I remember it as though it were yesterday, yet it feels as though it happened a lifetime ago. It was the lowest and darkest point in my life.

It was June 14, 2020, and I was sitting at home alone watching an online church service in the kitchen. (Which was the last thing I wanted to be doing) I had struggled with my depression for years at this point, and by now it was something I'd accepted as part of who I was and would always be. Calling me miserable was an understatement. I'd genuinely forgotten what happiness was, what it felt like to give someone an unpracticed smile. The girl I used to be was gone.

Towards the end of the service, the minister said something. Just one word that caught my attention like a blazing beacon. (Don't ask me why. It's not something I can explain, but it just happened)

The man said, "Yield."

(This is the weird part; whether you believe this actually happened is up to you) It was like a literal tidal wave of joy, peace, and light washed through me all at once. It was so overpowering I started sobbing and praying to God.

Since that night I've never been the same. God had been, and still is, kind to me. Without Him I'd likely be dead.

I am seeing this question raised often these days. It takes me way back, I assure you, as I was once curious about this very thing myself.

So I did back then what any red-blooded American boy does when he has a question he is embarrassed to take to his parents. I asked a friend.

I am certain that Gina could have told me the answer, as she was wise beyond her years, but bless her heart for showing me instead, as I have never been uncertain since.

I was on the floor crying so hard my hands shook, curled inward trying to dig out the unexplainable pain coming from somewhere within.

This was a scene that happened much more often then, then it does now.

After the trauma and the rage/grief that occurred because of it, I was a woman on fire, but not set alight by anything good- this was a fire that would destroy me and the sad thing was, I wanted it to destroy me.

The kindest thing done for me was actually a succession of little acts of kindness during this 3 year period of me hell bent on destroying myself.

It was that they didn’t give up on me, even when I had given up on myself. That they still believed and loved me just because I was me.

And that was enough for them.

It was the greatest gift I was ever given and continue to receive to this day.

I’m writingthis with tears in my eyes. It’ll have been 4 years since my suicide attempt, it wasn’t easy afterward, after the trauma that is, but I can say quite truthfully that I’ve begun to not just survive, but thrive.

It happened because I had people believing in me until finally, one day, from what seemed like out of the blue, I began to belive in myself too.

What a gift.

What a beautiful life I can now appreciate and greet everyday, even when the skeletons in my closet rattle and wish to remind me of my failings. I hear them, I feel the sharp feelings but now… I release them and continue to live.

Dear God, I’m living.

I'd been absent all week,

But today, in school,

A girl talked to me—

A girl I'd always thought was cool.

"Today in math we have a quiz,"

She told me during lunch.

Math was next period,

So I thanked her very much.

No, it wasn't helpful;

No, I didn't need it;

Yet her comment still joyed me—

The way that I'd been treated.

The fact that someone thought about me;

How all that week I'd been away;

The fact that someone cared to tell me—

That made my day.

Hello - can be the line to save someone's life,

It can pull them out of the arms of despair,

Or even from the darkest corridor of their mind,

Trivial as the word may seem,

It is one that is like a white dove,

In it's wings it carries promises of hope and of peace,

Every storm it flies through, as every drop of rain carries nothing but sadness,

It's a beacon of white light in a world filled with storm clouds.