Welcome to this week's bonus interview on the Prayers of Rest podcast.

I'm Kendra Stanton, your co-host, and this week, Asherita is joined by her guest,

Rita Schulte, to talk about surviving suicide loss.

It's a heavy conversation, but so very powerful.

Rita Schulte is a licensed professional counselor who specializes in treating eating disorders, anxiety, and depressive disorders as well as grief,

loss, and trauma. She's also a radio host and an author of several books, including

surviving suicide loss, making Your Way Beyond the Ruins.

Rita joins Asherita this week to share her own personal story of grieving when her late husband took his own life,

and how God guided her toward healing and into a ministry of coming alongside those who have survived

suicide loss.

Let's listen in.

Lareda, thank you so much for joining me here today.

I wonder, as we get started, would you just briefly share your story?

Yes, I was married to my high school sweetheart and we'd been married for 40 some

years and he was a dentist, a pilot, on his own airplane, loved to fly. He was in ministry.

We were very active in pro-life ministry. My husband was president

of Sanctative Life Ministries for about 13 years. And then suddenly, in 2013, my husband started

exhibiting crazy paranoia, depression, anxiety. He had never had any of that before. And we were in process

of trying to get him help. And I arrived home from our house in Florida. We'd all been

down there over the weekend, and he flew back the day before me.

And when I got home, he was actually supposed to go to a treatment facility that morning.

He never got on the airplane. And when I came home, I found he had taken his life in our bedroom.

...