She had been hospitalized at the Arkansas State Hospital following a number of unsuccessful attempts at taking her own life. She seemed resolute about ending what to her seemed an awful and dismal existence. The faith that had been her foundation through an abusive marriage of nearly fifty years was in those dark days nowhere to be found. The faith that was so evident to her five children during our early years was nonexistent for her then in her greatest time of need. Despite all of my attempts at reassurance, despite all of the love showered on her by all her children, and in the face of all that medical science could do with drugs, psychotherapy, and shock therapy, Mom gave up on life on a cold, cloudy, drizzly March day in Arkansas.
Life has a way of changing our theology.
I know that my mother's suicide caused the beginning of a massive readjustment of my own personal working theology. Here, the finest Christian I had ever known was left helpless in the pit of life. Her spirit was defeated by the clouds of depression. Life had become more than she could bear. Mother's tragic death forced me to reconsider some of my faith presuppositions.