Pray for Rick and Kay Warren
Please pray for Pastor Rick Warren and his wife, Kay. They announced to their church yesterday that on Friday night their 27-son-year-old son, Matthew, took his life.
Rick sent the following prayer request to his staff at Saddleback, and it was published online by Charisma Magazine:
Over the past 33 years we’ve been together through every kind of crisis. Kay and I’ve been privileged to hold your hands as you faced a crisis or loss, stand with you at gravesides, and prayed for you when ill. Today, we need your prayer for us.
No words can express the anguished grief we feel right now. Our youngest son, Matthew, age 27, and a lifelong member of Saddleback, died today.
You who watched Matthew grow up knew he was an incredibly kind, gentle, and compassionate man. He had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room. He’d then make a beeline to that person to engage and encourage them.
But only those closest knew that he struggled from birth with mental illness, dark holes of depression, and even suicidal thoughts. In spite of America’s best doctors, meds, counselors, and prayers for healing, the torture of mental illness never subsided. Today, after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his life.
Kay and I often marveled at his courage to keep moving in spite of relentless pain. I’ll never forget how, many years ago, after another approach had failed to give relief, Matthew said, “Dad, I know I’m going to heaven. Why can’t I just die and end this pain?” but he kept going for another decade.
There Is No Manual; But There Is Emmanuel
Greg Laurie shared these poignant words.
You may have heard the tragic news that Matthew Warren, the 27-year-old son of Pastor Rick Warren and his wife, Kay, has died. I too have had a son die, so I have a sense of the pain Rick and Kay are facing. But their circumstances are different and my heart goes out to them.
At times like these, there really are no words, but there is the Word.
There is no manual, but there is Emmanuel. God is with us.
I know the Lord will be there for all of the Warren family and Saddleback Church as they grieve together.
Looking forward to that day when God will “Restore all things” (Acts 3:21).
