When Serpent Suicide Slithers In

It was 10.45 in the night when she called to tell me she was committing suicide. She had already called her friends to say goodbye.She did not know me; she’d only called because she promised her best friend she would. The details of my Single Mom Meets appear in the newspapers with my contact number, which her friend had jotted down.

Her story: She was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, had not yet reached her first anniversary and her husband had left her for another woman. Over the next hour, I was given heart-wrenching details of the humiliation she’d had to endure. “Life has nothing to offer us and I have no choice but to opt out, I hope you understand.”

I had walked that road myself. She wanted to know how I was still alive. I informed her that I too had tried to make one last call before blowing out the candle. I’d rung up a spiritual companion to say goodbye. I told her about other single moms who’d also struggled at the same cliff-hanging edge, but survived. We met once a month to encourage one another; now we are not without joy, hope and a promising future for ourselves and our children in our uplifted lifestyles.

She cancelled her death plans and asked to join the group.

Everybody – especially in today’s mercurial and mercenary times – needs to have a spiritual companion (distinct from a friend or family member) with whom he or she can set up a weekly God-present confidential meeting where they can be mutually accountable to one another, encourage and advise one another. So that God can use them as instruments to speak to and through one another, it is best if they are not friends (who could be emotional rather than objective and righteous in counsel).

That way, when all doors appear firmly closed and serpent suicide comes slithering in, the God-friend can open the window and let the sun come shining in.

Lord, You are the Way, the Truth and the Life! Please be there for those who are drowning in darkness and have lost the will to live. At that desperate moment, rescue them and give them light and fresh new hope for the future.

—Ingrid Albuquerque—Posted on her blog on June 6, 2013