Drowning to Deliverance
Trigger Warning: This article contains sensitive topics such as self-harm and suicide, which readers may find distressing. Please take care while reading.
It was April of 2026. Dark waves of depression pressed down upon Raphael. He felt like he was drowning. The thought of ending his life became stronger as his phone buzzed with new messages. He hadn’t answered any friends back in a very long time. This season of life no longer felt like a season, but an endless void. Native to the Middle East, Raphael had formerly been a Muslim who encountered Jesus years ago, but that felt so long ago. He had served Jesus. He had worked in missions. But he no longer knew if God cared about him, or if He was even there. As he prepared to end it all, Raphael was struck with a thought. Maybe. Maybe he should try just one more time to reach out to the God that felt so far away, ‘Lord, I will give you another chance before I end my life,’ he prayed, unsure if anyone was listening. He then picked up his phone.
Raphael stared at the message from his friend, Ellie, that was urging him to come to a prayer meeting at the MAPS Global Middle East Missions Base. The prayer meeting was 50 hours of continuous prayer and worship. Remembering his prayer, Raphael texted Ellie back. He was going to go. He had to go.
Still under the heavy weight of depression, Raphael summoned the last of his strength and entered the prayer room at the Middle East Missions Base. As he was there, a team of missionaries and ministry school students surrounded him and began to pray earnestly over him. Slowly, Raphael began to feel as if he was being pulled from the depths of the water to the surface. As he broke through the surface, a new day of hope was shining brightly. Raphael began to weep. “I didn’t know that God would fight for me that much. He really wants me. I see that he fights for me,” Raphael exclaimed, as he wept. He was free.
Today, Raphael is a completely new person. He describes that moment as a major turning point in his life, a moment he has not looked back from. He now regularly attends the early morning worship sessions at the Middle East Missions Base and has grown in love and unity with the believers he met there. He now knows for certain that the God he once felt was so far away was there all along, fighting for him. In the Lord’s hands, he went from drowning to deliverance.