In Podcast 83, Carey Nieuwhoff interviewed Ravi Zacharias, who drew a parallel between pornography and suicide. Zacharias spoke of his recent experience counseling college students during the Passion Conference (starting at 22:55 and paraphrased), where the majority came two talk about two topics: pornography and suicide. He called pornography the “denuding of the other person” and suicide the “denuding of your own self”. The timeline is then moving from the devaluing of others to the devaluing of yourself.
While this could be a throwaway statement (and many would, as Zacharias went on to discuss sensuality and sex), I do not think this either a throwaway, or that small (and neither did Nieuwhoff, as he came back to it). Suicide has come up here before (such as here, here, and here), and is still high on my radar.
Knowing people (other than just myself) who have verbally spoken of committing suicide, it is the perception of self-worth that is the root of it. I know that many of my own internal conversations on this topic were based on my perception of no worth, or that those that love me would be better off without me. That saddest part of being part of a wealthy country is that we often have the luxury of not struggling day-by-day, which seems to lead to a higher level of depression and anxiety (which is strange).
The biggest thing, though, is hope. Without hope of an end to the pain. So, what can we as Christians offer as true hope to those that are hurting?