Mental illness can be a dark place it includes depression which can bring hopelessness. I knew someone who battled it for most of her life and before I met her attempted it up to the point of being ready to cut. She had taken all she could take. She was a very strong Christian and a few years later faced a life sentence to an illness she would suffer nearly 30 more years and with it more depression. It took her about 15 years after I met her before she finally got help for the depression and PTSD from a nearly entire life of abuses up till she was 35 and I met her.
So should we say well I want out of here and kill ourselves? NO! Why not? Because it brings many serious issues to family left behind. But someone desperate enough to take their life is not thinking clear. Their thoughts are distorted by stress, mental illness, hopelessness, etc. The last thing they need to hear is more condemnation and guilt. They need serious professional help no matter what circumstance drove them there by their own fault or acts of others against them.
A friend of mine's dad killed himself. I know a preacher who had the gun ready to do so as well. That was before Christ found him. He was the son in law to my friends dad. I knew a church secretary who had a nervous breakdown and later jumped into a lake from the highest bridge in the city. Why? No one knows. She suffered a breakdown months before and was in the hospital for it. That was back in the early 1970's.
Perhaps the preacher at a point needed more forgiveness and less judgement among others? We don't know and we'll never know. There's an old saying "there but for the Grace of GOD go I". When we see something like this we should not say I'm glad I'm not a sinner like that preacher was. Rather we should say thank you Lord that I wasn't put to that temptation.
I don't mean it as a lecture. LOL. My postings been kinda harsh as of late. Got them things I'm working through that takes a long time to resolve and at times a temper in me comes out.
We who believe and call on His name for salvation are His even though we fail.
When we see something like this we should not say I'm glad I'm not a sinner like that preacher was. Rather we should say thank you Lord that I wasn't put to that temptation.
This is a more enlightened opinion than what one usually hears or what we usually tell ourselves.
It's taken some big life events over these last few years for me to start thanking God for the challenges He's given me, in whatever form they may be, instead of my old begging Him to make it stop.
I agree with you about suicide and pray that I never have a reason to stand before that door again. Unfortunately, in the wrong frame of mind, a person might not find a reason to turn away from it.
I lost a niece this summer. Tragic loss for all, but especially so for her sisters and for my sister.
I worry about the consequences of her choice. I hope and pray that she can be forgiven for giving in to the pains that got finally the better of her.