![]() ![]() The night that Matthew died, we were standing outside the front of his house with the doors locked. He was a brilliant, really brilliant kid, with a tender heart but a tortured mind. We often watched TV together and laughed. Matthew had been over the night before, all perfectly normal. My mum is there, my dad is there, my brother is there, and I have a lot of friends there." I didn’t know that five days later my youngest son would be there too. At the end of the message I said, "The more people I love that are in heaven, then heaven becomes closer and more real to me. Many people came to Christ and I preached on the hope of resurrection. Last Easter was the 33rd birthday of Saddleback and we had more then 50,000 in attendance – it was a big day for us. That week was what I call "my battle for hope". I’m not exaggerating maybe 10,000 people have written or connected in some way saying: "I lost a friend through mental illness." Everybody knows somebody. It was hard enough being my son, much less to struggle with mental illness it was his story to tell, so to protect his dignity we kind of kept it quiet.Īfter his death I said we wouldn’t do any interviews for six months – we didn’t even know what we were feeling, we were just grieving parents.Įventually, I started sharing my feelings on social media and I realised that people were coming out of the woodwork and saying, "That’s me, that’s my problem, or my brother’s problem." The floodgates opened. Since Matthew was a baby, we’ve known that someday we would become spokespeople about mental illness. The day that I prayed would never happen, the day that I figured might happen, happened five days after Easter last year. Doctor Who at 60: The spiritual themes behind the sci-fi phenomenon.Kate Coleman: ‘When the Spirit is left to move, women rise up to lead’.How the broken relationship between Church and artist is being restored.Her children are Amy and Josh, and Matthew (who is in heaven), and she has five grandchildren. She is the author of Sacred Privilege, Choose Joy, and Say Yes to God, and coauthor of Foundations, a popular systematic theology course used by churches worldwide. Kay is a board member of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention and is active in mental health/suicide prevention efforts in Orange County, California. The Initiative also trains others in the faith community how to launch or expand existing mental health ministries. ![]() ![]() After the death of her son, Matthew, who lived with serious mental illness for most of his life, she founded Saddleback's Hope for Mental Health Initiative as a way to support individuals and family members of loved ones with mental illness and suicidal ideation. Let her lead you toward true and lasting joy in your life.ĪBOUT THE AUTHOR Kay Warren cofounded Saddleback Church with her husband, Rick Warren, in Lake Forest, California, in 1980. ”The only thing that would allow me to survive the loss of my son was what I knew and believed about God. She helps you send your spiritual roots deep into the soil of God's love so that you can develop convictions and certainties about him that will become the source of your strength when happiness isn't enough. In Choose Joy, Kay shares the path to experiencing soul-satisfying joy no matter what you're going through. In those moments, how do we choose joy over fear, apathy, or despair? Health problems, financial worries, marriage issues, loneliness, unresolved relational conflicts, anxiety about our nation or our world, stress over how our kids are turning out. Most of us will not face anything so devastating, but every single day we will face something that threatens our attempts to live with joy. That was the day she lost her son Matthew to suicide. In April 5, 2013, Kay Warren's life changed forever. ![]()
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