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Lost Love, Suicide, and the Rescue of the American Woman

The sign in a women’s clothing store window caught my attention:

I Am the Love of My Life

A sinking feeling dropped like a boulder into my soul. Is this what it’s come to? Are women so devoid of love that we now comfort ourselves—with ourselves? 

It won’t work. Isn’t working…

Later in my day, another boulder dropped. Dr. Matthew Sleeth, a former ER doctor and Medical Chief of Staff, rang the warning bell after the latest release of suicide data by the CDC: Suicides are at an all-time high…and increasing. “Forty percent of women, age 14 to 25, wrestle daily with whether to take their own lives,” Dr. Sleeth reported on a podcast.

Katherine Wolf, host of the GoodHard Story podcast, added her own encounter with despair. She experienced a massive stroke fifteen years ago while in her 20s. She should have died, but miraculously lived. In rehab Katherine “wondered if it would be better if I weren’t here. Better for my family and friends.” In time she concluded that if she were meant to die, she'd be dead. “I realized since I had a pulse, I had a purpose.” 

Today thousands of men and women privately struggle with despair. The persons experiencing pain aren’t necessarily in rehab or living on the street. Why the hopelessness? Is it the rootlessness of modern life? Unrealistic expectations from social media? Economic turmoil? Climate change fears? War and global chaos? Endless distractions? Easy addictions?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes. But that’s not it.

As a Baby Boomer, I'm privileged to be born just before the invention of television and living to see the arrival of AI. Every Wednesday I meet on Zoom with a writer in Colorado and another in California. I open my computer in Missouri, click on an email, and ta-da! We instantly view and speak with each other. Wonderful technologies enrich our daily existence. 

We’ve lost something too. Gradually a major component to thrive disappeared.

I needed that part of myself in midlife. 

I never saw the devastation coming. The demise began with a phone call announcing my husband’s affair. My marriage, home with two teenagers, career track, and volunteer work in a church crumbled—in a matter of weeks. There are no words to describe my brokenness, my anguish. I’d lost my key reasons to get out of bed in the morning.

Something deep within awakened. I cried through tears to God: “Jesus!” Not a proper prayer by any standards, but the deepest, most intense cry for help I’d ever given. Unexplainably, I experienced God present, with me, comforting me…loving me. 

Those moments birthed a turn-around for me. Since childhood I heard “God is love.” Now I knew that was true. My life depended on God's love. I began a journal to capture every manifestation of God’s love for me in my daily life. I kept our love relationship a priority, and still do, by writing my thoughts, feeling, fears, regrets, and questions—delivered up to God in a concrete way. Then I recorded what seemed to be replies—love letters from God. I did not want to miss anything. Our bond deepened. My life renewed in a stronger, truer form.

I’d discovered the most natural, fundamental aspect of being a human—God and people tethered together in love. It’s the component edited out of our modern discourse. The part of therapy a therapist is trained to omit. The central truth not fashionable to mention in a classroom or a documentary. 

Dr. Sleeth pointed out that humans are the only creatures who consider ending their lives. Zebras don’t. Dogs don’t. We do—because our soul-based “image of God” distinguishes us from the rest of creation. And when we starve our souls, we’re in trouble.

American woman—don't despair! Do. Not. Give. Up. There is love for you.

If you’re at the end of your rope, you're in the best position to experience God’s love. When you’ve exhausted every other source, will you embrace the One who is right here waiting for you?