I was drowning in depression. It was a clear and sunny afternoon as I drove the 125-mile stretch of interstate from a meeting in Detroit back to my office in Grand Rapids, Michigan. At 80 miles per hour, I approached a bridge overpass just west of Lansing, the state’s capital. I had decided that the pain of failing as a dad and the judgement, embarrassment, and uncomfortable silence of so many friends and family members was more than I could handle. The bridge was approaching fast, and the expansion joints in the concrete highway made a slapping sound on the tires like a rapid heartbeat. As the shadow of the bridge closed in, I was within a millisecond of ending it all when I jerked the wheel back straight and aborted the collision. Having nearly scared myself to death, I pulled over on the side of the highway. My whole body was shaking as I realized how close I had come to doing the dumbest thing ever. I immediately called my physician, who agreed to see me at once…
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Isn’t it funny how oblivious we can be to some very obvious things in our lives?
For the first 28 years of my life I thought that I was invincible. I was the guy who raced my Mustang through the neighborhood, and would ride my motorcycle 100 miles per hour down the highway. I thought I was completely in control of everything. But then my wife Lynn had a miscarriage and we lost our first child. I started to question if there really was a God.
As an adolescent, my son Greg Jr. and I would frequently have conflicts and in most cases, it was always over the same issue, follow-through. It could be forgetting to cut the lawn, pick up his room, forgetting his homework etc. At some point, I convinced myself that it was plain and simple rebellion on Greg’s behalf. It seemed if I wanted something done Greg was determined that he wasn’t going to do it. I remember my temper flying with raised voice and Greg growing increasingly quiet. My confrontations were placing a big wedge in our relationship.
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