I was on my way to our son’s baseball game. It was a lovely summer evening, bright and sunny. One of my clients had been on my mind off and on throughout the day, and by the time I got to the field it was beginning to nag at me. Just pestering in the back of my mind. I happened to have my work bag in the car with me, which had the woman’s phone number in it. So after I pulled into a parking space at the field, I dug through my bag for her phone number, and called from my cell phone. Just to check in before I headed out to watch the game.
She didn’t answer, so I had started to leave a message saying that I just had her on my mind and thought I’d check in. Midway through the message she picked up the phone. I explained that she had been on my mind and I thought I’d just check in. I knew that her husband was out of town that week, and she had been really struggling with some heavy depression. I wasn’t particularly worried about her. I just had her on my mind, so I thought I’d check in.
She was quiet for a second. Then said, “Wow, interesting timing.”
I thought that was an odd response.
She went on to say that she was doing okay, that her son was home from college for the summer, and her husband was due home tomorrow. We visited for a few more minutes, and she said again that the timing of my call was interesting. That concerned me a little. But I didn’t pick up on anything else concerning during the conversation. After a few minutes I said I had better get going to watch the baseball game, and that I might call again tomorrow just to check in. She thanked me for calling, and we each hung up.
I was out of town the following week, so it wasn’t until Tuesday of the second week that I saw her.
She came into the office smiling. We greeted each other, and I asked how things had been going since we’d last talked.
She said things had been okay. “But first I need to tell you about the phone call that changed the rest of my life.”
I sat back as she started to talk. She told me that her psychiatrist had changed her medications, again. I had known that. She said that it didn’t seem to help the depression much at all. And that the day I had called her, two weeks earlier, she had been battling suicide for over six hours.
“It was really interesting,” she explained, “one by one, each of the barricades that I had always thought would keep me from ever killing myself, fell.”
She described how in her mind she could envision her husband remarried to a beautiful, educated, intelligent woman. She could see her son sitting down, holding the new woman’s hands and sobbing. In her mind, the new woman was saying all the right things, and she knew that her son would find healing. One by one, she said, every single reason that normally would have prevented her from suicide, dropped away. She said that she had never before understood how anyone could actually make the decision to kill themselves. That it had always seemed “like such a selfish thing to do.” But for the first time in her life, she could understand it.
“Because by that time they have themselves convinced, or something has them convinced, that everyone they love would be better off if they were out of the picture. They’re convinced that this is the best thing they could do for their loved ones.”
She went on to explain the progression of her thoughts that day. The plan that had formulated in her mind. The details set out so that she had wrapped up as many loose ends as she could ahead of time. The method she had chosen as it wouldn’t be “as messy” as other methods.
I sat listening. My heart beating a little faster than normal.
“It’s a silly image, but you know in old western movies how the cowboy would be sitting around a blazing fire out in the wilds. And as long as that fire blazes, the wolves stay at a distance?”
I nodded, in rapt attention. Reminding myself to breathe.
“Well I was that cowboy. And the wolves were circling. But I’d run out of firewood. And my fire was burning lower and lower. And all I could do was sit there watching the embers slowly burn out. And all the while, I could hear the wolves circling closer and closer. I could actually hear them, howling and kind of whispering.”
“And they lie,” I interjected quietly. “The wolves lie.”
She looked at me for a second and then nodded.
“Yes,” she agreed, “the wolves lie. So I had decided to get everything ready.”
She described her day. How she had decided to call 911 right before she carried out her suicide plan so that emergency responders would find her body. She didn’t want her son coming home and finding her.
“And just as I was about ready, the phone rings. I was so out of it by then, and so focused on what I was doing, I heard it but it was like it wasn’t really there. And then I heard your voice on the answering machine.”
Her voice waivered for a second and she paused.
I was stunned. I reminded myself to take another breath, and swallowed a couple of times.
“So we talked for a couple minutes and when I hung up the phone there was this sense of peace.” She paused for a moment, and shook her head slowly. “It was like all the sudden, another cowboy had come walking through the dark and dropped a big load of firewood next to what remained of my fire. The fire started blazing again. And it pushed the wolves back away. And there was just a sense of peace.”
She paused again, staring into an empty space. And I wiped at my tears.
“And all the sudden I knew,” she continued quietly. “I knew that God cared enough about me to send another cowboy with a load of firewood.”
We sat silently then for a few seconds. Then she added, “So thank you.”
I nodded, looking at her. I managed to say something, and then clarified that all I had done was to make a five-minute phone call. That I hadn’t had any urgency about it, or any great counselor insight that she just might be suicidal. I explained that even while we were talking on the phone I hadn’t picked up anything concerning, other than her reference that this was “interesting timing.” I said again that I had had her on my mind so I thought I’d just check in, and I had just happened to have my work bag with her phone number in it on the seat next to me in the car. I hadn’t done anything spectacular.
We sat together, absorbing the whole experience.
I was overwhelmingly humbled. Awed by the assurance that God had spoken to me. And that my heart had heard. And even two weeks later, sitting together in the office, I felt as if God Himself were standing in that little room with us, smiling at us, and saying, “Well done.” Because just this once, we had defeated the wolves.
I put my head down. And the two of us continued to sit in silence.
“We have a gracious God,” she said.
“Yes we do,” I agreed.
I told her I liked the image of the cowboy in the wilds with the fire dying out and the wolves circling closer and closer. I said that I didn’t know many people who haven’t at some point in life felt like that cowboy. I could remember several specific times in my life when that was me. And that I liked the image of another cowboy showing up, walking straight through the wolves and the darkness, to drop off a load of firewood.
She nodded in agreement.
Later, as I walked out to my car, the tears came freely. I sat in the car for a few minutes thanking God for putting her on my mind that evening two weeks ago. And for keeping her on my mind until I finally gave in and called her. I thanked God for keeping her safe. For pushing the wolves back. For being ever present. I thanked Him for being such a gracious God. God who is above all else. And I thanked Him for letting me be a cowboy. Who got to haul a load of firewood.
penniesonmypath 