He Was Contemplating Suicide in a Cheap Hotel Room | Cash's Story

https://youtu.be/NhRO5X_uNzM?si=z5HICxZQw0Lyxljj

Cash is 54 and was raised by a single mother. Anxiety and depression followed him through his teenage years, and alcohol became the way he coped, numbing the problems that never actually went away.

In his early 20s, Cash landed a job at a print shop and stayed there for 28 years. But alcohol steadily ruined every relationship in his life, including with his two kids. Eventually it cost him the job too. In 2021, he spent 30 days in the hospital. He took a job at a different company for roughly half his previous pay, and because he never stopped drinking, he stopped paying his bills and lost his apartment. He became homeless, living out of his vehicle with no sense of hope left.

The Night He Almost Ended It

Once or twice a week, Cash would stay at a cheap hotel near work just to clean up. One night, after getting cleaned up and having a drink, he found himself thinking things were never going to get better than this. He contemplated taking his own life. He didn't.

He went back to work the next day. His plant manager, who also sat on the board of directors for Teen Challenge, had mentioned the program to him a few times already. That morning, Cash finally said he was ready.

Coming In for the Wrong Reasons

Cash is honest that he arrived at Western Michigan Adult & Teen Challenge (WMATC) for reasons that had nothing to do with faith. He wanted to get sober, quit smoking and drinking, and get his life back on track; building a relationship with God wasn't part of the plan. It happened anyway, along the way, which he describes as simply how God works.

Valentine's Day

In January, Cash had surgery for a hernia he'd been carrying for two years, roughly the size of a baseball. Around the same time, he reconnected with his mother by phone for the first time in four months since entering the program.

On February 14th, Valentine's Day, he stepped out of chapel and was told to call his uncle. His mother was in the hospital in Grand Rapids, dying. She passed away three days later.

That loss became Cash's real turning point. He'd grown up without religion in the house; his mother had a difficult experience with a Catholic church as a child, so faith was never part of their home life. With no other option in that moment, Cash turned to God, and God carried him through it. He was allowed to leave the program to be with her, and he spent that final weekend at her bedside. She opened her eyes only once. Cash told her it was never about religion. It was about a relationship with God.

Watching the Ripple Effects

Since that weekend, Cash describes God working steadily through his life. He was able to travel back to watch his son graduate and see firsthand the changes his son had witnessed in him. Later, during a separate three day hospital stay in Muskegon, his son called him on the last day and asked what he needed to do to get into Teen Challenge himself, having seen what the program had done for his father.

A Different Kind of Care

Cash contrasts his experience calling WMATC with an earlier call he'd made to a suicide hotline, where the first question he was asked was about his insurance. At WMATC, he could call and simply talk, to interns, to Pastor Josh, to anyone who picked up, without being asked what he had to offer first.

Having grown up with only one brother and one sister, both a decade older, Cash never had close sibling relationships. Being surrounded by roughly 30 brothers in the program took adjustment, but he says he wouldn't trade the relationships he's built there for anything.

The People God Used

Looking back, Cash can trace a clear chain of people God used to bring him to WMATC. A cousin he used to party with had found his own relationship with God and spent nearly two years inviting Cash to church before Cash finally agreed to go. His plant manager was another link in that chain. During his own time at WMATC, Cash became a vessel in the same way, watching family and close friends struggle to believe the change they were seeing in him, and ultimately helping lead his own son toward the program.

Learning to Pray

Cash wasn't a praying man before WMATC; it was something he had to learn, like anything else. The shift happened overnight in the hospital with his mother, unable to sleep on a small couch, when he describes the Holy Spirit speaking to him directly and telling him to get down on his knees. He did, and prayer has been a steady part of his life since.

He'd carried a Bible home from church with his cousin for four months without ever opening it outside those walls. He describes discovering the actual power of Scripture only once he engaged with it seriously at WMATC.

What Comes Next

As his time at WMATC wraps up, Cash plans to stay on through the transition program before reentering the world, something he's genuinely excited about now that he has hope again. He'd like to reach others through work, the one thing he's always known, and hopes to someday marry a Christian woman. He describes God now present in every part of his life, from waking up to lying down at night, and says he's no longer shackled by the addiction that once controlled him.

His message to anyone watching who feels hopeless: there is hope for you, there is hope for everybody, and his name is Jesus.

Why Cash's Story Matters

For donors, Cash's story is proof that this ministry can reach someone at the lowest possible point, homeless, suicidal, and completely without faith, and produce a chain reaction that eventually brings his own son through the same doors.

For prospective students and families, especially those who came in only wanting sobriety, not faith, Cash's story shows that arriving for the wrong reasons doesn't disqualify someone from real transformation.

For the WMATC community, his story of losing his mother mid-program, and choosing to turn toward God rather than away, is a powerful picture of grace meeting grief.

If someone you love feels like there's no hope left, there is, and his name is Jesus.

Get Help

Help make stories like Cash's possible. 

Donate Now