Bowling Green Covenant Church

Friday 3 February 2006

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the
things revealed belong to us and to our children forever,
that we may follow all the words of the law.”-Deuteronomy
29.29

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be
comforted.”-Matthew 5.4

“Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will
give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for
I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for
your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is
light.”-Matthew 11.28-30

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who
comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort
those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have
received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow
over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort
overflows.”-2 Corinthians 1.3-5

Some events land in our lives like a boulder thrown into a
pond. They send out ripples that affect us for years to
come.

This past Tuesday, a boulder landed in the lives of the
lives of the students, faculty, and administration of
Bowling Green High School. The ripples from Jeff Laskey’s
suicide spread out from the school to the Wood County
Hospital ER eventually affecting the entire community of
Bowling Green, including here at Bowling Green Covenant
Church.

Death is a painful reality always hard to come to terms
with. Death by suicide makes dealing with that pain even
more difficult. Why Jeff took his own life will likely never
be known. The secret things do indeed belong to the LORD our
God. Ours is to carry on trusting God to make things known
in His perfect time. Ours is to hold firmly to the faith
once delivered to the saints-a faith that believes God is
merciful and just and that what the Enemy intends for evil
God intends for good in order to accomplish that which we in
our nearsightedness cannot now see, but trust He will
perform. Until then we must seek the comfort He has promised
to those who mourn as well reach out to comfort those with
the same comfort we ourselves receive from Him.

And so our prayers are with the Laskey family. We pray God
will comfort them. We pray the Holy Spirit will ease their
infinite pain with an even more infinite grace and mercy.
We pray that He who is Sovereign will, in His time, bring
life from this tragedy. Our prayers are with the students,
faculty and administration of BGHS. One suicide is hard to
deal with, but three suicides in three years leave an
indelible mark on the soul. We pray God will comfort them.
Our prayers are for the students who knew Jeff and who will
wrestle with why they have been exposed to so much death at
so young an age. We pray that the Holy Spirit would cover
them with the comfort promised to us all by Jesus-that all
who come to Him will find rest for their souls for His yoke
is easy and His burden light. May they seek not the false
rest promised by suicide, but the true rest of a life lived
to the full through faith in Christ.

Let we who are parents pray for the courage and the wisdom
to talk with our children about a subject that cannot be
ignored. Suicide is the eleventh leading cause of death in
the U.S. claiming 30,000 lives each year (approximately 1
every 18 minutes). More than 4,000 of those who commit
suicide annually are under 25. For people between 15 and 24
years old, suicide is the third leading cause of death. The
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates
that between 500 and 1,500 people seek care in emergency
rooms every day for suicide attempts. Research indicates
that in any given year 20 percent of all high school
students seriously consider suicide.

The surest deterrent to teenage suicide is for parents to
spend time listening to their children. Each minute we spend
with our kids is a pebble thrown into the pond of their
lives. Pebbles may make smaller ripples than boulders, but
throw enough pebbles into the water and it’s amazing how far
the ripples will go.

With confidence that we will receive mercy and find grace to
help us in our time of need,

Pastor Michael Malanga