Our daughter Megan Vos wrote this blog after two young mothers killed themselves in their small community in the same week! She titled her blog #mayday.

Our community has lost two mamas to suicide in the past week. We need to talk about this; we’re fools if we don’t.  I won’t pretend to understand the depth of depression these women struggled with, but I spent many nights in my 30s laying in bed, drowning in panic attacks and sadness and eating hopelessness like it wasn’t the bitterest thing I’d ever put in my mouth.  I have wondered if death wouldn’t be preferable to that madness and if the world wouldn’t be a better place without my crazy in it.  I’ve never been suicidal, really, but I have wondered.  And until we bring this dark, soul sucking disease of depression into the light, we will continue to suffer in ear shattering silence.  It will kill us.  It is killing us.  

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This is an article first printed in Christianity Today, July 19, 2018. It brought up some aspects of the Lord’s Prayer I’ve not thought of before.

The church has a long history of fiddling with the Lord’s Prayer and debating the right wording.

Scripture itself isn’t unified on the wording. The Bible gives us two versions of the prayer—also often referred to as the Our Father—one from Matthew’s gospel (Matt. 6:9–13) and one from Luke’s gospel (Luke 11:2–4).

Additionally, today we often forget that the last two lines (“for thine is the kingdom…”) aren’t from Scripture but were added later by well-intentioned churchmen who felt that ending with sin didn’t tell the whole story.

Then there’s the question of translations and traditions. If Matthew’s wording probably borrows a term that refers to financial debts in the original Greek, is it okay that many traditions say “trespasses”?
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A few years back, I began meeting regularly with a whip-smart, agnostic, Ivy League graduate, who was very liberal and we got on the topic of abortion. Of course he lite up with the well rehearsed claims of pro-choice people.

Shouldn’t it be the choice of a mother whether she wants to terminate her pregnancy? This is a woman’s right! What business is this to anyone else?

I listened carefully until he finished. Then I made this observation; “I find it interesting that when a pro-choice person is pregnant, if they don’t want their child they call it a fetus. But if they want the child, they call it a baby!

And, I’ve never heard of a pro-choice person in her 6^th month, and showing, when asked when her baby is due, answering, “Oh, I don’t have a baby. It have a fetus.” I’ve never heard of a pregnant pro-choice person having “fetus shower” thrown for them. Of course it’s a baby shower! Just google “fetus shower invitations” and the only thing that comes up are baby shower websites.

That thought came as a total surprise to him. So I pressed on.
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Just last week on Christian radio, a Bible teacher said, “The priority for all Christians is God, your family and service in the church.” I realize that’s a popular notion with a majority of Christians, but I don’t think Jesus would agree with him!

“And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” Matthew 19:29
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