Tag: death

Is suicide the answer?

TIPS FOR LIFE

By Alan Bailey

It’s one of the most disturbing elements of modern life. Even people who seem to have good prospects and sympathetic relatives and friends nevertheless end their lives. The grief over a death seems to be worsened by the way it occurred.

THE END OF HOPE
As a rule, it isn’t poverty and hardship that makes people take their own lives. All too often, it is those with good homes, safe environments and seemingly no reason to despair. But we know that depression hits all kinds of people for a range of reasons. But at the bottom, there is the loss of hope. Life is too hard to cope with and ending it is a way out. We are told that the depressed don’t consider what their loved ones will feel; they are too occupied with their own thoughts. All so sad.Continue reading

Filed under: Alan BaileyTagged with: , ,

Are you hanging by a thread?

Tips for Life

by Alan Bailey

How scary is that! I saw it on television just the other day. A young couple suspended over a huge ravine in New Zealand, meant to be experiencing a bungy jump—but something was going very wrong.

The two were supposed to be seated, held by a kind of harness. But the girl’s had broken and she was barely hanging on. Her boyfriend grasped a piece of the gear hoping to prevent her from falling. Down below, a long, long, way was a river bed. After what seemed an age the operators pulled them back to safety. The lady was too traumatised to speak.

Maybe it sounds a bit far-fetched, but isn’t this where we all are—hanging by a thin thread? I mean, our lives are not bullet-proof; there is no guarantee that we are safe and secure.

Continue reading

Filed under: Alan BaileyTagged with: , ,

Benefits of saying goodbye

by Andrew Lansdown

A fortnight ago I conducted a funeral for a friend. It was a graveside service and I stood at a lectern at the head of the coffin in which my friend’s body lay. The coffin rested on three chromed bars bridging the two-metre drop of the grave.

At the conclusion of the service, I spoke the words of committal: “Forasmuch as it has pleased almighty God in His great mercy to take out of this world the soul of our dear brother … we therefore commit his body to the elements, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust …” As I spoke these words, the six pallbearers lowered the coffin into the grave and out of sight.

Continue reading

Filed under: Andrew LansdownTagged with: , , , ,

Sons laid down their lives

by Andrew Lansdown

Something heartbreaking happened to a family at Black Point one Easter.

Black Point is an isolated place, accessible only by four-wheel-drive, on the south coast of Western Australia, and the Stallard family travelled there to fish.

The parents, Ron and Debbie, lived in the south-west of the state, but their two sons, 25-year-old Paul and 19-year-old Andrew, lived in Perth. So the fishing trip was something of a family reunion, too.

But it all went terribly wrong that Easter Saturday while the family was fishing from the rocks.

Debbie slipped and fell into the sea, and a wave swept her out.

Continue reading

Filed under: Andrew LansdownTagged with: , , , , ,