Soul Inspirational Magazine

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Archives for June 2018

Warning Signs of Suicidal

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Warning Signs of Suicidal

In light of recent news, we are printing this section of Patricia Dascher’s Book ~ Suicide is Not Your Answer for you to recognize the warning signs of a suicidal person.

Warning Signs of Suicidal 

People who kill themselves may exhibit some of these warning signs, either through what they say or what they do. As you read this don’t assume everyone that has one of these signs is suicidal. There may be other reasons such as depression, post-traumatic stress or illness. The more warning signs, however, the greater the risk.

Talk

If a person talks about:

  • Killing them self.
  • Having no reason to live.
  • Being a burden to others.
  • Feeling trapped.
  • Unbearable pain.

Behavior

A person’s suicide risk is greater if a behavior is new or has increased, especially if it’s related to a painful event, loss, or change.

  • Increased use of alcohol or drugs.
  • Looking for a way to kill them self, such as searching online for materials or means.
  • Acting recklessly.
  • Withdrawing from activities.
  • Isolating from family and friends.
  • Sleeping too much or too little.
  • Visiting or calling people to say goodbye.
  • Giving away prized possessions.
  • Previous suicide attempts.

Mood

People who are considering suicide often display one or more of the following moods.

  • Depression
  • Loss of Interest
  • Rage
  • Irritability
  • Humiliation
  • Anxiety

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

Call 1-800-273-8255
Available 24 hours everyday

Is Suicide a Sin ?

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Is Suicide a Sin

There are ministers who refuse to conduct a funeral of someone who has committed suicide. Some see suicide as an unforgivable sin and refuse to help anyone who is suicidal. Is suicide a sin ?  In this blog post, I will share what some of the great ministers of our time, such as Billy Graham have to say. We’ll also show the “being human” many of the great, great leaders in the Bible and of our day suffered. Even Jesus suffered despair.

Freddie Prinze was a young comedian and good actor. He played Chico in Chico and the Man. Prinze was arrested on November 16, 1976, for driving under the influence of quaaludes (a sedative, hypnotic drug). A few weeks later his wife Kathy Elaine Prinze filed for divorce saying he was endangering the life of his baby son, Freddie Prize Jr., with his drug use. Prinze suffered extreme depression after that. His business manager, Marvin “Dusty” Snyder got a call from Prinze that concerned him so much he went over to his apartment to encourage him on the night of January 28, 1977. Prinze called his mother saying, “Mom, I love you very much but I can’t go on. I need to find peace.”

He called his estranged wife saying, “I love you, Kathy. I love the baby, but I need to find peace. I can’t go on.” With his manager looking on Prinze put a gun to his head and shot himself. He died at 1:00 p.m. on January 29 at the age of 22.

I was a young housewife living in the suburbs when I heard of Freddie Prinze’s suicide. There were those who I considered good Christians saying, “Prinze is in hell because he committed suicide.”

I started asking God to show me the truth. Was Prinze in hell because he committed suicide?   Is Suicide a Sin ? As I prayed, a vision of Jesus holding young Prinze came to my mind with Jesus saying, “Some are not strong enough to endure the trials of earth.”

What does the Bible say about suicide? Since having that vision I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Freddie Prinze is in heaven with God. His mother Maria Graniela Pruetzel, a Puerto Rican, had strong Christian faith. Prinze kept saying, “I need to find PEACE.”

It wasn’t until recently I decided to look up Freddie Prinze and read the book his mother wrote, The Freddie Prinze Story. In the book, it tells of his saying to the news media, “Raised in our kind of neighborhood, the only thing that sustained me was my faith in God.”

He carried his Bible with him everywhere and talked to God in his diary. In his Bible, he wrote, “Dear Lord, I am not afraid to die. But please let me live until I buy my mom the house I promised her.”

He was a lonely kid. After he married Kathy he thought he would no longer be lonely, but when she chose to divorce him, he was devastated. His doctor had put him on quaaludes which have since been outlawed. A manager he had fired was suing him. Although he was very successful for a 22 year old, he had more loneliness, fear and worries than most 22 year olds.

What did Billy Graham Say About Suicide? Is Suicide a Sin ?

Question: My sister struggled with severe depression most of her life and had to be hospitalized several times. Last year, she finally got so depressed that she took her own life. In spite of everything, she had a strong faith, but is suicide the unforgivable sin, as some people say? It’s all been very painful to me.

 Answer: The only sin God cannot forgive is the sin of rejecting the Holy Spirit’s witness to Jesus Christ and His offer of forgiveness. Only when we reject God will He reject us. This alone is the unforgivable “blasphemy against the Spirit” of which Jesus spoke (Matt. 12:31).

God understands your heartache and I want to assure you that He also knew all about your sister’s struggles. Medical science has made many advances in helping us understand emotional problems, but there’s still much we don’t understand. Take confidence in your sister’s faith in Christ, and rejoice that she is now beyond the pains and sorrows of this world.

I don’t want to be misunderstood, however. Suicide is extremely serious and tragic in God’s eyes, and if someone who is reading this is contemplating suicide, I beg of you to reconsider and seek help for whatever your problem may be. God loves you whether you believe it or not – and He does not want you to end your life. Satan does, however, and you must not listen to him

Instead, put your faith and hope in Christ and His love for you. You are never alone if you know Him because nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

Question: My cousin had very serious emotional problems most of her life, and finally they overwhelmed her and she committed suicide. I firmly believe she was a Christian, but did she lose her salvation by doing this? Is suicide a sin ? Is suicide the unpardonable sin?

Answer: Whenever I answer a question like this, I’m deeply aware that someone may be reading this who is seriously contemplating suicide—and I would do everything in my power to convince them not to take that final, drastic step. With Christ, there is always hope.

God loves them; He loves them so much that Jesus Christ was willing to die on the cross for their salvation. And others care about them, as well, (even if they have a hard time believing it). Suicide is never God’s will, and even in the midst of life’s worst storms we can look to Christ and discover that He truly is “an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Hebrews 6:19). The first step back from the brink of suicide is to turn to Christ and open our hearts to Him.

Is Suicide a Sin ?

Suicide is always a tragedy—but in itself it is not the unpardonable sin. The only sin God cannot pardon is the sin of rejecting Him. God knew your cousin’s heart, and He also knows that mental illness sometimes clouds a person’s judgment so much that they aren’t fully responsible for their actions.

At the same time, ask God to help you be sensitive to the needs of others—especially someone who may be facing discouragement or depression. Often simply knowing that someone cares will help them turn the corner.

Billy Graham answers Questions about Suicide

If you have questions about suicide, I encourage you to pick up my book on Suicide – called Suicide is Not Your Answer

Is Suicide a Sin

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A Tribute to My Mother

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tribute to my mother

A Tribute to My Mother

I believe that of all the people in the world that we have unrealistic, high expectations for, it is our mothers. They are to love unconditionally forgive quickly without our acknowledgement of our offenses, be available when we need them, be strong, know just the right words to say or not say in each situation, be silent unless advice is requested, let us go to do our own thing, but be available when we fall. They are supposed to look good, feel good and act good all the time.

Mothers are Human

The problem is, moms are human. They aren’t always strong, wise and perfect. Some of our moms have handicaps we can’t see. My mother grew up during the depression in an orphanage. She might have been adopted, but her father’s deathbed wish was not to separate the three children. This prevented all of them from being adopted, even though they were each very intelligent, gifted, artistic children.

So without a mother to nurture and care for her, she had no role model to show her the way. She had five baby boomers who came along after the war.   Life was not easy for my dad who came home from the service a young man with a family he didn’t know how to support. I remember my mom on her hands and knees scrubbing the kitchen floor in her jeans. I remember the old wringer washer that she used every day.

Another Baby

When I was nine I can remember a neighbor girl telling everyone that my mother was going to have a baby. “Nicki, if you lie to one more person like that, I am going to tell your mom what you are doing. It’s not right to tell the whole neighborhood that my mother is going to have a baby.”

When I got home that day I told my mother, “Nicki has been telling the whole neighborhood that you are going to have a baby. I told her to quit lying or I would tell her mother.”

“Bob,” my mother said to my dad. “I think we need to tell the children.”

A few weeks later my brother Randy was born and I fell head over heels in love for the first time.

Family Secrets

In our family, we didn’t talk about sex or pregnancy. I didn’t know where babies came from until I was thirteen.

My mom wanted a career. She wanted to paint. She had hopes and dreams that could never be fulfilled because she had five kids. Whenever she had money, it was spent on the kids. All of us learned to cook and clean at an early age. There isn’t one of us that doesn’t have a strong work ethic because it took all of us to make a family work.

My dad was a fireman retiring from the Kansas City fire department. Two of my brothers became firemen and Randy became an expert carpenter. Randy didn’t like books. Neither did I until I learned to read at the age of 23. But Randy loved shop class. Today he has built five homes doing all the architecture and design himself.

My mother was an artist who didn’t have time to paint until all her children were grown. After mom became legally blind with macular degeneration she began painting. We were all shocked at her beautiful paintings. It was like Beethoven writing a symphony when he could not hear. After I was diagnosed with Macular Degeneration mom came to my home and said, “You are not going to wait until you’re blind to start painting. You are going to start right now and I am going to help you.” I still can’t paint as good as my mother, but I have surprised myself at having a talent I would never have discovered had it not been for my mother.

A Special Gift

When my dad’s mother, Grandmother Mary died, I found a drawer full of quilt pieces that her employees from her sewing factory had embroidered for her.   I told my mother that I wished I knew how to quilt. I would put all the pieces together in loving memory of gramma Mary. On my birthday a few years later I was shocked when I opened mom’s present, a quilt of all gramma’s quilt pieces.   She had taken a quilting class to make that for me.

When I was 16 I got pregnant. I was a junior in high school. One of my mom’s life dreams was to finish high school. I told her I would go to night school if she would go with me. I went in to take the finals with my three-day old baby daughter, Kim. The teacher said, “You don’t need to take the test. Anyone as dedicated to graduating as you, has already passed.” It was a good thing because I most likely would have flunked because of my low reading level. My mom and I graduated from High School together.

My parents aren’t perfect, but they have always been there for all their children and grandchildren. I had some hurts from my childhood, but have come to realize we all make mistakes and my mother spent a lifetime trying to make up for her mistakes. We are Partneys and we stick together and love each other no matter what.

Saying Goodbye to My Mother

Mom, I didn’t get to say goodbye and I don’t know if I ever even said, “Thank You.”

Mom died in October of 2011.   After mom died I kept praying, “God, is my mom in heaven? Is she alright?”   As I sat down to rest one afternoon I saw a vision of my mother standing between her mother and father. She was joyously happy. The tears of her childhood were healed. “Every tear shall be wiped from their eyes.

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Our Mission

Our mission comes from Isaiah 61. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. The Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. To heal the brokenhearted, set the captive free and comfort all who mourn. To give beauty for ashes and the oil of gladness instead of mourning. And the garment of praise instead of the spirit of despair.”

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