His Perfect Family Fell Apart, Until God Closed the Gap

“I was just so mad about it,” He spoke. “So angry…so much resentment that he was gone, that I didn't have time to adjust to it…it was just thrown upon me.” Anderson Reign was 12 years old when his once tight knit family was torn apart. His dad had been convicted of a white-collar crime and would spend the next five years in prison. “It really, really rocked my world. I can pinpoint that as a moment where a lot of things turned.” Anderson stated. “There wasn't a lot of joy that I felt in my household. My mom didn't have joy. My brother and I didn't have joy... it was hard.” He coped the best he could, but by 17, he started drinking and smoking weed.  “I just felt lost.” He spoke. “I had a lot of pain, and I didn't know how to address it. So, I tried every worldly band aid I possibly could that would make me feel a little different than how I felt when I was just sober and had to sit in my own skin and sit in my own thoughts.” By the time his dad was released years later, Anderson was on his own working at a casino in Vegas. Although the two made amends, Anderson was now on the verge of becoming a full-blown alcoholic.  “If I have to admit the truth, I felt like I needed the drink…it wasn't just I wanted to…whether I was at home or I was at work, I would drink,” He explained. 

Then, his girlfriend got pregnant. Shortly after the baby came, she took a trip to the grocery store and never returned. “The feelings of abandonment, the feelings of somebody that you're doing life with, that you're relying on, that you love, and you care about is gone.” He explained. “It definitely took me back to, to those moments and some of the stuff when I was younger.” Now a single dad, he started working at the nightclubs in Vegas. Although it brought in more money, it made his drinking problem worse. “Always trying to fill that void and fill that hole and feel better about it for just a little while more so you just can forget about things.” Anderson admits. “It puts it out of your mind a little bit because you're not focusing on it.” 

A few years later, history would repeat itself.  Anderson had two more children with a different girlfriend. One night he came home to find she had left, leaving their two children with him. “And it is just like, again and again, it's this, this same theme in life…like how many times is this going to happen to me?” He questioned. “How many times are people going to leave?” That would send Anderson even deeper into depression. At 31, after a violent argument with yet another girlfriend, he went into the bathroom and slit his wrist. “I was in a dark enough spot that I was lost enough, depressed enough and down and out enough, and just feeling unloved enough that it… felt like that was the best option.” When he finally came out of the bathroom covered in blood, Anderson found police in his living room who had responded to his girlfriend’s 911 call. They rushed him to the hospital. “I remember there's like the bright lights on the ceiling,” He described. “and they're working on my arm and I just let out a heartrending soul cry to God saying ‘God, I'm sorry…please forgive me…please save me. My kids need me…don't let me go.’” “In that moment, I went from freezing cold and shivering to just feeling warm, and I hear this still small voice saying, ‘I'm here, my son.’” 

After he surrended his life to Christ, Anderson stopped drinking and began attending church. Eventually, he met and married Brittany, a woman he knew wouldn’t leave him. Today, he’s a youth pastor in Oklahoma and has become an example to his four children and baby on the way. He’s on a mission to help other young people come closer to Jesus and find their hope in him. “God is love.” He said. “Let him show you. The loving nature of a faithful God who will never let you go, whose image you were made in, who wants nothing but good things for you in your life, in spite of our trials that we face. If you would choose Him, you can have everything you need to be okay to be good in any season of life, no matter what's going on.”