I went to see a woman who was terminally ill, and confined to her room. She was trembling with pain, and in great distress. In the midst of a fast conversation, she suddenly said: "If I had a way to kill myself, I would! But it's not here!" I said (this was the "unguarded moment" of my post's title): "It's there! At your bedside!" She had two big bottles of morphine on one side of her bed -- enough to kill a horse, one might say. She turned slowly and looked at her bedside -- but she looked at the wrong side. OBSERVATION: In a perfect world, one would stop and think. But this is ministry "as it is". I have never recommended suicide, and she died in peace in fact, in a hospice.
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