It wasn’t the first time suicide knocked on my door. I vowed growing up that I wouldn’t fall into the same pit as some of my loved ones. I didn’t want to repeat their mistakes. Why then, at twenty years old, did my life lay in shambles?

As a little girl in the night’s hush, I’d sometimes look up in wonder at the star-studded skies and I’d ask Jesus questions, but I didn’t know Him.

Growing up with my grandparents in Jamaica, Billy Graham was the salute to my Sunday mornings. I’d race into their room and curl up at the foot of their bed and Grandpa would reach for the old wooden radio atop his dresser. With a twist and a click of the knob, it burst to life with “This is Billy Graham coming to you live …” and George Beverly Shea singing, “How Great Thou Art.”

And we’d listen to Billy preach before we went to the little stone church with the stained-glass window of the Good Shepherd bringing home the one lost sheep. That sheep is me, I thought.

After church, Grandpa and I sat in his sun-dappled chair on the verandah and sang “Once in Royal David’s City” and “All Things Bright and Beautiful” out of his old worn hymnal. Treasured times.

Then, many upheavals. Canada with my mom, back to Jamaica, my stepmother took my little brothers and left my dad, boarding school, and back with my dad. Turbulent teen years.

School provided an excellent education and disciplined environment, but I argued much of their doctrine. They couldn’t answer my questions. Well intentioned in my quest for truth but lost in my sin, had I died then, I wouldn’t have made Heaven.

The rifts in my family weighed on me. I felt I wasn’t allowed to love them all, as if I had to choose. I feared rejection. I battled suicide. Perhaps, I hoped, when I launched out on my own, took control of my circumstances, life would become stable.

I burned my journal with my letters to God when I eloped at eighteen and moved to Pensacola, Florida. I possessed everything I wanted, or it was within reach, yet I woke at night feeling hollow, like the wind could blow through me.

Two years later, life felt like a landslide: my husband left, the marriage ended. Estranged from my mother. I bore the pain of separation from my siblings. Hope faltered. I heard the words recorded in the Bible that Job’s wife had spoken to him, “Curse God and die!” (Job 2:12 NKJV)

I fell to my knees, weeping. “No,” I said. “God, I will not curse You. I still believe in You. Help me.”

***

How did this magazine land here? I mused when I checked my mailbox. It was nearly impossible for the mail carrier to mistake the apartment buildings. The Billy Graham Decision Magazine catapulted me to childhood memories of Billy Graham preaching the Gospel and how it captivated and comforted me.

The address label indicated the magazine subscriber lived on the opposite side of the complex. “Hello,” I called him and said, “I have your Billy Graham magazine. But I’d like to read it before I give it to you, if you don’t mind.”

He chuckled, and we arranged a time to meet by the pool which separated our buildings, but I never showed up. I was so caught up reading, his knock startled me. I opened the door to meet the gentle smile of Rev. George Horton, a retired Baptist minister, my first face-to-face witness.

Rev. Horton and his sweet wife Evelynn took me under their wing and to church at Pensacola Christian College. They often opened their home to me.

I knew they loved me; their presence convicted me. I respected and feared hurting them, which kept me from some bad decisions and out of much trouble. They answered my myriad of questions, but I didn’t quite grasp salvation.

I tossed the Bible the Hortons gave me on the dresser. There was no room in my suitcase. I intended to run from life, pretend I was fine, party, and pursue my modeling career while working at my host’s ice cream parlor in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, during the summer of 1987. But to my dismay, I discovered on arrival that my hosts were a bunch of Jesus fanatics. Trapped. As their guest, I reluctantly accompanied them to church. They shared the Gospel, and I called them every name in the book at the top of my lungs.

“I’m a good person. I’m good enough for God.” I said, “I’ve been through enough hell here on earth, God has to let me into Heaven!”

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Romans 3:23 NIV), they shared from the Bible.

“We’re saved by grace through faith. Salvation is the gift of God, not works,” they explained. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Appalled and confused why I’d turned so mean, I dreamed of and awoke to the echo of the lyrics from the church rock band’s song based on John 3:3: “Jesus said, ‘You must be born again.’ You know He died—to free you from your sin. Jesus said!”* But I didn’t let on.

I feared if I called my sin, sin, all I’d have left was regret. But how does one argue with Jesus and win?

“Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:3 NKJV)

I searched the Scriptures. Jesus leaves no gray areas. We either embrace all of Him or reject Him.

I threatened to leave, but the familiar message drew me.

Except for me and a kid named Dana, everyone who worked at the ice cream parlor was a Jesus fanatic or a tie-dyed follower of the Grateful Dead band. I wasn’t sure which was crazier. I replaced the tract in the display by the window where the line of customers stood.

“You’ll be one of them by summer’s end,” Dana said.

“I will never get saved!”

I had no intention of “getting saved” when I kneeled at the altar a week later in response to a sermon about the man who asked Jesus to help his unbelief (Mark 9:23-24). But what had I to lose? So, I repented of my sin, asked Jesus into my heart, and became born again.

“Wait!” I said when my new friend who prayed with me rose to leave the altar. “I came up to pray for faith.”

After weeks of silence, I called Rev. Horton. “Hello,” I said, “I got baptized today.”

He chuckled and said, “Tell me about it.”

***

These three men added many defining moments to my life.

Grandpa laid a foundation, and years later I recognized truth when I encountered the Gospel again.

Rev. Billy Graham was a steppingstone on my road to salvation—someone sure in a shaky world. He stood on the Rock, the foundation of eternity, Jesus. He stayed faithful to preach His word, the message of our need for repentance, God’s love for us, and His offer of grace and salvation—new life.

The Hortons and I stayed in touch. Through the years, though miles apart and months between calls, Reverend Horton always answered the phone as if he expected my call. “Hello!” I’d say. And he’d chuckle and continue to minister to me as if he had a front row view of my life.

***

Suicide is a permanent mistake for a temporary problem. Waking up in Hell is worse than anything we go through. Without Christ, life’s burdens are too heavy. Even when I filled up on all the good life offered, it left me lacking.

Jesus is the answer for all that ails us. He made us for Heaven and a personal relationship with Himself. He never leaves or forsakes and wants to do life with us.

Now I walk the pilgrim path in this house of dust indwelt by God’s Spirit. Saved by His grace, led by truth, held in hope and peace, filled with joy not contingent on circumstance, loved by the Savior.

And sometimes in the night’s hush, I look up in wonder at the star-studded skies and I ask Jesus questions. I know Him and I’m grateful.

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* Song lyrics are used with permission granted by Keith Sullivan.

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This testimony was originally published in Defining Moments: Memorable and Inspiring Stories from Outstanding Leaders.

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Rachael M. Colby has a heart for reconciliation and a passion to uplift those who serve in tough places. She writes to connect cultures’ questions with Christianity’s answers, inspire faith, and motivate. This Jamaican-born multi-genre award-winning writer, wife, and mom resides in Massachusetts, runs on chocolate, and blogs at TattooItOnYourHeart.com.

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