I Love God. I Still Wanted to Die.
On faith, suicidal thoughts, and surviving the miracle I didn’t want
Author’s Note:
This isn’t a cookie-cutter testimony. It’s not advice. It’s not a step-by-step guide on how to survive anything. It’s an honest reflection meant to open a conversation that doesn’t usually happen in Christian spaces.
Contrary to what social media often shows us, faith doesn’t always look clean or aesthetic.
And if this resonates, you’re not alone.
I’m a Christian and still have suicidal thoughts.
I know. That sentence alone makes people uncomfortable. It used to make me uncomfortable too. I thought faith was supposed to check thoughts like this at the door.
Even though my father passed away when I was young, and even though I was later abused and raped by a minister who was dating my mother when I was a teenager, a part of me still wanted to believe that loving God should’ve protected me from ever feeling this low.
Spoiler alert: that’s not how real life works.
I believe in God. I grew up in church. I got baptized at eight years old after giving my life to Christ at an Easter Sunday service. I pray. I read my Bible. Have I always gotten it right? Absolutely not, but God has always been a major pillar in my life.
How major? While most of my classmates celebrated Halloween, I went to Hallelujah Night and harvest festivals instead.
And still, there are moments when my mind gets quiet in a way that feels dangerous. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just calm enough to start whispering lies. That I don’t matter. That my life is wasted space. That if I died today, hardly anyone would come to my funeral, and the few who did would only show up out of obligation.
The scary part is how confident those thoughts sound when they arrive.
On September 1st, 2025, I came extremely close to ending my life.
Close enough that when I woke up in the hospital, doctors spoke carefully. Close enough that as they prepared to discharge me, they used the word “miracle.” Medically speaking, I shouldn’t have been here.
People love a miracle story. They expect tears. Gratitude. The beautiful ending where you say, “God is so good,” and everyone nods while the organist instigates the praise break.
That wasn’t my first reaction.
I was angry. Genuinely irritated with God. I didn’t want to be saved back into a life that already felt unbearable. It didn’t feel like rescue. It felt like being stopped mid-exit and told, “No, you’re not done,” without any explanation or extra strength attached.
And that part isn’t something we talk about in Christian spaces.
We talk about choosing life. We talk about purpose. We talk about victory. Depending on your algorithm, Christianity can start to look more like an aesthetic than a lived, complicated faith. It can make you believe that once you say yes to Christ, life becomes easier, clearer, prettier.
I’ve never heard the grief of staying alive when you didn’t want to be addressed from the pulpit.
No one really talks about surviving and still feeling empty. Or waking up the next day and thinking, “Okay… now what?”
After I was discharged from the hospital, everything didn’t suddenly make sense. I didn’t feel transformed. I didn’t feel spiritually upgraded. I felt exposed. Fragile. Embarrassed that I had gotten that close. Ashamed that I sent my family into panic from hundreds of miles away with no way to reach me.
The thoughts didn’t disappear. They just got quieter. Smarter.
Some days they still show up. I can be in a room full of people, smiling, being bubbly, and still feel invisible. Like I’m watching life through glass. Depression has a way of making lies sound reasonable.
I’m learning to pause when those thoughts come. Not to panic. Not to agree. Just to notice. They aren’t truth. They aren’t God. They’re pain trying to explain itself.
Wanting to matter doesn’t make me weak.
Wanting to be loved doesn’t make me ungrateful.
Wanting to be seen doesn’t make me dramatic.
It makes me human.
When I read the Bible now, I see I’m not alone in this. Elijah asked God to let him die. David wrote prayers that sound more like breakdowns than worship. Jeremiah wished he had never been born. These were not faithless people. They were overwhelmed people.
God didn’t shame them. He met them exactly where they were, just like He met, and continues to meet, me.
Faith isn’t always calm or pretty. Sometimes it’s messy. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes faith looks like surviving the day instead of conquering it. Sometimes it looks like being honest with God about your anger and staying in the conversation anyway. Sometimes it looks like asking for help because you finally admit you cannot do this alone.
Most days for me, faith looks like surrender. Letting go of my own way because it only led me in circles and submitting to God’s way even when I don’t fully understand (or like) it.
I’m still here. I don’t have a clean ending. I don’t fully know why I survived or what I’m supposed to do with that information. I just know that I’m here. Breathing. Writing. Telling the truth. Living alone in Las Vegas with no family nearby. Letting God meet me where I am. Choosing to submit to the journey one day at a time. If He kept me alive, there has to be more to life than this.
And for now, that has to be enough.