CLB family please keep Pastor Rick Warren and his wife Kay Warren in your prayers as they lost their son, Matthew to suicide last week. Pastor Rick Warren penned an open letter (below) to his church last week:
“To my dear Saddleback Family,
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.
Thank you for your love and prayers. We love you back.
Pastor Rick”
An autopsy conducted on the body of 27-year-old Matthew Warren, youngest son of Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren, confirmed the young man died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Warren’s approximate time of death was 10 a.m. on Friday, April 5, according to an Orange County Sheriff’s-Coroner’s Office spokesman, reports City News Service.
These autopsies are standard procedure when suicide is suspected say authorities, according to the L.A. Times, who also report officials said today “they are still investigating whose weapon was used” when Warren took his own life.
Warren’s body was found at about 5:30 p.m. Friday inside his Mission Viejo home.
So Sad, funeral arrangements are still being made at the time of this posting. Again, the CLB family extends our sincere condolences to the Warren family and pray God’s blessings on you in your time of bereavement.