Picking things up from my previous post… We now found ourselves over $100,000 in debt due to our real estate investments. I had started a new job, but even though it was decent paying, it wasn’t enough. We had creditors constantly calling us because we couldn’t keep up on our bills. A couple of properties were slipping into foreclosure, and we were receiving notices from bank attorneys. In a somewhat archaic process, the bank attorneys post a legal notice on the front door of the property demanding payment, or else it will be sold on such and such date. In our case, they would be sold on the same King County courthouse steps, where only a short time ago, we had purchased properties. Things had come full circle. It was an excruciating season of waiting and the lowest point in my life.

As the Seattle rain fell, every day seemed to be stuck in slow motion. I found myself waking up every day and cold-calling in a closet of my bedroom in our townhouse (our home was too small for a home office), for my new software sales job. The financial stress was starting to take a toll on my body. On a few occasions, I even woke up vomiting in the middle of the night. The days turned into weeks and months of waiting to have our homes foreclosed on so that we could just move forward. I was waiting to be pulled out of this pit I had put myself in. But no one came.

I was depressed and became suicidal. “How did I get here?”, I thought to myself. A couple of years ago, I was an influential youth pastor and role model to over 150 students. And now due to our financial mistakes, our mission was floundering.  At our church plant, I was now a youth pastor to two students.

Identity Crisis

To make matters worse, we ended up shutting down the youth ministry at the church plant, due to a lack of interest. For the first time in my adult life, I had no meaningful ministry life. This led to a realization that I had found an unhealthy sense of self-worth in my work as a pastor. I was not only facing a financial crisis but an identity crisis, as well. Now I wasn’t a somebody to anybody, which left me feeling like a nobody. I had failed in real estate, failed in ministry and was doing a meaningless job that left me hating life. I was waiting for a way to escape.

Recently, I had heard horror stories coming out of our old investment group. We lived very close to the Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, WA. Some former Microsoft executives were a part of our investment group and had cashed out their stock and then lost those funds in the housing market. I had heard that some of the wives had left their husbands over losing their retirement. It made me nervous, and I had to ask Terra if she wanted to take the easy way out, as well…

A Rainy Night

One night in November of 2008, when I was 31, I reached my low point. I remember that it was raining outside. As we went to bed that night, with tears in my eyes, I asked Terra if she wanted to leave me. And I honestly did not know how she would answer.

Terra, though, is fiercely loyal and she immediately, said, “No, we’re in this together – for richer or for poorer, remember!” She then proceeded to scold me for even asking, which if you know my wife, is quite the sight to see. She is only four feet, eleven inches tall, but has this little fiery streak. Terra is unafraid to give you an earful when you need it. That moment ended up saving my life. If she had not responded that way, I am not sure how the rest of that night would have ended up playing out.

Not only does she have a fiery streak, but she can also sleep like a rock. Within a few minutes of passionately telling me that I had her undivided support, she was sleeping like a baby. I, on the other hand, couldn’t sleep. My mind was clouded by all the mistakes I had made and overwhelmed by my sense of failure. Ending my life was not a new thought. Even with Terra’s pledge of unconditional love, I couldn’t shake the worthlessness I felt about myself.

The Plan

Months beforehand, I had strategically increased our life insurance policy, when it came up for renewal. I had concocted a plan of staging an accident. If it was convincing, I knew there would be a good chance that Terra could collect on the life insurance policy. She could then walk away from this mess, debt free. Not far from where we lived, there was a dangerously steep road with a sharp curve. I had often thought that a rainy night would provide the perfect alibi. I could then drive a car off the road down the mountainside below to my demise.

The thoughts crystallized in my head as I listened to the raindrops cascading down onto the roof of the old farmhouse, that we were now renting. Laying in my bed, I felt completely alone, even with the love of my life still by my side. I passed from stages one (ideation) and two (planning) to the dangerous stage three (decision) of suicide: I decided that night was a good night to die.

I remember getting up, walking to the other side of the bed, and kissing my wife on the forehead, for what I believed to be the last time. Next, I grabbed my keys off the dresser and walked down the hallway, straight past my kids’ bedrooms (we now had two young children). I did not have the heart to look at their sleeping faces, knowing what I was about to do. I walked down the stairs, like a zombie, possessed by the gray clouds of my financial ruin. But as I reached the old front door and opened it, it happened to make, the same loud sound it usually made. The sound snapped me out of my unconscious state of carrying out my plan. I now stood outside on the porch, staring at our car – with life and death being held by the keys in the palm of my hand.

The 3 F’s

And then suddenly, as rain drops pelted the hard plastic covering of the porch, God penetrated my heart with what would become my motto, during our season of waiting. It’s what I started to call the “3 F’s”: Faith, Family, and Friends.

As I stood there listening to the rain, I realized that God loved me. Terra was still with me and that my kids didn’t care how far in debt I was. They just wanted their daddy to tickle them and take them to the park. During those crucial moments, I also thought of Scott, my boss at my job, who had also become my friend. He often asked me how I was holding up, being aware of our life situation. It’s amazing how the smallest gestures can be used as encouragement in critical moments. And those things were enough to convince me to not get into the car. So instead of ending my life that night, I chose to start my journey of learning how to wait well.

What about you? How did you survive the lowest point in your life? What were some of the keys for you to choose to move forward? What is your story? We all have a story and the chances are that someone else needs to hear it. Please feel free to leave some of your story in the comments below or in our community forum.

Waiting is never easy, but in my next post, I’ll share more about how “The 3 F’s” helped me to move from surviving to thriving while waiting.