Questioning in the Shadow

As I sat in my room doing one last read-through of my senior capstone, my final paper in my undergraduate career, there was a young man across town, a 17 year old boy whose life should have just been starting, walking into his basement, picking up his father's hunting rifle and contemplating ending it all.

Austin Hills was a boy who I wouldn't have even recognized if he passed me on the street, and yet I know him. Not just just because his mom was my A.W.A.N.A. Olympic Games coach, his dad helped re-roof my house, and I shared countless picnics with him and dozens of other church members in his backyard.  I know him because four years ago, this same time of year, I wrestled with those very same thoughts, I struggled with that very same choice.

My weapon of choice was a bottle of pills and a razor blade.  And I struggled with it day in and day out the majority of my senior year of high school.  I took that blade to my wrist more times than I can count (although God healed all but three of my scars).  I stared at that bottle of narcotics hidden in my mother's nightstand (leftover from her ankle surgery), or that bottle of tylenol in plain view on the kitchen table, trying desperately to see a way out of the black hole beyond that knife and those bottles.

I remember it like it was yesterday.  That moment, sitting in sixth period, Concert Choir practice.  We were rehearsing a Latin song praising God for his magnificent mysteriousness.  That was the moment that I gave up on God.  I didn't believe that he could see me in this hole.  Or perhaps more accurately, I believed he saw, but just didn't care.  I knew and believed that he was all-knowing and all-powerful, so I couldn't for the life (or death) of me figure out why he wasn't doing anything to show me that he cared.

It was that same night, over at a friend's house, that I wrote a letter for my parents telling them about my struggle, and above all, insisting that I needed help.  Not help in the form of a hug and a prayer, thinking that that will make everything better, but professional help.

I didn't write that letter on my own.  In fact, I had no desire or intention to write that letter. It was by far the hardest thing that I have ever written in my life (and this coming from someone who just finished a 40 page Honors Capstone), and I wrote it practically kicking and screaming (though far more accurately, moaning and sobbing).  The single reason why I penned that letter was because my best friend sat me down, told me that I needed help, that she couldn't give it to me, and that I had to tell my parents so that they could get it for me.

Minutes after I heard the news about Austin Hills suicide, I texted my best friend, thanking her for forcing me to do the hardest thing in my life, insisting that I could not leave, I could not do a single thing else until I wrote that letter.

The entire reason I am writing all of this is because at 12 noon CST today, I will be attending the funeral of Austin Hills, and I know that one of the hardest things that I will be struggling with is asking God why He didn't put someone in Austin's life who would do that one specific thing (whatever it might have been) that would have kept Austin alive.

I know for a fact that the only reason that I am alive today is because of my best friend forcing me to write that letter.  A year and a half earlier, a barely would have said "hello" to her in the halls.  Yet God practically forced us to become friends, two people who couldn't be more dissimilar, somehow finding ourselves to be kindred spirits in some of the most desperate times in both of our lives.  A time in our lives when neither of us had any one else to turn to.  So God forced us together, and I am alive today because of it.

I am alive; I will officially be a college graduate one week from today; I will be graduating in 2015 from the Chicago-Kent College of Law with my Juris Doctor; and while I still struggle with undulating bouts of depression, because of God forcing my best friend into my life, I can now be entirely confident in the knowledge of every family member and friend who loves and cares for me and will continually fight to make sure I'm aware of everything I have to live for.  Furthermore, they will make sure that if (and when) I get to that incredibly low place of contemplating specific suicidal plans again, they will (once again) force me to get help.

So why, four years from now, won't Austin Hills be able to say all of those same things from the preceding paragraph about his life (with obvious variations in lifestyle and college/career choices)?  That same question that I wrestled with four years ago in that choir room still nags me today: Why, when God is so almighty and so omniscient, didn't he do something?!?

Now I'm not close enough to Austin or the Hills family to know the specifics of what was happening in his life, so all I can do tomorrow is love and pray for and show my support for Austin's family and friends.  I can't answer any of the inevitable questions that the aforementioned individuals will have.  I simply can't know.  Not just because I don't know those specifics.  But because some of those answer just can't be known (this side of the after-life, at least).  But that won't stop me or anyone else from asking them, so I can only beg of God, once again, to show Himself powerful, to show Himself wise.  To do something.

Five months ago, I got a new tattoo on my left thigh depicting the verse that inspires the title of this blog:

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge.

The tattoo depicts a young woman (representing me) being sheltered from the world by a large, angelic figure (representing God) with magnificent and powerful wings.

This tattoo is private, just for me.  It serves as a constant reminder that no matter what this world or anything else can throw at me, I am always protected by God's powerful wingspan.  Even if I can't always see it or feel it, He is always there.

I share this personal information, about a tattoo that I don't really want to publicize, because in times of tragedy and grief, I'm not the only one that needs that reminder.  I needed to be told that in that choir room, and Austin needed to be told that in that basement.  Neither of us were, and though the outcomes turned out differently, I do know that everyone else touched by this tragedy (or any other) needs to be told that same promise.

God is ever-present, all-knowing, and all-powerful.  And while you may not always be able to feel it, he will always protect you and give your refuge from the storm.