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Knuckles bleeding from punching my locker.

I looked down and my knuckles were bleeding. I had decided at that point and time that I was going to commit suicide.

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When I was twelve years old. I was really struggling. One day I was sick. Just wasn’t feeling well. I was in an electric wheelchair and I was going slow cause as abled body people do, when you don’t feel well, you just walk a little slower. I will never forget a young man told me that I needed to get out of the way. I was slow. For some reason in the middle of school, that just set me off. I will never forget it. I went to my locker. I opened my locker up and I started trying to put my right fist through my locker. The bell rang and I was tardy for class. I looked down and my knuckles were bleeding. I had decided at that point and time that I was going to commit suicide. So one particular Wednesday night I had decided that I wasn’t going to commit suicide until I had seen my best friend from church. So, he said something normally that he and I would laugh at and I had no response other than very un-Christian, very unkind words for him. Um, and very loudly. The youth pastor stopped the basketball game he was participating in and yelled my name. And said; “Get in my office now!” I verbally told him what I thought of that as I rolled into his office. I spent the next three and a half hours sharing with him about what was going on. How I felt God had… I didn’t know what He was doing. The thing that absolutely radically changed my world was; He said three things. He said; “God loves you! God does not mess up! And I love you!” It sounds very simple but for a guy that was going to commit suicide that night, it radically changed my world. I started really believing that and really trying to live that out. God doesn’t make mistakes. God loves me. And God loving me, he didn’t say; “Oops!” when I was born.

After High School, I was able to go on to college. I can remember, I was in my dorm room and I was looking out the window. I was watching these two guys walking down the soccer field to go play soccer. I was just really frustrated. I thought Lord, it’s so easy for them to walk. Why is it so difficult for me to walk? I said; “Okay Lord I can’t go back to suicidal thoughts”. That’s not going to happen. But now what do I do? So, just sitting, staring out the window, I asked the Holy Spirit to talk to me. He shared with me, he said; “ If you don’t like where you're at, change it.” And uh, Well, being in a wheelchair, I said; “Okay Lord, that’s kind of silly. So what do you mean?” I went home and I grabbed some old walkers that I had and some crutches. I spent the next years of my college career, working on my walking for one express purpose and that was to walk at my graduation day. If we had had the graduation outside, the stage was going to be too narrow for me to be able to walk. He allowed it to rain so that we held our first graduation inside in years so that I was able to walk across the stage. Not only the live audience but the audience in every satellite location on campus stood and was just bringing down the house. I work for COS Business Products. Where I am a Purchasing Agent. I worked at the YMCA for five and a half years as a before and after school director. Probably about two thousand students I have been able to work with. I am currently working with the youth at my church. They see the joy and they have told me they see the joy because they expect someone who is incredibly angry. My goal is to never portray that because Christ has done so much in my life.

David D - Knuckles bleeding from punching my locker.

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