Book: Grieving a Suicide

This is a review I posted at GoodReads. The book may be purchased from Amazon.

 Grieving a Suicide: A Loved One's Search for Comfort, Answers & Hope by Albert Y. Hsu
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As other reviewers have noted, this book does approach the subject from a strongly Christian perspective. That said, however, it contains valuable information that can be of help to survivors and to those seeking resources for helping survivors.

I recently completed a Suicide Postvention Trainers training through NAMI and the Connect Project. This book mostly tracks what was presented as best practices in the training. I only found a few minor quibbles that raised my eyebrows. The author provides a generous list of suicide prevention and survivorship resources in an appendix to the book.

As for the theological perspective I'm sure not every Christian will agree with every position of this author. I certainly had some disagreements. However, in the big picture I believe the author builds and presents a compelling case for a compassionate and loving God that suffers with those who suffer, including those who have taken their own lives.

I can highly recommend this book to Christians interested in suicide and its survivors, to pastors, to mental health professionals seeking to understand a spiritual perspective, and to all who are struggling with the issues around suicide.

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Sermon: “Out of the Darkness” - Suicide Prevention and Awareness

Last Wednesday (March 14) I had the opportunity to speak to the Baptist church about the issue of suicide and an approach Christians can take to prevent suicide and raise awareness of the issue.

I’ve been working with a community coalition for the past few years on the issues of substance abuse and suicide prevention. I’ve had the opportunity to attend a couple of statewide meetings on the issue of suicide prevention and postvention. Earlier this year, in January after attending one such event I felt that I could be a catalyst for doing more active work toward prevention in Petersburg. With that in mind I volunteered to head up a subgroup of the larger coalition, to focus more specifically on the issue of suicide. Part of that work for me includes awareness outreach to the Christian community in Petersburg.

The video is 720p HD and 36 minutes long.