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unfinishedovercomer · 4 years

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In honor of World Suicide Prevention Day, I’d like to share my story of how I’ve been delivered and rescued through my struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts. I hope someone out there benefits from this and realizes they’re not alone and hope is available to everyone.

I was born in December 1989 with Spina Bifida, a birth defect that left me unable to walk, among other things. I had to have surgery about once every year until I was fifteen years old. When I was in the sixth grade, I started experiencing incontinence—losing control of my bladder—and this condition worsened as I grew into adulthood. I learned different ways to cope with it, until my early twenties.

Somewhere along the line, I also developed anxiety and depression. In all honesty, they have been my constant companions for as long as I can remember. I have tried many different medications to treat them, but instead of helping, they only made things worse for me. Anxiety, depression, and incontinence proved to be a dangerous combination.

My breaking point came on March 16, 2014, when I leaked in my mother’s car after my sister’s birthday party. Feeling like a failure, I started to believe that everyone I loved would be better off without me. I felt like I couldn’t handle it anymore, and I didn’t plan to.

I quickly entered the house, marching into my bedroom. I was done. This was it. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my very best friend, because I didn’t want him or anyone else to try to talk me out of my escape. As I was looking around my bedroom for something that would accomplish my plan, a very distinct voice came into my head. I heard the voice say, “Go to bed—now!” It was only ‪6:00 p.m.‬, but I obeyed.

The next morning, I was awakened ‪at 6:00 a.m.‬ to the sound of my alarm, and then it hit me. I couldn’t believe that I was capable of even trying to take my own life. I knew I had to tell someone. My best friend picked me up that evening, and I told him everything that had happened. I eventually started telling more and more people, including my family. The support I received was startling. If I had just reached out sooner, I might never have gotten to that point. I realized I was loved, not only by God, but by the people He has placed into my life. What was most startling, though, was the voice that had commanded me so clearly on that dark night. As I looked back, I knew beyond any doubt that the voice I had heard belonged to the love of my life, Jesus Christ.

Through my trials, I have come to discover that God is real, and He is good, and He is enough. He was the only One who knew what I was going through that night in my room, and He cared enough to save me. God has brought me into deeper intimacy with Him through every trial that has come since that night. I am not the person I used to be.

I came to know Jesus on May 28th, 2006, at the age of sixteen, after one day in study hall, a lifelong friend shared the Gospel with me and told me that Jesus died for my sins. I know this is going to sound crazy, but after I received Him, I started hearing Jesus in my head. I know I heard that same voice on the night I was planning to end my life.

I have since been called by the Lord to minister to others facing the same darkness. I am called to show Christ’s love and compassion to those who feel that they have no purpose in this world, and I am so excited about that calling.

I still struggle with suicidal thoughts. It’s a nagging thought in the back of my head. If something happens to me, I know where I’m going. But God’s grace has never failed to carry me. I’m stronger because of my struggle, because it drives me into the arms of the Lord. Just because I am now a child of God does not mean my struggle is over; it just means I can turn to Him for strength and comfort.

I tell my story because I want anyone who is considering suicide to know that they are not alone. I want to help them to reach out, because if they don’t, they may never realize that God put them here because the world needs them. I want them to know that God is real. He loves us all, and He shed His own blood for us. He gave His life so that we could live. Since March 16th, 2014, He has saved my life more times than I could possibly count. He is my reason for living every single day. That is why I share Him with a dying world.

Speaking of which, in the midst of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual struggles, the Lord fulfilled His call on my life for ministry in several amazing ways, both online and in my own home and community. As my ministry calling was finally becoming a reality, depression began to catch up with me. Turning to food and alcohol instead of turning to the Lord for peace, I gained a significant amount of weight. Yet this served to show me, more clearly than ever before, my desperate need of the grace and mercy that Jesus alone can offer, as in the spring of 2018, I suffered a broken knee while under the influence of alcohol that caused me to be hospitalized for 2 days and off work for 33. That summer, I received an indwelling catheter to try to help with my urinary issues, but instead it wreaked havoc on my body, which in turn wreaked havoc on my mind. That fall, I got a new wheelchair that was not the right fit for me, which presented a new set of challenges over the 8 months it took to fix it.

In the spring of 2019, I got a bone infection through a sore on my foot which led to 2 hospitalizations. That fall I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea and given a CPAP to help, but the challenges of adjusting to the machine led to sleep deprivation, which deepened my depression.

My self-care continues to be an issue. I still struggle to keep my home and body clean, part of which actually led to the loss of my first job in 2016.

I’ve caught myself whispering “I wish I was dead” countless times. But now I know that’s not really true because when I was in the hospital in the spring of 2019, thinking I was dying, I realized I wasn’t really ready. And if that wasn’t enough, God showed me that many of the great men of faith in Scripture - Jeremiah, Moses, Jonah, Elijah - all struggled with the same thoughts, and that this struggle does not equal a lack of faith.

Living for Jesus has taken on a new, literal meaning for me. When I feel like I have nothing else to live for and no strength left, He continues to remind me that He gives me strength to face anything. He has shown me that nothing surprises Him. He has taught me that these trials are meant to purify my faith and to build endurance, which He promises will lead to strengthened character and hope. He said that no weapon formed against me will succeed, and that my vindication comes from Him alone, and that my hope will never be cut off. His authority brings me comfort. His victory over the world in the midst of my troubles brings me peace. He is the strength of my heart when my mind and body fail. His grace truly is enough, because His promises preserve my life, and His goodness and mercy continue to chase me down every day.

I can’t say my faith has never been shaken; that would be a lie. When I take my eyes off the Lord and His promises, I sink right back into deadly despair. The enemy has taken advantage of my struggles to whisper lies about God and His Truth, and I’ve fallen for them more times than I can count, getting in fights with God and almost reaching the point of turning my back on Him. Yet the Lord never ceases to pursue me, and He keeps me in His perfect peace as I fix my mind on Him, and He has promised that He will finish the good work He started in me.

When my feelings of despair grow too strong, I am tempted to feel worthless. A secret battle with addiction to pornography warped my sexuality and often led me to lose sight of my identity as a holy and pure child of God. The one thing that combats the lies greater than anything else is the truth of the worth that the Lord has placed on me by shedding His priceless blood on the cross for me. The blood of God in human form is the most precious substance in all creation, and that’s the price He paid for me, and for all of us, and He has promised overwhelming victory in Christ, even when I feel defeated.

When I mess up, which I do daily, I struggle to forgive myself, but God is faithful and just to forgive my sins, because of what Jesus did on the cross - therefore I must forgive myself, no matter how far I fall.

The Lord has promised to keep me strong to the end so that I will be blameless on the day that He returns. He says that His disciples are the light of the world, and that the light can never be extinguished by the darkness. Even when my body is failing, God tells me that I am wonderfully made, and that there is wonderful joy ahead.

I can’t take any credit for the strength that I’ve found through faith in Christ. I yearn for stronger faith every day. I still struggle to believe the truth of God over the lies of Satan and my own mind. I still struggle to turn to the God of all comfort instead of things that will never ultimately satisfy, even though I am now both clean and sober. I am more grateful for the grace and mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ than ever before, because He is enough. He showed me that I don’t need alcohol or porn or any created thing to deal with depression. All I need is Jesus, and He has proven through all these years that He will never leave me. He is my joy, my living hope, and the love of my life. He has filled every void in my life in an indescribably powerful way. I am also in therapy through my church to help me deal with all these challenges and more, and I thank God for that as well. My prayer is that others who are struggling find lasting hope in Jesus Christ. He is SO faithful!

I am in absolute awe of the way the Lord chose to grow my faith through trials. In May of 2020, at age 30, in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic, I underwent bladder surgery and had a stoma placed in my belly. This was the hardest decision I’d had to make so far in my life, and the timing felt awful to say the least. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t struggle, but the Lord directed my steps the whole way. I wouldn’t be allowed visitors for the majority of my initial hospital stay... so the Lord sent me a whole new support system in the hospital. Don’t ever tell me He doesn’t work through people. He does. The recovery, which was only supposed to take 6-8 weeks, went on for over four months. I not only underwent physical surgery; the Lord performed a major spiritual surgery in my heart. It was incredibly difficult. I was scared. I was broken. I felt far from God. But Jesus never failed to meet me where I was, even in my fear, and He proved Himself ever faithful over and over again. He showed me that in baptizing me with this fire, He is with me, fulfilling His promise to make me holy in every way by burning and blasting away my pride and impurities and sin, and transforming me into His image, in which I was created, and that He will only allow this fire to burn as long as necessary to accomplish His purpose. He has promised to conquer my sins! He has shown me that no matter what heartbreak I face, He is close, keeping track of each of my tears. He is pruning me to bear more fruit, with the promise that the discipline He provides will produce a harvest of righteousness for those who are trained by it. He taught me that He only does what is good, that He is for me and not against me, and that He will not allow me to be destroyed. Jesus has revealed Himself to me as the Word of God made flesh. He has shown me the deceitfulness of sin, and the war that it has been waging against my soul. He has revealed to me that sinful pleasures are temporary and can never fully satisfy me; only the pleasures that are found in Him can provide fullness of eternal joy. He’s shown me that His love is holy, pure, and without hypocrisy, and does not delight in evil, but rejoices in the truth. He has revealed Himself to me as the God of truth, who alone has the right to define that which He has designed. He’s taught me that no one who believes in Him will be put to shame, and therefore any shame I feel is false and not from Him. In this wrestling with Him for the blessings He has promised, He is wrestling with me for my repentance, drawing me into a deeper, more authentic relationship with Him than ever before.

I could never have imagined the road that God would lay out for me to experience abundant life with Him. Beyond my physical health, I am so grateful for the spiritual healing the Lord has worked in me. I am so excited to see what God has in store for me in the future.

#WorldSuicidePreventionDay #endthestigma #youarenotalone

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