Listening To My Father’s Voice

I sometimes reflect back to a time when I was at my darkest. Some of you may be thinking, why would you do that? Why not get over your past and look towards the future? Why dwell on all that darkness and grief?

The past makes us into who we are. Through all the pain, depression, and self-loathing that I experienced, I have come to terms with the fact that this pain had a purpose. So, this is my story of the darkest moment in my life and how I came through it all.

It seems like a lifetime ago, and then at times it feels like it just happened yesterday. But I feel like the best place to start is in the fall of 2014. After spending the past 3 years drinking and doing drugs every single day, I had completely burnt out. I used to be surrounded my friends and in an instant I was alone with no direction and no where to call home. For weeks I had been back and forth from place to place, crashing on people’s couches or floor, sleeping in my car a few times.

Drinking and drugs, something that I did for fun, turned into something I had to have because I needed it to escape the reality of what my life had become. I had hit rock bottom and had no clue how to bounce back from it. Every morning that I woke up, I was mad at God for not taking my life in my sleep. So many days I spent, hating the fact that I had to walk through life alone, and that I had to be alive at all.

On September 10th, 2014 I had made the decision that I was going to end my life because I couldn’t take how much I hated my life. I wrote the suicide note, telling my parents that it wasn’t their fault, that I was fed up with where I was in life and felt like I was better off not being here. I told my sister, that I loved her and that I was sorry for not treating her the way a big brother should have. And I signed the note. I was ready. I planned on hanging myself that night.

I sat there for a few moments, just thinking over the past few years. I started to cry, because I was so miserable and disgusted with who I was and where I had ended up. When I tell you I was mere seconds away from not being here today, I telling you it was that close. Then I had something pop into my head. “Call your Father”. Unsure of why I thought that, I picked up my phone and called my dad. The moment I heard his voice, I started crying even harder. I poured my soul out to that man, explained the situation I was in and what I was about to do.

My Father, who loves his children and cares for them, told me to gather all my stuff, drives two and a half hours, and come home. Just like that, I grabbed all my stuff and went home.

Several months later I started dating, and she would become my wife. I would give my life to Christ, and it completely changed the way that I lived. And after all this time, 6 years later, it finally dawned on me. Yahweh (God) was behind the reason that I called my dad all along. I heard “Call your Father”, but not just by calling my dad, but calling out to Yahweh to help.

I relate to one passage of Scripture more than any other in the bible, because I was there. Luke 15, talking about the prodigal son. One son demands money from his father, goes out to party and blow all his money, and is homeless, starving, and at rock bottom. He decides that his only way to be free of where he is, is to go back to his home in hopes that his father will hire him as a servant, because his fathers servants live a better life than he is.

From far off, his father see’s him coming and runs to embrace his son. Regardless of the fact that his son spent all his money and has nothing to offer, the father gives him the finest robes, throws a party for his son returning. Because he was scared his son was dead, but is alive.

Jesus was the one teaching this story and in short it means; that no matter where you are in your life, or what you’ve done, or where you are, when you come back to the Father, He will welcome you back with open arms, and that is what Yahweh did for me. Through the darkest moment in my life, through all the sins I’ve committed, when I called out to my Father, he welcomed me back and now calls me son.

If anyone is struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts please seek help. You are not alone. You are loved. And there is so much more life to live.