"I could feel hot, salty tears coming down my face. I sat and cried silently... I was scrunching myself up against the wall as far as I could. All of a sudden, someone from behind us taps on the guy’s shoulder..."
Sammy Teuch, an Indiana fourth-grader, took his own life earlier this month after enduring what his family has called relentless bullying at the hands of several students.
"She kept pulling her head away, but the man insisted it wouldn’t hurt her. ‘You’ll be fine. All of your friends did it!’ he reassured her. Mid-laugh she collapsed on the floor."
I advocate for vaccines because I’ve held a newborn with fever while the doctor does a lumbar puncture. Because I’ve put a grandfather on a ventilator who couldn’t breathe and because I’ve put the final drape over a mother of 3’s face after she beat breast cancer but died of the flu. I did all of this knowing full well that it was preventable.
"We had this realization of how important it was to pray over this film and the realization that not only lives would be saved from this, but lives would be born--that destinies would come out of the film."
As a Christian who has also struggled with depression to the point of putting a gun to my head at age 21, I am bewildered and bemoaning the loss of his life. Unfortunately, this tragic loss is a harsh reality of depression yet a beautiful reminder that Jesus is greater still.
"No more pain, my jerry, no more struggle. You are made complete and you are finally free. Suicide and depression fed you the worst lies, but you knew the truth of Jesus and I know you’re by his side right this very second."
