Last school year, what was going to be my final year of college, was supposed to be amazing. I had such high hopes for it. Over the summer, I had gone to France to live and take classes along with my friend, Paul, and it was an incredible experience. Paul, who I’d known for a couple years, had become a great friend to me, and that summer we moved into a house with two of our other friends. It was going to be an exciting and fun adventure. It was going to be the best time of my life.
Yet, it quickly turned into the darkest period I’ve lived through. Despite every reason to be happy and excited, I was not doing well. The depression that had plagued me since I was 13 gave me no respite. It was getting progressively worse and I sought no help. I only hoped beyond hope things would get better, and the prospects of the coming year made me believe this was true, though I didn’t feel it.
Four years prior I had first felt suicidal, and now the thought of taking my life was a constant companion. A couple weeks into the 2014 fall semester, I shared with two of my friends how a year before I had gone home one day and made a noose with an electrical cord, hung it in my closest, and let it tighten around my neck until my breathing was nearly cut-off. But the Lord had stopped me; as I was drowning in hopelessness, an inexplicable power helped me up and I took that cord from my neck and calmly put it away. I was amazed at how emotionless I was. I didn’t speak of it to anyone for an entire year, and then I shed tears as I told my friends the story and explained to them how much I just wanted to find rest and go Home to my Father. I had never before let anyone see the depths of my brokenness.
A couple weeks after this conversation, my dear friend Paul died on a beautiful, late-September day. He was found in his room in the house where we were living. The house that was supposed to be full of joy and laughter and fun. The house where I was supposed to be living the best year of my life. The house Paul had asked me to move into, and now the house where Paul spent his final moments on this earth.
I was devastated. Up to this point, death had barely touched me. No one I loved had ever died. For three days, Paul’s loved ones thought he had committed suicide. I remember weeping in the arms of one of his oldest friends, mourning the loss of him, and destroyed by the fact I had kept secret a truth about myself that might have helped save his life.
We learned Paul’s death was an accident, however, and my relief was immense. My grief was no longer coupled with guilt; I knew I would have never been able to forgive myself.
For about two weeks after Paul’s death, I was so lost in heartache I couldn’t even feel my depression. I had been blindsided by an unimaginable event and I could only think about what life was going to be now without my friend. But this did not last.
I lay one night in my friend’s bed, before I had moved back into my house. I couldn’t sleep, per usual at that time. I was thinking about my life, and how hard it was to believe what had happened a few weeks before. Yet I was doing relatively well. I was moving forward, with much support from my family, and friends who knew and loved Paul. As I stared at the dark ceiling, it was like I could see my mind as a pool of crystal clear water. In that moment, it was still. Then, a bead of black, like a droplet of ink, fell into it and spread until all the water was black and murky. My depression had returned. It was like I could physically feel it taking back over my mind.
I did not blame God for the trials of my life. I did not blame Him for Paul’s death. Through it all, I never lost my faith in Him, I never became angry with Him. I had known, even when I thought Paul had taken his own life, he was Home with our Father. But when my depression returned, Paul’s death became another event that further proved to me my life, my future, held nothing but suffering and sorrow. I couldn’t help but wonder, why me? Why my friend? Why now? I had been so sure things were going to get better, and this is what I found waiting for me. I became convinced there was no good thing for me to continue living for. My depression would always haunt me, suicidal thoughts would always trouble me. The thought of heaven would always be more appealing than the pain of this world.
So I made plans to end my life. I decided the day, the time, the method. I thought about it over and over for days. October 8th, 2014, I planned to take my last breath on this earth. I didn’t feel God intervening in my mind or my heart. I could find no reason to believe He would stop my plans. I prayed one night and told Him if He didn’t want me to die, He would have to let me know.
On October 7th, I got a call from one of my friends with whom I’d shared about my depression. She and our other friend wanted to talk to me. I had no idea what it could be about. I had acted as normal as I could, trying to conceal from anyone what I had decided to do. When I went to my friends’ house to talk to them, they explained how afraid they had been for me during the couple of days we believed Paul had taken his own life, in light of what I had told them a few weeks before. They expressed great love and concern for me, how much it would hurt them if I was suddenly gone like Paul. They wanted me to seek counseling for my depression.
I knew it was God answering my prayer. My friends had no clue what I was planning to do the next morning. The Lord had heard me and showed His great love for me through my friends. On the morning of October 8th, instead of taking my last breath, I used that breath to share my struggles with a counselor. It was incredible. I felt so free. I had finally let go of the burden of my depression, my sadness, my dark thoughts.
I continued to get better as I received counseling. For the rest of the fall semester and well into the spring, I felt joyful, I felt hopeful. I could see a light at the end of this very long tunnel. I was in my last semester of college, I was going to graduate and finally move on from this dark period of my life. The Lord had good things waiting for me. I wish I could say that was the end of that chapter, that it came to a nice, neat and happy conclusion.
But it wasn‘t over yet.
My university told me I couldn’t graduate. There were issues with my credits and I hadn’t taken a class I needed. Somehow, I took this news well. I really believed God would work out the situation in my favor. He had proven Himself faithful and I trusted Him.
In the spirit of moving forward and seeking the Lord’s will for my life, I decided to go on a mission trip over spring break. A group of friends and I were set to go to Jamaica to work at an orphanage and a school for deaf children. I had been seeking opportunities to do missions for a while at that point, and I was so happy something had worked out.
Then the very week before I was going to leave on the trip, my depression surged inside me and I became consumed by it. It came suddenly and secretly, like a violent enemy in the night, seeking to destroy me. It was insidious and knew all my weaknesses. It spoke lies to me that I believed. I began to function outside of reality. I no longer felt optimistic about the future. I was going to class every day yet I found no fulfillment in it, no purpose in it. It seemed like I was wasting my life. And I wasn’t going to graduate, anyway, because of one class. Now it felt like a cruel joke. But even if I graduated, what would I do after that? There was no “real” job I desired to have, I wasn’t on any pathway to a career. I was going to have to become a fully-functioning, responsible member of society: show up at a job 5 days a week, do work I wouldn’t like, pay bills, pay taxes, make a house payment. Live a life I didn’t want. I didn’t feel ready for this. I felt like I was being crushed by the weight of the expectation of the world to be a normal person. There were times when I could hardly find the motivation to get out of bed, how could I ever live a successful life?
So again, I decided I wouldn’t. I planned to take my life, but this time it was different. Before, when I had felt suicidal, it was because there seemed to be no other option but to die. It was a last resort, an unfortunate necessity. This time, I recognized I had other options, but the thought of them filled me with dread. I knew I could keep living, but I no longer wanted to. I didn’t want to come out of this struggle and find myself alive on the other side. I just wanted to find rest, to have joy and peace, to go be with Paul and Jesus in heaven.
The mission trip to Jamaica was already paid for, so I knew I couldn’t take my life before I went. Plus, I liked the idea of the final full week of my life being spent in service to the Lord and others.
Yet, in Jamaica, in the midst of the deepest darkness, my Father was there. I felt Him in every moment. I saw Him in the people working around me, heard Him in their voices and their laughter. I saw Him in the smiles of the children at the school for the deaf, in the faces of the sleeping babies at the orphanage. I saw Him in the eyes of the deaf girl who gave me the name sign of “A” with the sign for “smile.” I had let myself be submerged in despair but somehow what she noticed of me was my smile.
One day, I was up on a roof with about 30 other people, mixing, lifting and pouring heavy buckets of cement into rebar. It was hot and I was tired and hungry, but I was so full of joy. I felt at peace. We laughed and joked and sang and enjoyed our work, because we were working for God’s kingdom. That was when I felt the Lord speaking into my heart, “Adam, this is where I want you.” He was calling me into the mission field.
When I returned home, I couldn’t reconcile my experience in Jamaica with what I’d let my depression cause me to believe. So I set it aside and resumed my plans to take my life. For four days, I struggled to decide how best to do it, the most practical and “successful” method. I even researched it. I wrote out my plans for how I wanted my funeral to be. I wrote a note to my family, who up to this point had no idea I had ever felt depressed, explaining why I was doing this and asking their forgiveness.
But my Father never let me go. I picked up my phone one afternoon and texted my friend, and began to let Him pull me out of that black pit. The Lord brought me back into His light and started putting me back together. I gave myself over to Him to let Him change my life.
The next month, I was put on medication, and it was the final, small but important missing piece to the puzzle of treating my depression. I had focused so long on the spiritual and emotional aspect of my illness, which was critical, but I had ignored the fact it was a disease in my mind and I also needed to treat the physical side of it.
A few months later, after I had spent time getting well and no longer felt depressed (in fact I have not felt my depression since then), I could not ignore God’s call to me in Jamaica. I began to pray He would lead me to the missions opportunity He wanted for me. A friend gave me the Adventures in Missions website and I discovered the World Race. I stepped out in faith and decided to pursue it, and the Lord showed me it was what He had waiting for me. So far it has been an amazing experience. God is doing awesome things with me and the World Race is the next step in the beautiful journey He has planned.
This is the beginning of an incredible new part of my life, and I will continue to tell the story on this blog.
“I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done.”-Psalm 118:17
