{"id":6192,"date":"2023-03-30T10:38:48","date_gmt":"2023-03-30T14:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=6192"},"modified":"2023-04-04T12:10:36","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T16:10:36","slug":"former-mlb-pitcher-says-a-suicide-attempt-led-him-to-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2023\/03\/former-mlb-pitcher-says-a-suicide-attempt-led-him-to-jesus.html","title":{"rendered":"Former MLB Pitcher Says a Suicide Attempt Led Him to Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_6246\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6246\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-6246\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2023\/03\/baseball-player-sunset_credit-lightstock-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"768\" height=\"576\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-6246\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lightstock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Former Major League Baseball relief pitcher Jason Grimsley says a failed suicide attempt led him to dedicate his life to Jesus. Grimsley, who pitched for six teams from 1989 to 2006, recently released his first memoir, &#8220;Cross Stitched: One Man&#8217;s Journey From Ruin to Restoration,&#8221; which shows glimpses of his early life, his baseball career, and his redemption in God.<\/p>\n<p>In a video interview with The Christian Post, Grimsley shared, &#8220;I was saved in 1999, the first year I joined the New York Yankees, and one of the best years of my life. I was really on fire. In fact, my wife even said, &#8216;Honey, you&#8217;re spending too much time with God and not enough time with me.&#8217; I was just reading. I was into it, and I was living it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.goodmorningamerica.com\/video\/embed\/97912326\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The former pitcher said his faith was an explosion of fire inside him. That same year, he had a fantastic season with the Yankees as they won the World Series. He recalled, &#8220;All of a sudden, it started being, &#8216;Oh look what I did,&#8217; it became me. Pride ego started creeping back into my life, and that began to slowly fall away, getting back into being selfish, being about me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Grimsley said he reverted to that dangerous lifestyle that came with success and fame until everything came to a head in 2015. He explained, &#8220;It all culminated in 2015. I ended up out in the woods with a gun to my head, pulling the trigger, and it not going off.&#8221; His life story and everything until that point weren&#8217;t what he envisioned. Hopelessness led him to a suicide attempt.<\/p>\n<p>He continued, &#8220;Basically, walking away from something that I dearly love added to the demons that I was battling. In the book, I describe it as being both the prodigal son, and I was the son that felt like he had earned everything and he had done everything right. Instead of being on fire for God, I feel God took me by the hand and said, &#8216;OK, I&#8217;m going to walk you through this at my pace. And I&#8217;m going to show you there&#8217;s nothing you can do to earn my love. I love you. And this is a relationship, and we&#8217;re just going to walk this together.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Texas native also said his wife&#8217;s grace through everything showed God&#8217;s love for him. He shared, &#8220;My wife, the grace she showed me in coming to me and said, &#8216;Hey, I love you. I forgive you. God forgives you, now you got to forgive yourself, and that grace opened up the grace that the Lord has for me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s what inspired him to dedicate his life entirely to Christ.\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Cross-Stitched-Mans-Journey-Restoration\/dp\/1957616024\">Cross Stitched<\/a><\/em>\u00a0shares Grimsley&#8217;s journey and is available everywhere books are sold.\u00a0\u00a0Proceeds from the book will benefit\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/emerginggrace.org\/\">Emerging Grace Ministries<\/a>\u00a0in their ongoing efforts to help eradicate adolescent sex trafficking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Major League Baseball relief pitcher Jason Grimsley says a failed suicide attempt led him to dedicate his life to Jesus. Grimsley, who pitched for six teams from 1989 to 2006, recently released his first memoir, &#8220;Cross Stitched: One Man&#8217;s Journey From Ruin to Restoration,&#8221; which shows glimpses of his early life, his baseball career,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":657,"featured_media":6246,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,549],"tags":[1593,80,1596],"class_list":["post-6192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-miracle","tag-jason-grimsley","tag-jesus","tag-suicide-attempt"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Former MLB Pitcher Says a Suicide Attempt Led Him to Jesus<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Former Yankees relief pitcher Jason Grimsley recently shared how a failied 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