By Noel Garze

I have been a member of First Christian Church for the past 5 years but have never joined a small group. I attend the first service every Sunday and make sure that my daughter gets to church as well. I pray daily and on occasion read the Bible. I have done volunteer work and considered myself a strong believer. However, I was suffering from depression and chose to ignore it. I considered mental illness a weakness and thought that it was something only weak-minded people suffered from. My mental state slowly eroded and eventually, I felt completely alone and helpless. I thought that I was just sad and that eventually, I would find something to be happy about. I eventually turned to work, pornography and gambling and food for comfort and they became my new masters. I thought they would make me happy but I was wrong.

On April 28 th of this year, I almost became a national statistic. I am an adult white male with a wife and children, a career and a history of mild depression. I am now a suicide survivor. I chose to end my life by overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills. Satan made me believe that God would never forgive me for my pornography and other addictions and that my sins were so severe and reprehensible that I couldn’t expect anyone in the church to understand my troubles. I became so depressed that I had turned my back on God and forgot all of the teachings of his love, compassion, forgiveness and support. The devil had convinced me that everyone considered me a failure and that the only way I could ever prove everyone wrong would be to take my own life.

God saved me from myself and gave me a second chance.

I know his hand touched me that day because I am alive to tell about it. My wife says that she was at home with my daughter and thought that I was at the Junior College attending class. She went out to her car because my daughter asked her if they could go out for a burger and a drive. When my wife got out to her car, she noticed that there were several messages. When she checked her messages, she heard my message that I was saying goodbye and that she would never have to worry about me again. She said that as she was checking her cell phone for other messages, I called again. When she picked up, my speech was slurred and she thinks that I had re-dialed her cell phone by accident because I started leaving the same message again. This time however, I gave her the location of the park where I was. When she tried to talk to me, I didn’t respond to her voice and then the phone went dead. When she tried to call me back, I never answered and the phone went straight to voice mail. I don’t remember making that call and when my wife came to my aid, she found my cell phone on the floorboard of the passenger seat and turned off.

My wife called 911 and the police, fire department and paramedics rushed to the scene, she was driving when she made the call, so she got there before everyone else did. When she arrived, she saw me lying in the car with the door open and my seat reclined all the way back. She thought I was dead. Unfortunately, my 12-year-old daughter was with her and immediately ran to the car and climbed on me to wake me up, screaming for me not to die. When the police and paramedics arrived on the scene, they pushed my wife and daughter out of the way and started to revive me.

I drank a half-liter of Vodka and had taken a hand full of sleeping pills. I was in the process of taking a second hand full of pills when I passed out. I only know this because the paramedics told me that they had found the pills spilled out onto the passenger seat of the car and some of them were still in my hand when they found me. Had I not made the call, I would have died.

I don’t remember making that call or any of the other calls to my wife. I don’t remember much of that day but I have all of the medical reports and my wife and daughter’s testimony. I thought I wanted to die, I thought that everyone had turned their backs on me and that I was a failure, and I thought that I was doing the world a favor by ending my life. God thought differently. God saved me for a reason and I will thank him forever for his grace and forgiveness.

The way that everything happened is proof to me that God still performs miracles. God brought me out of drunken, drug induced stupor to call my wife and tell her where I was. God motivated my family to go out to the car. God prevented me from taking the second handful of sleeping pills and God made sure that the paramedics got to my location in time to save my life. I will be eternally grateful that God considered me worth saving and will do everything in my power to make my life a symbol of his grace and strength.