource we have is found in every hotel room. And a majority of our homes, it's called the Bible.
And often we read the Bible, but we don't truly understand it. So I think as you think about your circles of influence and your circles of life, concentrically, you have people that are in your life that can help you no matter what that looks like, right. Okay, so we want to talk about the role of people and faith. I read in one of the books that you loaned me, no one can survive suicide alone.
What comes to mind with that statement? Well, for one, the person that does the act leaves, but the collateral wake is just immense, right? And so there is no way that just one life takes just one life it affects.
It's a multiple, it's geometric. How do we, if it says no one can survive suicide alone, that means we need each other. We do, we need each other. And the two key ideas that we're going to close out with is that we need people of faith, and we need faith in Christ.
Absolutely. And so, you know, ultimately, the conclusion of Albert Sue and his grieving of suicide is ultimately, we need each other and we need Christ. You know, we need to work through our emotions, we need to, you know, find healing. But those things in and of itself are not the foundation to ultimately, you know, process what you've gone through, what people are going through with this kind of loss. So what does it mean to have people in your life, people, what kind of people do you want in your life when you're walking through this? That's a great question.
It's a foundational question. And so, you know, it's, you hear this often, if you want to know what your life's going to look like, look at your five closest friends. Boy, did that ever come true, you know, as you grew older, and we see it now with our children. But it has to be, it has to be foundational Christ and his teaching, his love for us. And so for me, many, many people have people that are like that, others do not.
But I think the difference is that we know those people that do not. So take that step, reach out. If you see the dark spot, cover it with light, be the light. That's that's the commission.
That's a great, that's a great word. Galatians tells us to carry each other's burdens. And in this way, you will fulfill the law of Christ. And then First John, he says, Dear friend, since God has loved us, we ought to love one another.
And that's part of what we're talking about. Not love people just in the easy times, in the fun times. Yeah, and I want to get back to Second Corinthians and take a little bit of a deeper dive. So in the long haul, the journey of life, and with a journey of grief and trauma, we are beginning to plant healthy seeds. And I'm sharing the comfort we've received with those that we see around us. So it's not guilt, just a deeper dive. And it's called fellowship and community.
Yeah. And I think it's important to finish up today in Revelation, because that's where it all ends. If you think about it. In Revelation 21, for he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying, nor pain anymore for the forever things have passed away.
That's a good place to land. You know, we're gonna just finish with thinking about when we say that we need Christ, what does that mean? Through Christ, we see the love of God the Father, we understand that we're made in God's image, that life is sacred, and that our lives have meaning and purpose. You know, Rusty, when we look and we see Jesus, he added humanity to his deity came down here, through his life, death and resurrection, he showed us who God was and how we could come to know him. He died on that cross to pay for all of our sins, what we've talked about today and everything else that we experience in this broken world. And he went back to heaven so that we could be so that we could be ushered into eternal life with him. So wherever you are today, in your faith, in your life and your circumstances, I just encourage you to lean into the people around you who can help bring you hope and healing and help. And then lean into Christ. He's so good. He's so sweet. And he shows us the love of the Father and he invites us in to the eternal family of God.
Rusty, put a bow on it. For he loved us so much, he sent his only son, his perfect son, to die on that cross. So we will have eternal life. Amen. Amen. Thanks for being here, Rusty. We'll be back, I'm sure with another episode that we'll discuss this further because we really barely scratched the surface. But loving prayers to you out there and we'll be back soon.