Finding God in Crises
Google Image I’m reading a novel by Jodi Picoult called The Pact. It’s about a boy and girl who grow up as neighbors, are inseparable from childhood and become teenaged sweethearts. The girl begins feeling smothered by the relationship and, seeing no way to avoid disappointing the boy, his parents and her parents – who were also best friends - she becomes desperate to the point of taking her own life. She enlists the boy to help her shoot herself and he becomes the principle suspect in what authorities believe to have been a homicide, not a suicide. The families are torn apart and inconsolable. They become enemies. The book does a good job exploring the dreadful world of teen suicide and its effects on families. It’s hard to imagine losing a son or daughter to suicide. Often accompanied by the bitterness of guilt and anger, it must be among the most devastating events that can occur in one’s life. Last week, I mentioned Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonh...