MLB Star Tried to Take His Own Life, But God …
By Movieguide® Contributor
Editor’s note: This article addresses suicide. Reader discretion is advised.
World Series Champion and Fifteen year Major League Baseball player Jason Grimsley joined The 700 Club to share his story of almost losing his life, but finding God.
A few years after his World Series win, Grimsley found himself in a cabin surrounded by drugs and with a gun in his hand.
On August 15, 2015, Grimsley tried to take his own life.
At the time, Grimsley was high on cocaine, six bottles of vodka deep and had a pistol held against his left temple. Then, he pulled the trigger but nothing happened.
Grimsley told USA TODAY Sports, “I was waiting, but nothing happened. I guess I didn’t take off the safety feature.”
He added, “I didn’t have the (guts) to do it again. I just remember thinking, ‘I can’t even do that right.'”
In his book, “Cross Stitched,” Grimsley talks about his life, drugs, alcohol rehabs, mental institutions, performance-enhancing drug use, and his journey towards a better life.
In the book he said that “Hell is living a life not being able to participate in love.”
Grimsley described his inability to participate as “being in a room with friends and family laughing and loving each other” but still feeling like the “loneliest person in the world.”
“I felt that I was unworthy. Things that I’d done in my life, career, and marriage I just didn’t feel like I was deserving,” said Grimsley.
He added, “I think shame is where the devil actually traps us.”
However, what changed his life entirely was God.
“The guilt and shame that I had before was just multiplied because I’d felt His presence, I’d felt his love but I was ashamed of the fact that I was the same person that I always was. I’ve come to realize I am still that person but His grace and His salvation is a gift that is given to me and there’s nothing I can do that’ll separate me from His love.”
From then on, Grimsley felt called to share his story with the world to help people know they can make it just like he did.
“I told Dana [his wife], ‘I don’t want to be in the papers. I don’t want to be in the limelight. I’m just a redneck from East Texas,'” Grimsley expressed. “I had such a bad taste of life from a personal standpoint, I did not want to relive any of it. I just wanted to push it back and bury it. I didn’t want it to be about me. I didn’t see any purpose.
“But now that I look back, I want to point to the Lord and his grace and his salvation. There’s no reason I should be alive today. I should have died,” he added.
“Now I know why I’m here,” he concluded.
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