Two Words Changed Young Woman’s Life

“If I have to take pills, if I have to drink myself to death, if I have to tie a rope around a rail…let me just try something. I got to the darkest point in my life at that moment, and after that I just didn't want to stop trying to kill myself,” recalls Tammie.

For Tammie Granderson life had become unbearable and in her mind the only way to find peace would be to commit suicide. Tammie remembers the anxiety she felt as a young girl.

“I started to feel like I wasn't good enough, I wasn't pretty enough, I wasn't like the other girls. So, I got depressed. I got depressed to see those things happening around me. Even at a young age.”

Tammie’s mother Loretta, a Christian, noticed a change in her daughter and did the only thing she knew to do. Loretta recalls, “I started praying for her and talking to God, saying, 'She's not happy and something's not right with my child.'” In spite of her mother’s prayers, Tammie began cutting.

“I was like maybe it will make me feel some type of way,” says Tammie. “So I just started cutting. I kept cutting, kept cutting. And I just saw my arm and I said, ‘No, I can't keep doing this, I'm going to kill myself.’”

Tammie’s anxiety and depression continued throughout her teens and into her twenties. She believed independence would be the answer to her happiness. “I said, ‘Okay, I feel like if I just had an apartment, get out there on my own, maybe I'll start feeling a little better.’ I got an apartment and I was on my own.” Her independence only made things worse. Tammie began drinking, which increased her anxiety and depression.

“I just wanted to feel something,” Tammie recalls. “So I was just drinking and drinking and drinking and I would just sleep all day. I started getting really skinny, really sick. I wasn't eating. I wasn't sleeping. I wasn't even taking care of myself.”

One day in 2016 Loretta saw something disturbing in her daughter’s face. “I could see, you know, the Devil trying to steal my child,” says Loretta. “I could see that look in her eyes. And I said, ‘No, Satan, you are not going to take my child.’ I said, ‘I bind you. You take your hand off of my child. My child is healed.’ And I started praying. I just started praying to the Lord.”

Tammie says, “I got to the darkest point in my life. I took a whole bottle of pills and I swallowed most of them. They didn't even do anything to me. I thought, ‘Why is this not working?’ I was just sitting on the floor. And I was crying. I was so tired. I felt so drained.”  

Tammie recalls, “And then I heard a voice. The voice was so strong. It told me to 'get up.' I knew it was God. It was so deep, it moved me so much that I got up and I opened the curtains. I never did that before. I never let the light come into my room. I knew that God could heal me, but I was too stuck in my own way. I was too stuck in darkness. I said, ‘I'm ready to go forward. I'm ready to stop living in the past. I'm ready to stop being in my own way.’ There was something in those two words that made me want to not end my life. It made me want to survive and live for God and come out here into the world and help people, and tell them about what God can do if you just turn your life around to Him.”

Tammie knew her mother’s prayers had been heard, even in her darkest moments. “She was over there praying for me, and I knew that He heard her. Her prayers went up to Heaven like an altar. He heard it and He came and saved her daughter.”

Loretta noticed an immediate change. Loretta says, “She was just talking about God. ‘I want to do this. I want to save people.’ And I was listening, thinking, ‘God, you did it! You answered my prayer.’ And I said, ‘You saved my child. You gave her back to me.’"

Tammie says, “I would get into the Word and I said, ‘Ma, I want to read the Bible with you.’ I started reading with her every day. Oh, I've changed so much. I just want to help people. Back then, I used to be so selfish. I used to be so selfish by myself. Now today I just want to help people. I just want to love others, get the Word out there.”

Today, Tammie loves sharing her faith and has a message for those struggling with anxiety and depression.

“Never stop trying to get to God. Because God is never going to stop trying to get to you. He loves you so much. He gave His only son to die for you on the cross. He cares about you and I want you to keep fighting. Never give up. Keep God first in your life. Open your heart to Him, because He wants to help you. He is there for you at the door, waiting on you to open up to Him.”