Jimmy's Story

Jimmy says he was living like most people: working, looking forward to the weekends, drinking a little. But he felt empty inside. And something worse lay just below the surface. "I didn't realize it at the time," he says, "but I had lost my sense of reality and felt hopeless."*

One frigid winter night, Jimmy wandered shoeless down the middle of the freeway, gripped in a psychotic episode. "I thought I was literally in hell," he remembers. "I prayed to God to save me and soon after, I was picked up and taken to the hospital." There, Jimmy was treated for frostbite, but the effects of his mental illness were harder to overcome.

Jimmy moved in with his mother. "It was one of the hardest periods of my life. I was lost, clinically depressed." Then his mother decided to move out of state and Jimmy needed a new place to live. His mother suggested Hope Gospel Mission might be a good place to live and get well and helped him explore the possibility.

"I could barely speak," Jimmy says of his early days at the Mission. "But God has been healing me, and I give Him glory and praise for that."*

The Renewed Hope program gave Jimmy much-needed structure. He enjoyed the Hope Learning Center. "It helped me work on things that held me back, how I interact with people. I'm learning to trust again."

Far from that night when he thought he was in hell, Jimmy says, "Being in a community of men who are focused on God, who intentionally encourage one another, is like a dose of heaven! I feel God's spirit in this place. At the end of the day, it's really a good life."

For the first time in years, Jimmy feels stable and healthy. He undergoes treatment for his mental illness and no longer suffers from delusions. "I'm in a really good place now, and I'm getting better every day. I prayed for my sanity to come back, and my prayer was answered," he says.

Asked what message he had for friends like you who support Hope Gospel Mission, Jimmy says, "Sometimes when I pray, I don't have the words. I feel like that now, but I just want to say thank you and God bless you!"