Whenever I preach, I usually share my long-hand notes. Today was not supposed to be a day of sharing because the message I intended to bring is not my own. Most of the sermon would be coming from my former Sunday School teacher, Dr. Richard Leslie Parrott.

When I last visited Nashville for my former pastor’s retirement, Dr. Parrott’s Sunday School lesson focused on transitions, a fitting topic considering one pastor was stepping down and a replacement had yet to be found. During the lesson, I made the comment that that would preach. After the service, Dr. Parrott found me and gave me his notes. I love him for that! ❤

However, after much internal back and forth, I feel like I should share something. After all, I created this blog to offer healing, hope, and love by sharing both my fictional stories and my own ideas and insights about spirituality and mental health. I made myself vulnerable in front of my church family. That was the difficult part. Putting it down into words for people to read at their own leisure without my presence is the easy part.

Dr. Parrott is a phenomenal professor, pastor, mentor, and friend. Given the fact that he gave me his notes and given the context of this post, I am sure he would not mind my sharing portions of his outline.

This post will not be as organized as other sermon posts, partially because the sermon itself was not as organized as I originally planned. I will write out what I can, leave out some, and share only portions of Dr. Parrott’s lesson outline. I trust my readers will be able to piece it together and glean the important takeaways.

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Before Church:

I knew something was wrong before I called her back. She should be in church at this time of the morning. After I hung up the phone, my knees buckled, and my hands shook. I sat down in shock, not surprised but still shocked. One can never fully prepare for this kind of thing. Her stepson committed suicide.

I wanted to pray for her just as I promised I would, but the only words I could say were “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” Prayer enough, I knew. As Romans 8:26 says, “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
My heart broke for my friend, and I wept for her and her husband.

After the initial shock subsided, I knew there was no way I could play drums in worship this morning. My insides felt dizzy, and I was afraid I could not hold onto a drumstick let alone keep a beat. I was also supposed to preach. I didn’t want to preach. Not now. I intended to ask Pastor Tim to fill in. He has been doing this so long that he could pull a sermon – a good sermon – out of his back pocket.

But to my great dismay, the Lord spoke to me. He told me that I didn’t have to play, but I needed to be the one to bring the message. After all, the message I intended to bring still fit – and fit well.

So, I gathered myself together, finished getting ready, and drove to church.
As soon as I got there and took one look at Pastor Tim – or when he first looked at me – I broke down again, unable to speak. He held me and consoled me, having absolutely no idea what was wrong. I knew I needed to speak because I knew he was thinking the worst. His first thought was that I had been directly impacted by the Kerrville flood.

Not that what happened wasn’t terrible, but it was not a direct hit to me. I barely knew my friend’s stepson. It was more like being wounded by flying shrapnel. Still, he comforted me until I pulled myself back together.

I was fine again until the worship team sang the final song. The words made me heave and weep again. I went from mourning for my friend and her husband, to mourning for her stepson, to mourning this bigger sadness that I could not quite explain. I felt God stirring something in me. I knew He was going to change something in the message, but I didn’t know exactly what. I simply trusted that He would speak through me.

As I sat there in the front row, crying through that final song, glancing at my sermon notes, I knew what he wanted from me, and it scared me.

We are a Christian community gathered to love and serve God and one another. My small church is a close-knit community.

Still, I know the stigma that surrounds mental illness, especially in the church universal. Those suffering from mental illness are sometimes (horribly) told that they simply are not praying enough or trusting in God enough. We are taught that those who commit suicide are selfish. We are taught that they go to hell.

I know suicide is not selfish. And I refuse to believe that those who commit suicide automatically go to hell.

I know this because I have been there. It is not selfish because a person in that position cannot see or think of anything other than the debilitating darkness.

I liken it to a patient I had years ago. One day, he sat calmly telling me about trying to combat the voices in his head. The next day, he was heavily medicated and wearing a protective headpiece. When I asked what had happened, I was told he had beaten his head against the brick wall over and over again and had to be physically restrained. The next time I talked to him, he told me that was the only way he could silence the voices.

Someone who has reached that point is not in their right mind and Christian teaching does state (and I loosely paraphrase) that those who are not in their right mind cannot be held responsible, and, thus, are welcomed into the Kingdom of God even if they die without making a formal declaration of salvation.

Therefore, because of what I have experienced first-hand, I stand opposed to traditional Christian teaching about suicide.

Although most of the people in my little church know my story, God wanted me to share it again – all of it – to remove the stigma and the fear.

I didn’t want to do it, but I remained faithful.

As the time came for me to get up there, my knees began to buckle again, and my hands shook. My entire insides felt like mush.

I asked them to be patient with me. I dabbed at my eyes, blew my nose, and took a few deep breaths to get myself together. I had to sit instead of stand, and I had to rely on my printed copy sitting on a music stand instead of holding my iPad. Somehow, I muddled through.

Here is a brief summary of a portion of my sermon introduction:

The first time I considered suicide was when I was a freshman in high school. I was a drummer in the marching band and sat at the top of the bleachers. I considered throwing myself over the top.

Time slowed down for me, but I know what happened next was a mere flash because no one noticed anything. I felt a hand on my shoulder push me down. In an instant I saw that I would likely not die from that fall, but I would be hurting a lot of people – my parents, my best friend who tried to console me before the game, and all those innocent bystanders, many of them children, who didn’t know me but would be witnesses to my brutal act.

On the way home from the game, I told my dad that I didn’t want to talk about why, but I needed to see a counselor. My parents found one for me the next week.

I know that was the hand of God intervening. Jesus was already my best friend before this incident. He saved my life that day.

Years later, I am in therapy once again, already in ministry. My therapist tells me that I have made a lifelong habit of excusing other people’s behavior. Whether or not they meant to hurt me, whether or not they had a legitimate reason for what they did was irrelevant. Until I allowed myself to acknowledge the pain they caused me and sit in that pain, I will never heal.

She challenged me that the next time I felt the pain come and the desire to brush it away with excuses, I instead stay with the pain and walk through it.

The day came soon after the challenge. I felt a panic attack coming and lay in the empty bathtub just so I could feel something safe and hard and strong surround me. As I followed the pain, things got very dark. Even with my eyes open, all I could see was a black tunnel of nothingness. I couldn’t see or hear or think of anyone else or anything else even if I wanted to. It was a very dark and lonely and scary place.

What saved me is that tiny pinprick of light that I saw way in the distance. I focused on that pinprick of light until the moment passed and I could see and hear normally again.

I have no doubt that the pinprick of light was once again the light of Christ come to save me.

Still, I was terrified. I had never been that close to suicide. I immediately called my therapist. She was proud of me and explained that I had just experienced 40+ years of unacknowledged pain and grief, and I made it through the other side.

After I shared this and more, I commented that I wonder what happens to those who never have a hand push them down or who never see even a pinprick of light to get them through.

I don’t know why God saved me and not others. I don’t know why I was born with these issues and others weren’t. There are a lot of things I cannot explain away. What I do know is that God does not cause evil and suffering, but he can use it for good.

He did not cause my friend’s son to commit suicide, but he can bring good from it. That seems absurd to say or even think, but it’s what we Christians believe. What that will look like, I have no idea.

But he has used my cancer and mental health experiences to help others. We all have stuff. The longer we live, the more we are fully aware that the only constant is change. Some changes are amazing. Some are horrific. There is only one thing in this world that never changes – God. The rest, it’s coming. Over and over and over again. Change – both good and bad.

I said more but this was my basic transition to the meat of the sermon – Dr. Parrott’s lesson on transitions.

Here are some highlights from his outline:

TRANSITIONS

“Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
-Philippians 1:6

LESSON: Introduction

Change vs. Transition

BOOK: Managing Transitions by William Bridges

“It isn’t the changes that do us in, it’s the transitions. Change is not the same as transition. Change is situational: the new site, the new boss, the new team roles, the new policy. Transition is the psychological process people go through to come to terms with the new situation. Change is external, transition is internal.”

3 STAGES OF CHANGE AND TRANSITION

Stage One: TURN LOOSE

Change = aiming at an endpoint.

Transition = not the endpoint, but what you will have to leave behind.

Before you can begin something new, you have to end what used to be. The new beginning is utterly dependent upon the ending of the old way.

Loss means different things to different people. For some, it is the excitement of new possibilities and for others, it is fear that nothing will ever be the same again.

We help each other by allowing people to have their genuine feelings, express them, and continue to be devoted to one another in love.

Stage 2: TRUDGE ON

A change has been made. The old way has ended. It is gone. It will never come back, at least not the way it once was.

Change will happen, the page must turn.

The transition takes longer. It is suggested that it takes 12-18 months to adjust to change. There will be ups and downs, hallelujahs, and “oh-nos.”

Now, we trudge on.

This will be wonderful for some and difficult for others. Decisions will be made.

We are foolish to think that it will come off without a hitch, that all will be pleased, and that all will be as it always has been.

Stage 3: TAKE HOLD

How do we know when we’ve come through the other side?

You’ll just know!

A new sense of purpose or at least a refreshed sense of purpose will capture your imagination.

Our spiritual imagination will be ignited by a new vision, an image of what is next.

A plan will emerge, not right at first, but over time and we’ll see it.

And most importantly, each of us will see our part in the new beginning.

CLOSING

Remember to be patient with one another and express our trust in God:

God is good

God is in control

God is doing a new thing – and God is allowing us to be part of His plan.

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Dr. Parrott also shared a visual that I thought fit our message well in closing.

We all carry two buckets with us wherever we go. One is filled with water. One with gasoline. Be careful of which one you let fall.

Think of the bucket of water as words of peace and love and encouragement. Water quenches the spiritual soul. It draws people closer to God.

Think of the bucket of gasoline as words of hate, negativity, and division. Gasoline kills the spiritual soul. It repels people away from God.

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I wanted to close with a song. Dr. Parrott shared a song, but it was not one I knew and I could not find it online. I could have asked him, but chose to find a fitting song for our little group. I had a certain song in mind, but I did not know the name of it. When I put “he won’t fail me” in the Google search, a song I had never heard before popped up.

Since it was by Ce Ce Winans and since I love Ce Ce Winans, I listened and it fit perfectly.

It turns out that the song I originally looked for is called Firm Foundation by Maverick City Music. However, I still chose to share He’s Never Failed Me Yet by Ce Ce Winans instead.