I just left the funeral of a seventeen year old girl whose father gave her the Native American name “Gentle Wind.” And from all accounts the name fit her. She was indeed a gentle wind, a gentle spirit among us filled with life and love. Yet this gentle wind took her own life just the other night.
What pain, what feelings of hopelessness filled her in those moments I don’t pretend to know. I know she carried them alone, hiding behind a smile and butterfly kisses and assurances that she was fine. Perhaps you’ve smiled such a smile, made those assurances, thinking the pain was too great, too private to share. Please don’t.
Please tell someone, share the depths of your heart for even when they do not know the words to say, even when they have no easy answers to the questions or the pain, their love can wrap your hopelessness in their hope as they walk alongside you.
Know too that God is with you. Some people say that the hardest thing about suicide is the terrible aloneness of it. Yet I believe that even in the moments of that deepest despair, no one is truly alone. God is there even in that. I believe that God’s love was with Gentle Wind and is with you and me even in the moments when we feel most alone. He was there wrapping her in understanding and His Spirit prayed for her spirit to trust in His strength when she had done left of her own.
And yet, as she could not do that this one more time, He understood her pain and gentled her home to His eternal heart. Now He is with us as we walk through our own valleys of pain and grief and, yes, perhaps feelings of guilt we do not want to even speak of. Now we must surrender to a love and strength beyond our own.
I encourage you to do that now.
And if a friend, an acquaintance, someone you know and love, or a stranger on the bus reaches out to you, take their hand. You may not have the words, the answers, but God will give you the strength to be with them. See that they get the help they need. Get the help you need. Place them in the care of someone trained. And if they seem suddenly calm and at peace after sharing deep troubles, talk with them more. They may have developed a final plan to end this life. Anyone who has such a plan must be taken to a safe place, whatever that place might be. It takes strength and courage to say this is more than I can handle. But please have that strength and that courage.
Finally, I want to give you a gift given to me. It is the Native American version of the 23rd Psalm. It is a tribute and a prayer to all the Gentle Winds among us.
The Lord is my Great Father and Shepherd Chief.
I am His and with Him I want not.
He throws out to me a rope and the name of the rope is love.
He draws me to where the grass is green and the water not dangerous,
And I eat and lie down and am satisfied.
Sometimes my heart is very weak and fails me
But He lifts me up again and draws me into a good road.
His name is WONDERFUL.
His name is WONDERFUL.
Some time, it may be very soon, it may be a long, long time off,
He will draw me into a valley.
It is dark there, but I shall not be afraid,
For it is in between those mountains that the Shepherd Chief will meet me
and the hunger that I have had in my heart all through this life will be satisfied.
