A sad statistic

This week the National Police Agency in Japan released some disturbing figures. The suicide rate in Japan has remained at over 30,000 a year for the last twelve years. Last year's total was the fifth highest on record, with a large number occurring around the end of the financial year when people with economic problems can tend to commit suicide. Despite various measures attempted by governments in recent times, nothing so far has helped reduce the number of people taking their own lives. Some are high-profile cases like the former Finance Minister who infamously slurred his speech at a G7 news conference and who was found dead last October. Many are just ordinary people who cannot bear the pain or the shame any longer and simply end their lives. The statistics themselves are sad. But sadder still is that so many thousands end up in the place of such little hope that the only way out is to take their own life. How the message of hope and forgiveness found in the gospel is needed in this land.