Suicide - I've thought about it

• This is not a Robin Williams rant ... he was a comic genius and will be missed. I will miss him myself - although I only know him via TV (Mork and Mindy) and film (Mrs Doubtfire, Good Morning, Vietnam, Aladdin and more.
• I heard the statistic today that 108 people commit suicide daily ... nearly 40,000 per year.
• I have my own experiences with suicide: congregants who attempted or who talked about their feelings about it with me in counseling sessions. 
• In a church I pastored, a congregant gassed himself in the garage while his wife and two children were at church. I am still connected with his son (now an adult and married himself)
• I spent 11 weeks hospitalized after breaking my neck, the last 9 weeks at Craig hospital . For years afterwards I served as a volunteer chaplain at Craig. One night I was called to the hospital to meet with a man who was healing from an attempted suicide. I drove to the hospital and spent some time with the man. His wounds were healed over but the scars remained. He had shot himself through the temple .... all the way through ... in one side and out the other. He was blind in one eye and basically completely paralyzed. 
• As for myself .... I did think about it once. It was while I was still at Swedish Hospital (where I was initially after my accident. I know it was in my second week there because my first week I was basically out of it. 
• I wanted a button ... I wanted a kill button ... I wanted to kill myself ... and perhaps I would have. As it turned out, I was paralyzed anyway ... I wouldn't have been able to push the button (ironic!)
• One of Robin Williams closest friends was Christopher Reeve. Reeve broke his neck in a terrible riding accident. His injury was much worse than mine. He himself considered suicide:

  After considering his situation, believing that not only would he never walk again, but that he might never move a body part again, Reeve considered suicide. He mouthed to Dana, "Maybe we should let me go." She tearfully replied, "I am only going to say this once: I will support whatever you want to do, because this is your life, and your decision. But I want you to know that I'll be with you for the long haul, no matter what. You're still you. And I love you." Reeve never considered suicide as an option again

• God did not give me "the kill switch". I did briefly ponder suicide. Two of the men I was hospitalized with made that choice. Both were my contemporaries
• I have chosen to live. Every day is a gift. No day is so dark that I don't look forward to the prospects of the next
• Suicide means to kill oneself. God said "Thou shalt not kill" and that includes myself. God has something for me to do ... until He calls me home! Killing me is His prerogative.

How I kind of envisioned my own personal "kill switch". The button was red:

For a reader considering suicide ... get help