I value your life

One Friday evening last year, I was driving home to St. Louis with a college friend. As we were crossing a bridge over the Mississippi River from Illinois to Missouri, I noticed a human figure on foot on the right-hand side of the road. Immediately, I started wondering why someone would be crossing the bridge at midnight. There wasn’t really much to do on the other side of the bridge—the only establishment was a gas station, which was most likely closed.

Before too long, I began to realize there was probably only one reason someone would be on the bridge, and that was to jump off.

All my life, I had been raised by my parents to look to God in times of need for direction and guidance. At that moment I felt the unmistakable, tangible presence of God, which to me was a sign I couldn’t ignore.

I pulled the car over to the side of the road and paused. Then I shut the engine off and said, “Okay, Father, You’ve got me working for You. What is it You want me to do?”

My friend and I got out of the car and walked over to the side of the road, where this figure was approaching, and noticed that it was a teenage boy, probably 16 or 17 years old. He had on dark clothes and a hooded sweatshirt pulled over his head.

As he approached, I asked, “Do you need a lift somewhere? Is everything all right?”

He just brushed me off and walked right past, but I heard him say under his breath that he was going to commit suicide.

I quickly caught up with him and continued to speak to him. He was frustrated by my attempts to interfere with his plans and climbed up over the railing to the very outside edge of the structure. When he did this, I insisted that he come back onto my side and give it another thought.

He looked back at me and then turned again toward the river and lunged, as if to make the jump. At that point, the only thing separating him and me was a railing, about waist high.

I reached over, grabbed his sweatshirt, and contained him physically for a moment. He shrugged me off and continued walking toward the center of the bridge on the very outside edge of the concrete, which was only a foot or two wide.

Again I caught up with him, and we walked side by side—he on his side of the railing and I on mine. I asked him about his family, and he revealed how desperate his situation seemed. How he felt his family didn’t love him. That he had nothing worth living for. And that at his church he felt rejected because of his obvious economic disadvantage and the clothes he wore.

I did my best to convince him of his value to God and to the world. He had mentioned he had a little brother, and I spoke to him about the love his brother must have for him and how he could be an important role model in his brother’s life.

He continued walking. I was wondering whether any of my words were making an impact on him. Along the way, we had several more physical confrontations where he needed to be restrained, or he would have jumped.

As we were walking, I thought, “Father, what is it I need to say to be effective?”

And I got the idea just to look at him, and say, “I love you, and I value your life.”

He didn’t know quite what to make of that. But I could tell it had an impact on him. He grew visibly calmer and more contemplative.

Within a few minutes, the police showed up, having noticed my car on the side of the road. The boy climbed back over the railing and onto the road again.

I breathed a sigh of relief. For that night, anyway, he had decided against making a fatal decision.

As I lay in bed, I gave gratitude for the events of the evening. More than anything, I was grateful to have seen the need of my brother and to have responded as best I could, with the help of God.

This, and other experiences, have made me think a lot about the link we need to make between prayer and action. Throughout the years, the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy’s writings, including her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, have been a great inspiration to me as I’ve tried to make that link.

A passage that has served as a powerful and personal call to action many times in my life is from an essay titled “Love,” in one of Mary Baker Eddy’s other writings: “Love is not something put upon a shelf, to be taken down on rare occasions with sugar-tongs and laid on a rose-leaf. I make strong demands on love, call for active witnesses to prove it, and noble sacrifices and grand achievements as its results. Unless these appear, I cast aside the word as a sham and counterfeit, having no ring of the true metal. Love cannot be a mere abstraction, or goodness without activity and power.” I love this quotation because it has helped explain to me what love really is.

It’s easy to feel love for a family member or a close friend. But the more difficult thing is to connect love with action when it involves someone you don’t know. I’m sure many people have offered a helping hand to a relative or someone close to them. I’m striving to put love in action more and more every day, too.

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