Thank God At Rock Bottom, Jesus Was The Rock That I Hit!

I got dressed for church and sat down, still numb. I had every intention of taking my daughters to church, spending time with them after, and then returning to my apartment in Horne an hour and 40 minutes away. Now, everything that I had been dealing with to that point landed squarely on my back. There were no less than nine things weighing me down: a civil case that had been brought against me in Federal court, the broken state of my marriage, trying to rebuild the relationships with my daughters, PTSD (with anxiety and major depressive disorder), learning to function in my new felonious probationary status, chronic neck and shoulder pain, financial issues, a job search that was becoming fruitless, and lastly those divorce papers. Just after 6:15 am I got in my car to take a drive. Whenever I needed to clear my head I would either go for a walk or a drive. Being that it was dark outside, overcast, and raining I chose to go for the drive. I headed for the gas station to fill up my car. Once I got there and as I was paying for the gas everything started going dark. My tear ducts were overflowing as I had yet to stop crying. My ears were ringing (I suffer from tinnitus), my neck and right shoulder were burning in a way I had not experienced to that point, and I was having a very serious anxiety and panic attack. I began to wonder out loud, “Do I even matter?” I could not see the point of existing in a world without my family, unwanted. Nothing, at all, seemed to be going right. As a pastor I know full well the Scripture found in 2 Timothy 1:7, which reminds us: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” The enemy had shattered my confidence, I was walking in weakness, and seemed to be internalizing hatred and rejection on every side. Right then I reached a place that I only had nightmares about previously. I seriously wanted to end my life. Before now I had never actually thought about a plan but that all changed in that moment. I had a fresh new bottle of trazodone, the medication I take to help me sleep. Thirty pills. Somewhere in my mind I had convinced myself that I would pull my car over in some desolate place and take the pills 10 at a time over the course of thirty minutes and pray I did not wake up. But before I could do that, I had to say thank you and let the people dearest to me know that I loved them. Just before 6:30 am I sent out two text messages. I do not remember everything that I sent my wife in the text that I sent but I remember telling her something to the effect of: “she may actually be better off if I were dead and that maybe the four other times that I actually contemplated suicide were actually meant to be something”…then I sent a text to other family and friends that read: “Thank you for all your love and support. I literally do not have the strength to fight against myself. I love you.” You must understand that I am not a negative person at all. I am forever the optimist, always looking at the glass half full and looking for the absolute best in everyone. I am always the one encouraging everybody else with texts, phone calls, and the like. So, for me to send a text like that was not normal and immediately everyone knew something was seriously wrong. As I was driving my vision blurred, my ears were still ringing, and I was shaking uncontrollably. As I would come to find out later 33 phone calls and 17 text messages would come to my phone in the next 45 minutes or so. Initially I am not sure how many calls I missed before I heard God clearly say, “Tre answer the phone.” At this point I am wailing out of control, but I listened to God in that moment. Through the tears I answered, “God bless, hello” as I usually do. On the other end of the phone were my friends Daniel and Grace. In that moment God started to break through. Even as I write this, I can still visualize that exact moment when Daniel said, “Thank God you answered.” He and his wife Grace did not have the words for me, so they just let God take over. But something Grace said in that moment froze me. She said, “Tre, I can’t even image what you are going through but it can be okay. I am not here judging you, I’m here to listen…whatever you need we are here.” Over the next few minutes, I do not recall most of what was said but at some point, Grace said, “Tre are you driving?” I told her that I was. She and Daniel pleaded with me to pull over. Eventually I did pull over, completely unsure of where I was. When I looked around all I could see were patches of fog and grass. After a few more agonizing minutes I got off the phone with Daniel and Grace who prayed that I would be able to have God’s power wash over and guide and that the Lord would be able to cradle and protect me. They told me they loved me, and the call was over. I knew things were headed south in a hurry because I could not think of any good thing to make me want to go on at that point. NOTHING! Somewhere along the way the enemy had clouded my judgement so much that I could not even see that my daughters, ages 14 and 7 at this point, were reason enough for me to keep living.