The Guardian (UK) wrote: “Jar­rid Wil­son: US pas­tor who ran sui­cide out­reach group takes own life” and summed up the dis­tress­ing news that faced us last week.

On Tues­day, as the world marked the an­nu­al World Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Day, Greg Lau­rie, se­nior pas­tor of the Har­vest Chris­t­ian Fel­low­ship, the South­ern Cal­i­for­nia church where the 30-year-old Wil­son served as an as­so­ciate pas­tor an­nounced that Wil­son had died on Mon­day. He is sur­vived by his wife Juli, two sons, his moth­er, fa­ther, sib­lings and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers.

Wil­son, with his wife found­ed the out­reach group An­them of Hope to help peo­ple cop­ing with de­pres­sion and sui­ci­dal thoughts. The group found­ed in 2016 sought to end the stig­ma of men­tal ill­ness and con­nect peo­ple to re­sources, in­clud­ing a 24-hour cri­sis line.

Wil­son had spo­ken open­ly about his strug­gle with de­pres­sion and his de­sire to help oth­ers. On his In­sta­gram page, he wrote in Au­gust: “Ad­mit­ting you strug­gle with men­tal health doesn’t make you a bad Chris­t­ian.” He al­so wrote “I’m a Chris­t­ian who al­so strug­gles with de­pres­sion. This ex­ists, and it’s okay to ad­mit it.”

Last Mon­day, the day of his death, Wil­son of­fi­ci­at­ed at the fu­ner­al of a woman tweet­ing ear­li­er: “Of­fi­ci­at­ing a fu­ner­al for a Je­sus-lov­ing woman who took her own life to­day. Your prayers are great­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ed for the fam­i­ly.”

That same af­ter­noon, he tweet­ed:

“Lov­ing Je­sus doesn’t al­ways cure sui­ci­dal thoughts.

Lov­ing Je­sus doesn’t al­ways cure de­pres­sion.

Lov­ing Je­sus doesn’t al­ways cure PTSD.

Lov­ing Je­sus doesn’t al­ways cure anx­i­ety.

But that doesn’t mean Je­sus doesn’t of­fer us com­pan­ion­ship and com­fort. He AL­WAYS does that.”(2:01 pm - 9 Sep 2019)

Se­nior pas­tor Lau­rie said Wil­son’s death is a re­minder that spir­i­tu­al lead­ers al­so strug­gle.

“Some­times peo­ple may think that as pas­tors or spir­i­tu­al lead­ers we are some­how above the pain and strug­gles of every­day peo­ple,” Lau­rie wrote. “We are the ones who are sup­posed to have all the an­swers. But we do not.”

Wil­son blogged ear­li­er this sum­mer that he had dealt with “se­vere de­pres­sion through­out most of my life and con­tem­plat­ed sui­cide on mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions.” On so­cial me­dia, he reg­u­lar­ly en­cour­aged oth­ers deal­ing with sim­i­lar chal­lenges.

In 2018, re­spond­ing to An­tho­ny Bour­dain’s and Kate Spade’s deaths, Wil­son spoke about the fact that “our so­ci­ety and cul­ture is in need of a great awak­en­ing in re­gards to pri­or­i­ties, men­tal health aware­ness, and the love of God.”

Wil­son com­ment­ed on the man­ner in which peo­ple were “quick to point out what many be­lieve are their (Bour­dain’s and Spade’s) eter­nal des­tinies.” He quot­ed Twit­ter users who had de­clared such judg­ments as “Any­one who (dies by) sui­cide ends up in hell” said, “Sui­cide is an un­for­giv­able sin.”

He re­spond­ed say­ing, “Those who say sui­cide au­to­mat­i­cal­ly leads to hell ob­vi­ous­ly don’t un­der­stand the to­tal­i­ty of men­tal health is­sues in to­day’s world, let alone un­der­stand the ba­sic the­ol­o­gy be­hind com­pas­sion and God’s all-con­sum­ing grace. Heav­en is a place for peo­ple who have a per­son­al re­la­tion­ship with Je­sus, not a just a place for peo­ple who didn’t (die by) sui­cide.

“We must do bet­ter at ed­u­cat­ing peo­ple on things they have a hard time wrap­ping their heads around. And men­tal health is def­i­nite­ly (a) top­ic Chris­tians around the world must yearn to bet­ter un­der­stand.”

In that post, Wil­son chal­lenged the idea some Chris­tians have that those who die by sui­cide are con­demned to hell.

“Chris­tians wouldn’t tell some­one with a phys­i­cal ill­ness like can­cer they are go­ing to hell be­cause of their di­ag­no­sis, he not­ed. Nei­ther should they as­sume it of peo­ple with men­tal ill­ness­es, which can ‘lead many peo­ple to do things they wouldn’t oth­er­wise do if they didn’t strug­gle’.”

Wil­son’s ad­vo­ca­cy will re­main strong in the strug­gle to de-stig­ma­tise men­tal ill­ness es­pe­cial­ly in the Bible-be­liev­ing com­mu­ni­ties glob­al­ly. Too many pro­fess­ing be­liev­ers are still walk­ing in myths and mis­un­der­stand­ing with­out a prop­er God­ly view on men­tal ill­ness. Far too many are miss­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve that com­mu­ni­ty with one of the best tools for com­fort and care: the Bible.

The Bible in­forms my ad­vo­ca­cy for faith-based men­tal health ed­u­ca­tion and sup­port for men­tal ill­ness­es. Many peo­ple come to church and to a re­la­tion­ship with God be­cause of some lev­el of dis­tress in their life. In faith-based out­reach I al­ways re­mind peo­ple: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trou­ble” (Psalm 46:1 NIV).

It is on God we “cast our care”; it is in him, in the midst of the tur­moil we can ex­pe­ri­ence a “peace that pass­es un­der­stand­ing.”

I ex­tend deep­est con­do­lences to all those whose lives have been touched by the work and tes­ti­mo­ny of Pas­tor Jar­rid Wil­son and An­thems of Hope.

Car­o­line C Rav­el­lo is a strate­gic com­mu­ni­ca­tions and me­dia pro­fes­sion­al and a pub­lic health prac­ti­tion­er. She holds an MA with Mer­it in Mass Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (Uni­ver­si­ty of Leices­ter) and is a Mas­ter of Pub­lic Health With Dis­tinc­tion (The UWI). Write to: mind­ful.tt@gmail.com