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One morning this past January, I received a distressed call from a woman in our congregation.
She and her husband had been longtime members, seemingly happily married for more than 40 years. Her husband was a successful businessman, and she was a joyful, capable leader who oversaw many different initiatives in our church. They were both delightful people, and so many things about their life seemed idyllic.
But that morning, she was in great distress—she had received an ominous text from her husband that suggested he was about to take his own life.
We panicked, made some calls, and did everything we could to find him. But it was too late. After kissing his wife goodbye that morning and telling her he would see her after she got home from Bible study, he had driven out to a lonely place by the river and taken his life.
Their family was shattered. Our community was shattered. He had no known history of depression or mental illness, and he had not mentioned anything to anyone about a personal struggle. To this day, we do not know why he made this terrible choice.
But he isn’t the only one. In nearly twenty years of pastoral ministry, I have buried three men who died by suicide—and all three of these were in the last 24 months.
You could call this coincidence, but the data suggests otherwise. The Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention reports that suicide rates increased approximately 36 percent between 2000 and 2021 in the United States. Suicide was responsible for about 49,500 deaths last year—the highest number ever recorded.
In fact, suicide was the second-leading cause of death for people ages 25–44 last year. The number of people who think about or attempt suicide is even higher. In 2021, an estimated 12.3 million American adults seriously thought about suicide, 3.5 million planned a suicide attempt, and 1.7 million attempted it. The rate of suicide is highest among middle-aged white men.
Clearly, something about our current cultural moment ...