The sheriff showed up to evict Dave and found him unconscious on the floor of his apartment bleeding seriously. Dave does remember regaining consciousness in the ambulance and the operating room and remembers saying, “please save me.” As he explained to me, “I changed my mind…now I wanted to live!”
They did save him and Dave spent the next 2 weeks in intensive care and another on the hospital’s psychiatric unit. They wouldn’t just release him to go home…and besides he no longer had a home to which he could go.
The hospital staff chose Helping Up Mission for Dave, but he had no interest in coming here. His vision of a mission was from the Old West – he imagined we were a bunch of priests and monks walking around in robes chanting.
Arriving here just before Christmas, all he really remembers is feeling warm, safe and loved. The other thing he remembers is hearing that his wife was now also doing okay after her own series of difficulties.
At Helping Up Mission Dave had an encounter with that God he had been avoiding for years and all those warm safe feeling continued. He reconnected with both his wife and son. Today Dave has a sense of peace, purpose and direction. He called his process “the gift of despair.”
For many of us, the holiday season is one of hope and a new beginning. That Christmas it was for Dave. May you feel something similar as we begin 2012.
God is Good, all the Time,
Pastor Gary Byers
Spiritual Life Director