In The End It Does Matter

Suicide
A permanent solution to a temporary problem?

When Chris Cornell committed suicide in May of this year by hanging himself, he impacted the world by his actions more than he probably realized. Suicide can be contagious and for impressionable people who revere others who cannot cope with their own problems choosing to “escape” from the torments of their daily lives, suicide becomes easier to accept as an answer

At 41 years of age Chester Bennington the singer for Linkin Park, committed Suicide. He leaves behind his wife and six children…    

“In this farewell, There’s no blood, there’s no alibi, ‘Cause I’ve drawn regret, From the truth of a thousand lies, So let mercy come and wash away, –What I’ve done– I’ll face myself to cross out what I’ve become, Erase myself, And let go of what I’ve done” – What I’ve Done by Linkin Park

 

In an open letter to Chester’s close friend Chris Cornell on the day of his suicide in May of this year Chester writes; “You have inspired me in may ways you could never have known”.

 

Unfortunately, this proved to be all to true as Chester Bennington chose to end his own life just as his friend Chris Cornell did by earlier when he hanged himself on what would have been Chris Cornell’s birthday.

 

“Time is a valuable thing, Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings, Watch it count down to the end of the day, The clock ticks life away” – In The End by Linkin Park

In the end it doesn’t even matter? That is the common thought process for those who have lost hope, that nothing matters anymore, everything turning to gray. To the people left behind such as family and friends, the pain is unimaginable. The sense of guilt that is overwhelming, the shame that haunts the family legacy, and the destroyed role model for what victimized children then have to look forward to not becoming, molding themselves into a completely different image, loosing their identity into a void of empty hurt.

We are warned time and time again by the Lord to have no fellowship with the works of darkness, instructed to come out of the world and take no more part in her sins. Sadly this is yet another example of the radical nature of unbelief.

The Apostle Paul writes;

“Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.)

Take heed, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence stedfast unto the end; While it is said, To day if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts, as in the provocation.

For some, when they had heard, did provoke: howbeit not all that came out of Egypt by Moses. But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not?

So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” – Hebrews 3:7-19 KJV

Lust is never satisfied therefore, man can never fill the void within that belongs to God. No matter how much money, possessions, or people in your life who love you, you will never truly feel complete. The sudden realization of this without knowing Jesus Christ begets hopelessness and the world treats that pain with antidepressants… Just as Chester Bennington, Chris Cornell, and many others like them attempt to escape their problems in this world by erasing themselves from the equation, they’ll only find brand new torments in the world to come.

In an excerpt from a letter addressed to their recently deceased front man, the band Linkin Park acknowledged the torments he faced within his own life, and chose to refer to his personal issues as being that of supernatural more than natural.

“We’re trying to remind ourselves that the demons who took you away from us were always part of the deal. After all, it was the way you sang about those demons that made everyone fall in love with you in the first place. You fearlessly put them on display, and in doing so, brought us together and taught us to be more human.” – LP

In an interview with Boston, Massachusetts radio station WAAF, rock and roll legend Alice Cooper was asked if he believes that a certain amount of pain is required in order to create great art, Cooper said: “I think that people think that and I think that you feel that you have to be the tortured artist. I have never felt that. I came up against a battle with alcohol and drugs and I turned it to a different thing — I became Christian — and it took care of the whole thing. I haven’t had a drink in thirty-seven years, and I’ve never been happier in my life.”

Suicide is a temporary solution to a permanent problem.