Sue Bohlin shares her heart in the wake of her and her husband Ray’s son taking his life.
Last week our beloved 44-year-old son Curt took his life.
He had struggled with severe suicidal depression for 26 years, hating almost every day of his adult life and wanting God to take him home to join his sister Rebecca. His depression and anxiety crippled him to the point of moving back in with my husband and me in 2008. He often shared with us his anguish at life in a fallen world, living in a broken body.
Curt eventually lost most of his hearing as the result of serving on the flight line in the Air Force, but when he was honorably discharged he was told it wasn’t bad enough to warrant disability benefits. The loss of his hearing meant losing his touch with music, which he loved. It also meant losing touch with his community in online role-playing games, so he lost his sense of belonging and purpose.
His life was very painful. After staying his hand multiple times over two decades, God allowed him to take his life and instantly enter the heaven he had longed for, for so very long.
Some themes have been rolling around in my head since the news of his passing.
First, our grief is mitigated by the relief on Curt’s behalf that his suffering is over. When I told my husband the news delivered by a police detective, his first words were, “We’ve known this day might come for 26 years.” We have lived with the darkness of his depression and anxiety for a long time, which included the ever-present threat of suicide because he always thought of it as his ticket out.
Second, God’s grace is stronger than I have ever experienced in my entire life. It feels like He has tucked me in the shadow of His wing (Psalm 57:1). I have buried a child before; I know the brutality of grief, but God is holding it back. I winced to realize that a hard, heart-wrenching grief awaits me, but then I reminded myself that He will carry me through those days just as He’s carrying me now. And I appreciated my friend who gave me “permission to not be okay” when those days come.
Third, the one attribute of God that comforts me more than any other is His sovereignty. A good and loving God is in control. He chose the day of Curt’s birth, and He chose the day of his death. We’ve been clinging to Psalm 139:16, “All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.” Our son did not die a single day earlier than God had planned for him. And He prevented Curt from following through on all the times he planned to take his life since the first time when he was 17. God ordained for our daughter Rebecca to live for eight days, and He ordained for Curt to live for 44 years.
Fourth, God keeps pouring out His goodness on us every time we turn around. We have been inundated with people wanting to help us with everything we need from money for funeral expenses, to food and paper goods, to willing hands to prepare our home for family coming in for his memorial service. And that includes being willing to clean out his room and haul away all the furniture that reeked of body odor. In case you don’t know, severely depressed people usually don’t care about personal hygiene, and both our son and his room stank from weeks, sometimes months, of going unwashed. It was a source of sorrow and frustration to us, but we loved him in his mental illness and just lived with it.
Fifth, there is the blessing of not knowing so many things. I don’t know what he was thinking when something flipped and he went from offering to cook lunch for the family visiting us, to leaving our home intent on stepping off an overpass. I don’t know what he was thinking or feeling on that walk. I don’t know what his last seconds were like, and I am most grateful that we didn’t have to identify him at the medical examiner’s office. I don’t know so many things, and I am so glad. I can leave all those questions in the Lord’s hands, and I can ask him when I see him again-if it matters at all by then.
And that brings me to the most important idea that has marked these days: HOPE. Hope is future-facing faith. Not wishful thinking, like “I hope it doesn’t rain on my picnic.” Biblical hope is certainty. Hebrews 6:19 calls biblical hope “an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.” God has used this horrible time to reveal that He has been working in the background to strengthen my future-facing faith. When I say I have hope to be reunited with my son, it’s not a wish. I am 1000% certain that he is in heaven and that my husband and I, our other son Kevin, and his wife Lauren will join him there.
I had the privilege of leading Curt to put his trust in Jesus Christ when he was three years old, watching him grow in his faith over the years, watching him bear the spiritual fruit that proved his faith was real. I know he’s in heaven, because to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8). Our dear friend Dave commented on my Facebook post, “I am heartbroken for your loss but so grateful for your hope that you will see Curt again.” That’s when I had the lightbulb moment and I replied, “Thanks for using the word HOPE. Future-facing faith. My hope about seeing Curt is as strong as my view of Ray this very minute. Who is sitting three feet from me.”
Curt’s first week in heaven: it felt like he was just on the other side of the invisible wall separating earth from heaven. Maybe it’s the special bond between a mother and the child she bore, maybe it’s something spiritual, I don’t know. But the reality of my son’s new home makes heaven closer to me than it has ever been. My husband Ray has said for years that heaven is more real to me than anyone he knows. Part of it is knowing our baby Rebecca is there, part of it is longing for my new body untouched by polio and cancer.
Curt’s suicide is not okay. Murder is sin, even the murder of oneself. But Jesus’ statement on the cross, “It is finished,” meaning “It is paid in full,” covered every one of his sins, including taking the life God gave him. With God’s begrudging permission, apparently. I trust the Lord with it all.
This blog post originally appeared at blogs.bible.org/suicide-has-hit-our-family on July 16, 2024.
Sue Bohlin
Sue Bohlin is an associate speaker/writer and webmistress for Probe Ministries. She attended the University of Illinois, and has been a Bible teacher and conference speaker for over 40 years. She is a speaker for MOPS (Mothers of Pre-Schoolers) and Stonecroft Ministries (Christian Women's Connections), and serves on the board of Living Hope Ministries, a Christ-centered outreach to those dealing with unwanted homosexuality. Sue is on the Bible.org Women's Leadership Team and is a regular contributor to Bible.org's Engage Blog. In addition to being a professional calligrapher, she is the wife of Probe's Dr. Ray Bohlin and the mother of their two grown sons. Her personal website is suebohlin.com.
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