Warrens Open Up about Son's Suicide
"Matthew had a tender heart and a tortured mind. He was a brilliant kid."
By Dan Wooding, Founder of ASSIST Ministries
LAKE FOREST, CA (ANS) -- Almost a year ago megachurch pastor Rick Warren and his wife, Kay, received the unimaginable news that their son, Matthew Warren, 27, the youngest of their three children, had killed himself. The cause of death was a self-inflicted shotgun wound at his Mission Viejo, California, residence.
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Rick Warren lost his son, Matt, to suicide
about a year ago. Recently Rick spoke publicly
about the tragedy and his enduring hope.
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Matthew had bought the gun illegally over the Internet and used it to shoot himself and yet, amazingly, the pastor, was able to forgive the person who sold Matthew the gun.
“Someone on the Internet sold Matthew an unregistered gun,” Pastor Rick, the senior pastor of Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, California, tweeted to his nearly one million followers shortly after he received the terrible news. “I pray he seeks God's forgiveness. I forgive him.”
Warren then linked to Matthew 6: 15 (NIV), which says, “But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”
Now, the couple felt able to share their innermost thoughts about their late son. They did so during an extraordinarily moving interview last Friday at a special event at Saddleback that was spurred by the suicide of Matthew.
Called “The Gathering on Mental Health and the Church,” the event included the couple, joined by a host of mental health experts and clergy, which included the Most Reverend Kevin Vann, Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange, and members of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Orange County (NAMI-OC), who all joined together to host this special (and packed) gathering.
When asked to describe his son, Rick replied, “Matthew had a tender heart and a tortured mind. He was a brilliant kid.”
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Kay and Rick Warren talked with the media
about losing their son, and about mental
illness in the church.
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The author of the best-selling book, The Purpose Driven Church, went on to say that when his son started seventh grade, he lasted about two weeks. "They said, ‘Matthew’s not going to last junior high because you have to change teachers every period, rather than having the same teacher.’ But they said that we could take him out of school for two years, and ‘he’d still be smarter than any kid here.’”
Warren added, “He was probably the most courageous man I’ve ever met, because, at seventeen, he came to me in tears and said, ‘Dad, it’s obvious that I’m not going to get well. We’ve gone to all the best doctors, we’ve had the best therapy, we’ve had the best prayers, and so why can’t I just go to heaven? I know I’m saved. I know I’m going to heaven, but why can’t I go to heaven right now?’ And I told him, ‘Matthew, you may want to give up, but, as your father, I must always have hope and believe that there is an answer out there. So you might give up, but I cannot give up.'
“He made it for ten more years and was very courageous. And if he were able to talk to me today from heaven—which he can’t—I know he would say, ‘Dad you were wrong.’ And I would say, ‘What do you mean?’ and then he’d say, ‘It’s so much better than you explained it. I can’t wait for you to get here.’"
Pastor Warren went on to say, “Trying to understand heaven is like an ant trying to understand the Internet. They don’t have the brain capacity. So if I didn’t have the hope of heaven, I’d be in ultimate despair, but because Matthew knew the Lord, and put his hand in the Lord’s hand many years ago, and walked with Christ for many years, I have this hope. He just had a tortured mind.”
When asked if Rick thought he would ever get over losing his son in this way, he said firmly, “No, you never get over it—you just get through it. In fact, I did a whole six- week series here at Saddleback on ‘How to get through what you never get over.’”
Standing close by was Kay Warren. When asked to share something about Matthew that people might not know about him, with a faint smile she replied, “He was so compassionate.” Rick interjected, “He was also witty.” Kay continued, “Witty, funny, but deeply compassionate. He was a compassionate warrior. He tried to help people, even though he, himself, was so depressed. He would be on chat rooms and he would respond back to others with problems. He would try to get me to help people and say, ‘Would you financially help this person?’”
She said that Matthew also “had a wonderful demeanor” and added that he’d always stop on the side of the road if there were people in need to try and help them. “He just had a heart for other people who were hurting and fought really hard for others who were struggling,” Kay said. “He’d come out of a hospitalization, and have a list of people that he wanted to be praying for. So he was extremely compassionate for those who were suffering in the same way that he was.”
When asked if there was any evidence on that last day he was with them that Matthew was contemplating taking his life, she replied, “He was massively depressed all the time, but not on that day. We knew that it was a possibility that he would take his life someday, but not that particular day. It was actually a good day, and we he had dinner at our house.
“The thing about mental illness—having a borderline personality disorder, which he had—is impulse. [For] people who are suicidal, impulse and opportunity can sometimes come together in a fatal way, and that’s what happened with Matthew. Impulse and opportunity came together.”
Kay's advice for others who have lost a loved one in such a tragic way: “You think you’re not going to make it, but you will! You have to find again where the hope is, because it can be crushed by suicide. Give yourself lots of time. Don’t be in a rush to try to move through it, move past it. It’s traumatic and it takes time. You’re never the same, and that’s okay. Just accept that, and wait for life to flourish again. I’m only a year out, but I believe it will.”