It goes without saying that I did not know Gary Speed. In fact I know very little about him apart from the fact that among his different clubs he played for the enemy, Everton (actually unlike the average Liverpool supporter the blues are among my favourite teams after the reds). Despite my ignorance of the man I was shocked that such an apparently strong and balanced individual should take his life. It is just horrendous to imagine his wife finding him in the garage having hung himself and heart breaking that his two sons will grow up without their father. There is no point in asking the question”why?” yet we end up asking it anyway. His personal friends and supporters in the teams he played for and the Welsh national team are all dumbfounded as to why he did this and what he had gone through in private to drive him to the conclusion that everyone would be better off without him. Much has been made of the fact that he was strong and stable, that he had everything to live for in terms of family and success in life and that is what went against him in the end. The way of the world is to say that it is the strong-those who don’t need the support of other people, those who can stand on their own feet-who are the lucky ones. He had made enough money and had been famous and adored by so many football supporters. We have been told that the players loved him and played for him and he didn’t have an enemy and was without a bad bone in his body. The measure of his support was seen in the way his name was called out by the Liverpool supporters –as they sang “You’ll never walk alone” they did it for him. Yet the pressure on the strong individual to keep his problems to himself has to be strong and stifling-how can the strong person admit he has problems and is, in fact, weak? In the famous sermon given by Jesus he releases the strong suggesting that the weak are, in fact, really the strong ones, the poor are really the rich and the meek are to be congratulated. When God sent his son to earth he sent him as a weak human being rather than a mighty monarch. At Christmas we celebrate the arrival of the king of kings as a tiny baby. He comes in weakness not strength, he comes in humble circumstances not with pomp and circumstance. Hopefully when you are sick you go to the doctor so why would you not take the same course of action when your problems are in your head? The strong person is the one who can admit their difficulties and we all have difficulties and problems-maybe this terrible agony experienced by Gary Speed’s family and friends will serve to highlight this scourge which has cost too many lives. Too many people have died “before their time”. Even Christian ministers are guilty of the pretence of being strong and needing no help-don’t walk alone, you have been created by God to live in community so use your community as your support base and talk to those you can trust to help and listen. Christmas is about God coming in weak human flesh-Happy Christmas .