Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Part 4

The emotional baggage had become so cumbersome and unmanageable that I hadn’t slept since I had closed the doors to Praise Fellowship five days earlier. The voice of guilt had kept me awake as I searched for some kind of sign from God that I was going to be OK. So as Monday slowly became Friday, the agony of defeat and the lack of a sign from God led me to believe that life was not worth living. During my lunch hour on Friday afternoon I wrote two separate suicide letters to Shelly. The first letter was to apologize for my deception and the failure to be the spiritual person I had led her to believe I was. The second letter was written to tell her just how much I loved and appreciated her, and that I would always love her. I wanted Shelly to know that she was not responsible in any way for my death. No one was to blame but me. As I walked in the front door of our house that evening, I dropped the two letters into her lap as I quietly walked by her and headed for the bedroom. Once I was in the bedroom I locked the door behind me. I went to the closet where I kept my twenty-two long rifle. I checked to see if it was still loaded, which it was. Then I made my way to our bed and sat down. Before I placed the gun in my mouth, I made one last check to see if a bullet was in the chamber. It was, so I clicked off the trigger’s safety lock. Placing the rifle in my mouth, I reached down with my right hand to locate the trigger. Without any hesitation, my thumb pushed down on the trigger.

As I felt my thumb push down on the trigger, I anxiously waited for the misery to end with a bullet exploding from the barrel into my mouth and out the back of my head. The mini-seconds that passed between my pushing the trigger and waiting to feel my life end seemed to take forever, as if everything was moving in slow motion. As I sat there waiting to die, I realized that the trigger must have malfunctioned, and I was still alive; I couldn’t believe it. As I removed the barrel of the gun from my mouth, I quickly checked to make sure that the safety was off. It was. In looking over the gun, I could find no reason for its not firing. As far as I could see there was no reason why that gun shouldn’t have discharged that misery ending round into my mouth and out through the back of my head. So I quickly placed the barrel of the gun back in my mouth and repositioned my hands and thumb. However, this time I was not without thought or emotion. I had awaked from my moment of no fear as my mind began to think about what I had just tried to do. I started to think that maybe the rifle not firing was a sign that I shouldn’t end my life, at least with a gunshot to the head. After all, that was a rather violent way to leave this life, and I hated the thought of killing someone with a gun anyway, let alone killing myself. Then I remembered reading about people who failed in their attempt to blow their brains out, ending up with an injury to the brain and spending the remainder of their life in a vegetative state.

I certainly didn’t want to botch up this attempt to end my life. But the failure of the trigger to snap did cause me to stop and begin thinking. So as I sat there on the bed with the gun in my mouth and my thoughts racing, God’s Spirit took control. Much to the Devil’s chagrin, an important battle was being turned in my favor. Because my mind was now focused on what I had just tried to do, the reality of blowing my head off started me thinking about my fear of pain and blood. What happened next must have caused Satan concern, because I removed the gun barrel from my mouth.

As I placed the rifle back in the closet, Satan jumped back into my mind and began to convince me that the painless way to end my life was in the medicine cabinet of the master bathroom where a recently-refilled bottle of Ativan sat. I was confident that the bottle of pills would allow me to complete my objective in a less violent way. An overdose of Ativan would be a more peaceful way to end this tormented life. So the question now was, would Satan still win in his effort to destroy my life? For a few seconds it appeared that he had a solid argument for my taking pills and sleeping my way to peace everlasting. But what happened next was even more interesting than my inability to get the trigger to fire off that life-ending round into my mouth. After placing the rifle in the closet, I returned to my bed and lay down to wallow in my misery. I was now convinced that Ativan would do the trick, but as I started to get out of bed to go into the bathroom, I was overcome with an immediate spirit of emotional and physical exhaustion that caused me to fall back into bed in a state of deep sleepâ€"so deep that I didn’t wake up until early Saturday afternoon.

When I did awaken, it was hard to believe that I had slept for at least fifteen hours. As I sat there on the edge of the bed, a chill came over my body as I remembered just how close I had come to blowing my brains out the night before. It was scary to think that I was so wasted in self pity that I had nearly ended my life. Then my thoughts turned to Shelly, and I was embarrassed to think that she may have read those two letters. As I left the bedroom and headed for the living room, she was sitting in the same chair that she was in the evening before as if nothing but the time and day had changed. As I wished her a good morning, a spirit of bewilderment came over me as she failed to say anything to me about my suicide letters. I really expected her to say something, anything, but as I sat down in the recliner she just continued to read her book, while the television played in the background.

Neither of us said anything to each other as I was busy trying to figure out just what was going on around me. I couldn’t believe how close I had come to ending my life. I couldn’t figure out why Shelly didn’t say something about the locked bedroom door and the two suicide letters. Was she simply ignoring my serious state of emotional affairs? My thoughts were rushing and, like a freeway in LA on a Friday afternoon, everything came to a halt as the many unanswered questions became mental gridlock. I looked in her direction while she read her book. I asked her if she’d mind going to visit a church in Santa Ana on Sunday morning. I’ll never forget her saying, “That would be great.� There was a long pause, and then she asked me which church we’d be visiting. I told her how I had been watching Trinity Broadcasting Network a few nights earlier when I couldn’t sleep, and right there on our television screen was Paul Crouch, the founder of TBN, and Pastor Gary Greenwald, who was sharing about God’s ability and forgiving grace to re-establish a Holy-Ghost filled ministry for believers who were divorced and remarried. Pastor Greenwald appeared to be a very genuine person who was open and receptive to allowing divorced people to work within the gospel ministry. His sincerity stayed with me, and I told Shelly that I’d like to visit his church on Sunday morning. As we talked some more about Gary’s church, I could see that Shelly seemed relieved that I was once again talking to her, something I hadn’t done very much that week. As we continued to talk, she suggested that I call and get directions, which I did. As I talked to the person on the other end of TBN’s hotline, and after that person prayed with me, the scary emotional chill that had overcome me when I had awakened that morning was lifted. Of course there are always going to be problems with any plans a person makes, especially when Satan’s cohorts are so close to delivering a soul into Satan’s hands. I failed to realize that his cohorts could also hear what Shelly and I had discussed and planned. When we woke up Sunday morning to get ready to go to church, my emotional state of mind had once again been turned into a severe state of depression. The only encouraging thing that morning was that I wasn’t suicidal. Still, my anger and rage toward the institutionalized church and God kept me from getting out of bed and going that morning. The oppressive spirits that had hounded me just a few days earlier were back, and they brought along a cranky and mean spirit which took direct aim at Shelly’s spirit.

There was no doubt that my anger toward God had returned with a vengeance. I told Shelly that I wouldn’t be going anywhere that God was, and that included Eagle’s Nest, Gary Greenwald’s church in Santa Ana. The fact that Satan had gotten to know me quite well was never more evident than it was that Sunday morning. He knew which buttons to push, and somehow, some way, his oppressing, tormenting spirit had once again invaded my surroundings, setting off another round of depression. However, there was a difference between how I felt on Friday night and how I felt this Sunday morning. What Satan couldn’t erase was the bone-chilling image of me holding that gun in my mouth. With that image still in my mind, I remained scared. Now I knew that I’d end up dead if I couldn’t escape the grasp of depression. Deep down within me I knew I needed God’s hand of intervention. I was just afraid to admit it. If I expected to live beyond this day, God would have to work a miracle.

This series is taken from Rev. Zimmer's book Prodigal Daze. Buy the book here.

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