This post & trailer is in reference to my forthcoming book, “Leaving Cloud 9: The True Story of a Life Resurrected from the Ashes of Poverty, Trauma and Mental Illness.” You can read more about the announcement here.
A video trailer about the book, which releases June 26th:
We know there are people who feel hopeless. We know that past trauma, depression, mental illness and lack of love can create a prison of despair. We know that there are people out there who don’t know that being happy or healed is a reality available to them.
We know that life is hard and unfair. We know that we don’t all start on a level playing field — and that some of us grow up with awful parents — or no parents. Some of us are born into poverty or abuse. Some people are predestined to struggle with debilitating mental illness — or simply feel things so deeply that life is hardly bearable.
We know it can take years, decades even, to even get started on a path to recovery, or even know that there is one. That’s how long it took Rick. Before he knew life could be happy. Before he knew he could forgive people from his past, or forgive himself or be loved fully and completely by a Father that would never leave him, unlike his biological father.
Rick was nearly 35 years old before the hope of a redemptive God took hold of his life. He’d been running away from God for so long. And finally, when he was at rock bottom with nothing else to hold onto, he fell into the arms the of the only One who could bring him peace. And he found it. He found the joy and happiness he didn’t know existed for him — and a life he never thought he’d have.
That’s why we are telling this story. Because we want other people to know that it’s possible for them to. Rick had to search for the right doctors, the right medication….he had to make hard decisions and get to his worst moment and finally, accept that his only hope for freedom was in Christ. And once he did that, everything changed.
It can change for you too. In reading “Leaving Cloud 9,” I pray you will find hope and truth. I hope you’ll see one person’s story as a template for overcoming. Whatever your past, you can prevail and it’s my prayer that you would.