“I Found My Life When I Laid It Down”
That lyric from Hillsong United’s Touch the Sky captures my journey — not one I planned, and certainly not one I expected.
I didn’t set out to have faith. In truth, I’m not sure I ever had it before. My surrender didn’t come from enlightenment, but from complete and utter brokenness. I was exhausted — defeated by the pain and chaos I had created. My life was unmanageable, and every attempt to control it had failed.
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.”
— Psalm 51:17
Drugs and alcohol weren’t the problem — they were my only solution to a pain I couldn’t face. But that solution nearly killed me. I was drowning in darkness so thick, I didn’t know which way was up. I hated the man I had become. The mirror wasn’t unbearable because of vanity, but because of shame. It wasn’t just self-loathing — it was an existential crisis cloaked in apathy. The crushing realization that all my striving, all my pride, had led me to despair.
“For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
— Matthew 16:25
And yet, in that suffering, I met God.
Not in a church pew. Not through a sermon. But in the silence of collapse. When I had nothing left to offer — when the masks fell, when death seemed more livable than life — that’s when He showed up. I didn’t know what surrender looked like. I just knew I couldn’t go on. So I laid my life down, with no idea what He would do with it.
And slowly, God began to rebuild me.
“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”
— Psalm 40:2
He didn’t leave me to figure it out alone. He sent people — broken like me, healed like me.
They carried His grace. They offered direction, mercy, and something I had never truly known: hope.
And all they asked was this — pass it on.
Go back into the darkness. Help pull someone else out.
Offer what was freely given.
Through that, I found purpose. I found light. I found God. And I thank Him for the suffering — because it was only in the breaking that I began to see.
My faith is not perfect. But God is. And in every surrender, He shows mercy again.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair…
always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:7–10
