Suicide watch at Blimpie!

My mother sent out an ominous e-mail the other day linking to a well-known Christian evangelist who said he felt God wanted him to warn everyone of a potential calamity coming to our nation soon and that we need to prepare.

I have to be honest with you. I don’t listen to these things much. It’s hard, because I DO believe in an almighty God and I DO believe that God lays things on people’s hearts to say and to warn. And I prayerfully consider each. But… here’s my thing.

Shouldn’t we be prepared for this EVERY day? Shouldn’t we be living our life to the fullest, spreading God’s word, trusting him, and seeking him?

I don’t want to live my life in fear. I don’t want to live with the dreaded thought of “Oh, crap, what if terrorists come and blow up my house?”

Or, “What if some guy comes into my church and starts shooting like crazy?”

I won’t live in fear. I won’t I won’t I won’t. Satan cheers when we cower. I will stand firm in Jesus and trust in him, but still listen to what he is telling me. If God is warning me and asking me to do something different, then I trust him to make that clear to me.

Which brings me to the suicide watch at Blimpie, and the funny part of my story. (Okay, maybe you had to be there…)

My eldest sister and I were sitting at Blimpie over our lunch break talking about all this stuff. Somehow we got on the topic of martyrdom and what we would do if someone was like, “Yo, renounce Jesus or I’ll blow off your flippin head.”

Now, I sit here, in love with my Jesus so much, and truly pray that 1.) That never happens! and 2.) If it does, I’d say, “Fine, shoot”

But wow. I don’t think ANYONE can know for sure what they would do in that situation.

So my sister thoughtfully responded, “Well, I’d just let them kill me cause then I’d go to heaven and be with Jesus!”

But then I was like, “Okay, so what if they start threatening to just like cut off your leg, or cut your fingers off piece by piece.” (you can imagine what the people sitting around us must have though…I fully expected to see a few half eaten subs in the trash)

And so she replied, “Ugh, I hadn’t thought about that.” Then we went on to devise a plan of what we would do if torture was immanent.

The answer was try to kill ourselves before they could torture us. Then no possibility of renouncing Jesus, and we’d just be in heaven. Great idea, right?

But, ugh! Kari had to ask: “So, since murder is a sin, and suicide is murder, if you killed yourself would you still go to heaven?”

At this point and time, the lunacy of our conversation caught up with us and we both started crying laughing.

Then, through our tears, she said, “Oh, so seriously, as long as I’m still going to heaven, I really need to know that for sure, if there was a guy there saying ‘renounce Jesus or I’ll cut off your leg’ I’d just be like, POW,” She pointed her finger in a gun like fashion to her head ” and get it over with.”

I gave her a funny look and said, “Okay, so, if you’re going to shoot yourself in the head, why don’t you just shoot the guy threatening to cut off your leg instead?”

And then, well, we just pretty much both lost it.

I know, I know. You’re sitting there dumbfounded by our idiocy. I have no excuse for us, except for the fact that our lunch break meetings are like a valve to let out all the pent up stress and crud from work. Some people drink, some smoke, some use illegal drugs. My sister and I? We just talk about suicide and terrorists over lunch.

Prayers for our sanity are accepted!