But I have seen situations where it felt appropriate and in many ways alleviated the stigma and helped with the healing process.

My moms sister took her life leaving behind her two teenage kids, it was awful.

At the funeral an uncle of mine spoke and he didn’t mince words regarding suicide. The first couple minutes felt a little uncomfortable but pretty soon the point was made more clear as to what he was trying to say. He wasn’t judging my aunt or those who took their life but he did speak to the complexity of depression and suicide head on and tied in the plan of salvation in a tasteful way.

I remember as a kid in my community among members of the church it was pretty well the gospel to teach or believe suicide was an automatic sentence to hell but I like where we have evolved to and that is mostly a “we don’t know how it all plays out, God is the Judge and he is merciful” type position.

In my opinion one of the issues we have faced with the church has been speaking so matter of fact and definitively on subjects we really don’t know. We are coming around to feeling more and more comfortable with “we really don’t know how this plays out but we can have faith God is Just and merciful”.