Posted on Feb 15, 2008
A Song for Melody
I recently read this story by Jamie Tworkowski, founder of To Write Love on Her Arms, and it's good stuff. Check it out:
A Song for Melody
There is a place between holding on and letting go, a place where fight songs beg for love songs. She wrote from such a place. She wrote from all the darkness.
"It's come down to trying or just letting go and dying." I didn't know Melody. I didn't know her story or how she got my e-mail address. I only knew she was in pain. "What made you believe in love?" she asked. I thought for a moment. Wow, what a question ... "I'm not sure. I think maybe I was created to respond to love. Like gas for a car or food when you're hungry ... it just made sense. In the middle of a life where a lot of things don't make sense, and a lot of things are hard, love makes sense to me. It has the power to heal, change, hope ... it makes life better." "Wow, I never really thought of it that way ... " she responded. "I know you believe in love and hope and help, but do you ever think that maybe suicide is the right option?" God, what are the words? I told her "no" but that I believed life was hard for most people most of the time. And that I know some people live with so much pain that it's hard to get out of bed, hard to eat, hard to smile. And so I understood how suicide could seem like a good option, a way out of the pain. But I added that I really truly believe this stuff I'm always talking about - this hope and help and community, this possibility that we were created with a purpose. I told her that I believed life was worth living, that storms can pass, and that we have to keep fighting. I closed with this: "I believe we were created to love and be loved. And we can't do that if we choose to end our own lives. And we end up causing other people a ton of pain ... " I waited in the silence for Melody. Her response was this: "Thank you. You just helped me to change my perspective on suicide. I have been so consumed with hatred for life with pain, so obsessed with death and what it could hold for me, without really thinking of what life could hold for me. I guess I have some things to throw away tonight." Those words were something wonderful, and that is what I told Melody. She shared that the garbage box was bullets, that she had made a plan to kill herself that night. I asked Melody if she had a gun. I asked her to get rid of it. I asked her not to be alone. I told her that I did - that I believed He was who He said He was in the Bible, that He made me and He loves me and He's in control. I told her that I believe we have an enemy, that sin is real, and that those things have everything to do with the pain in the world and life being so hard. I told her that love helped me believe in God and that love seemed a picture of God. In all, Melody and I traded 13 e-mails that night. Mostly short and huge. In her last email, she said that the bullets were gone, and the gun would go next. She said she would call a friend in the night and a counselor in the morning. Melody wrote the next day to say hello and to tell me that she had called a crisis counselor. She confessed that she had guessed my e-mail address the night before. She apologized but she certainly didn't need to. She had one more great question: "What is your favorite thing?" The answer came quickly this time ... "My favorite thing is stuff like this. People finding hope. People choosing life." God is still in the business of redemption, and He invites us to join Him. He asks us to whisper truth to the face of death, to lay down our lives that others might find something alive. Something true. Pain is real. But hope is also real. The fight song and the love song collide. The song is ours to sing.
She asked if I believed in God.
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