Yesterday, several of us from Celebration were at the memorial for Jackson Dunckel, the 13-year-old young man who took his own life. I had never met Jackson. I went to support Pastor James, the congregation of Grace Lutheran, and our families here who also knew and loved Jackson. This is not a big town and so quickly I saw many folks whose lives intertwined with Jackson and his family in surprising ways.

It was a beautiful service and what I was struck by the most was how wonderfully Jackson was loved. He was loved by his family, his congregation, his school, and friends. Yes, his family was complicated with plenty of pain. What is also true is he had a brilliant mind, a fascination in life, and people around him who supported his wonder. His grandfather spoke of his curiosity, extensive reading, and his capacity to talk to any adult on any topic. He shared about how he and his brother were not only best friends, but each other’s champions and cheerleaders. He helped in the garden at church. He played King Nebuchadnezzar in the Easter Vigil. He would talk with great excitement about the biology of shrimp.

It seemed to me he didn’t match any narrative that we might have about why someone might kill themselves. And fundamentally, that’s a scary thing to consider that we might:

• do everything right
• have everything going for us
• be loved and included
• know that our presence matters

and still be dogged by despair to the point of suicide.

This leads me to the most obvious truth of all. Life is hard. It is hard to be human. By any measure, Jackson didn’t have big reasons, that I know of anyway, to kill himself beyond the truth that life is indeed very hard.

While this is an obvious truth, it is one we resist. We don’t want to admit we can do everything right, optimize our health and wellbeing, climb all the ladders there are to climb, extend ourselves to care for others, and yet still be susceptible to despair. Eventually, we have to admit being human is hard and it is sometimes beyond our capacity to struggle through on our own power.  Sometimes, all we have left is God and prayer.

When I was 16, one afternoon after school I was with my bestie at her house. There was nothing out of the ordinary was going on, just hanging out in the apartment she shared with her mother. I remember suddenly being struck by the realization of how terribly alone we all are in the world. I don’t think this was my first existential crisis as a youngster (I was precocious in my angst), but this was by far my most clear one.

I remember realizing that my internal reality would never be fully known by another human, simply due to the structure of being human.

I thought about how my internal world is what it is, but I can only tell you about it in language that is limited in its capacity to describe and communicate. Not to mention, we are all mysteries to ourselves, to various degrees. And, just to make it worse, everyone else is limited in their ability to listen and understand, while simultaneously living in their own complex internal worlds, that I would never truly understand. It’s like life revealed itself to me as a really depressing game of telephone.

This realization stunned me. I thought this aching sense of isolation I felt as an angsty teenager wasn’t necessarily going to end, because this loneliness was an unavoidable part of being human.

I don’t remember praying. I don’t know that I understood prayer back then as something I could do without fancy words. Yet I believe the ache of my soul was itself a prayer. Standing in Kelli’s living room, I thought to myself, “No one knows me and no one ever will.”  And in response, clear as anything I’ve ever experienced, I heard in my mind a voice say, “I know you.”

I knew this was the voice of God speaking in me. In that dark moment of me “knowing” my essential loneliness in the world, I was assured that I could never be alone because God was there with me, on my side of the chasm that separated me from all other people. And I realized that this too is part of the structure of reality. As limited humans, we are separated from one another, yet God was there on my side of the chasm, knowing me inside and out regardless of my action. That was an answered prayer.

I’ve asked for stories of prayer, because I know I’m far from the only one in this congregation who has had an experience of prayer that resulted in grace and healing. These stories are hard or at least vulnerable to tell, because they are often stories of when we are facing some kind of abyss or dire situation in our lives. We don’t like talking about these things.

Susan’s Story (see video)

Dan’s Story (see video)

In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus teaches us to pray to our Father, our loved one, the one who knows us and created us. Jesus teaches us to release our own need to control life, acknowledging that we are to follow God’s will for us. He taught us to admit we need forgiveness, nurturing, and that we need help to follow God.

In fact, the Lord’s Prayer sounds like the prayer of someone who has reached the end of their capacity and all the bright ideas have run out. What’s left is the admission that we are not powerful, don’t have the answers, and that we need help. We can pray this prayer quickly, like it’s nothing more exciting than brushing our teeth. But listen again to the words as we pray them later in the service. It is a prayer of humility that is an honest reflection of our limited nature of who we are without God’s action and nurturance.

Prayer is a strange thing. It’s a true leap of faith to consider that our words, our intentions and hopes and struggles, matter deeply to the creator of the universe. It’s a leap of faith that in the quiet of your own supposed isolation, you can reach out to God and be heard, known, loved, and soothed. And somehow that quiet, private experience is connected to the whole world through Christ. And we know this because there are days when our prayers move mountains in our lives.

Just like Jackson’s, your life is precious and it is hard. Take your hurts and worries to prayer. I say this because we forget that our hurts and struggles matter to God. Even those of us who have stories to tell forget that just maybe we should pray. And that we should pray from our neediness, our vulnerability, and limitation. Pray for yourself and for others and the world. Pray because your Father wants to hear, even as he knows you. Pray because prayer does change the world. Pray for whatever is breaking your heart or giving you hope. Whatever it is, may we always remember to pray and give thanks for the answers.  

AMEN