Being shot and left for dead at 18 years old, and later on the brink of suicide in his mid-20s, author and speaker Rashawn Copeland ministers to people of all ages that because God found him in his mess, God can find you in your mess and bring you out of it.

PEER: What led you to write your book, “Start Where You Are”?

RASHAWN: Well, after I came to Christ, I realized how lonely again I was and how empty I felt, despite my outward success. You know, I was “Hypeman” and doing some acting things, I was big on Vine, my social media platform was exploding but despite that success, I was sorrowful and broken and hurting on the inside and all that pain sort of propelled me to the cross. I found Christ and I came back to Oklahoma. When I got here, the Lord led me into a prison ministry and that was the launching pad for my ministry.

But here’s what blew my mind: when I got around prisoners, everything from the young lady who was the cheerleader who just got the DUI after a game to the guy who’s on the 11th floor, disciplinary segregation for murder and looking at a life sentence and potentially, a death sentence—I would talk to them about their relationship with God because these were those vulnerable moments. I actually shared my faith and they would actually listen because they didn’t have anything else better to do while they’re in the cell, right?

So, here’s what that common response would be: I will maybe clean myself up or maybe when I get myself together, I’ll come to God. But that contradicts the message of the Bible. The Bible tells us how Jesus didn’t come for the healthy—He came for the sick and those who need a doctor. I wanted this message to be something where we don’t become, sort of, legalist but we can become a grace-driven Christian by entrusting ourselves to the perfection of Christ and knowing our Father is enough. Better than measuring our own merits and also trying to satisfy and become our own sort of perfection and our own God in this world.

So, my heart was that the message of the Gospel would bring hearts that are far from God closer to Him—God loves people who love Jesus. I spent a lot of time in prison ministry sharing that message. God hires unlikely people to do his work and we look throughout the Bible, you see like Noah was a drunk, Abraham was a liar, Isaac was a daydreamer, Jacob was a deceiver. All these guys, who have the most imperfect resumes, were the guys that God chose. We don’t choose that way as human beings; we look for flawless resumes, but it is God who looks at the blemishes and gaps. That’s that idea. He looks for the people who don’t have it together. So that’s good news for somebody.

P: What do you hope that readers will take from your book?

R: So, my main message I would say is that again, no matter how far you are from Him, one, He meets you in your mess—not to keep you there. Not to just keep you there but to love you through it to lead you out of it. And so, you can meet others in their mess and love them through what they’re going through, not to keep them there, but to speak in truth in love, and discipling them love them and walk with them.

P: How did God find you in your mess?

R: Yeah. So, years ago, I thought my start was going to be at the University of Nebraska where I had the scholarship to play football. However, days before I was gonna sign that letter of intent to college and go play big-time college ball, I ended up one night going to a park after dark hanging out with this young lady who unbeknownst to me had an ex-boyfriend that was from Chicago that was coming down to meet her and I didn’t know that. But needless to say, he found out that I was with her. So, this guy starts calling her phone and me being a prideful egotistical high school football player, future college football “star,” I grabbed her phone and I answer it and I say, “Hello. Hello.” And there was a guy on the other side of the phone, which was her ex-boyfriend and he said, “Where you at? Where you at? Why you with my girl?” I unwisely told him where I was. I guess that was terrible, but he ends up coming by where we were 10 minutes later, a van pulls in and then five guys jumped out the car, walk towards us and me, I fearfully get out of the car.

So, I’m walking towards these guys and my heart’s beating out of my chest; my mind was just everywhere. I’m all over the place and I’m confused about what’s happening, but I still walk up toward these guys, and out of nowhere this guy reaches for his waistband. He grabs something. He waves it in there. It was a pistol and my heart dropped to the bottom of my stomach. I turn it. I run. I was scared. I was frantic. He stands over me and boom, boom­—two gunshots and he shot me down. All of a sudden it became real to me like I was on the brink of eternity. I was literally about to lose my life, at least it felt like it. And I was scared out of my mind. I was weaving in and out of consciousness. I was sweating profusely. I looked down on the cold cement and as I’m finally in this dark place where there’s no help. No one was there. My coaches weren’t there. My friends weren’t there. My family members weren’t there. The girl that I pretty much got in this predicament with wasn’t there. No one was there.

But here’s what was beautiful: to my surprise, God was there, and He met me there. I love what Psalm 40 said, it said, “As he waited patiently, David, he cried out to the Lord, he waited patiently for the Lord and the Lord heard his cry. He set his foot upon a rock. He gave him a firm place to stand. He picked him up out of the mud and mire,” and I felt that’s what God did for me that night because I was supposed to die there that night. And I didn’t want to die there that night but by the grace of God, He saved me and I’m so grateful for that moment because that was sort of the thing that opened my eyes up to this eternity. Well, this sense of, hey, I could have died that night and I was not worthy of the life that I was given. But God—He saved me, and then from there that started my relationship with the Lord. That’s how He met me in my mess but later on, He loved me through my mess and the bout of depression after I drifted from Him.

I was like the prodigal child—I went out to LA. I was suicidal one night because again, I was far from God again, but He got me for good. One night, I was getting ready to take my life. I was on the brink—I was going to take my life because I just didn’t consider it worth it anymore. And one night, I was getting ready to take my life and I was scared out of my mind, but by the grace of God, someone reached out, in that moment, that same night in my deepest darkest wound and someone reached out through a cellphone. The only Christian group I was following sent a post that said, “Oh, how wide? How deep? How vast the love of God is? And nothing in all creation can separate us from this love that is found in Christ Jesus.” And when I was reading, reading, I began weeping and weeping and I kept reading that verse over and over again, and I just thought it was amazing because that was the only Christian group I was following. In my deepest darkest wound, I was able to see the glory of God through that message and it dazzled me, and it changed everything.

And then yeah, I repented before the Lord. I cried out to Him. I asked Him to change me, and I end up packing up and leaving. The next morning, I found a Bible underneath my bed I never have seen before which was crazy in and of itself. I crack open this Bible that was underneath my bed that I had this utterance, this prompting to look under my bed and I have seen it but when I cracked it open, of course, the letters that stood out were those red letters that Jesus wrote and I didn’t realize it was Jesus at that point. But when I cracked it open, I began to read these words, He said, “He that wants to keep his life must lose it but he that loses his life for my name’s sake, shall gain it.” And then this is what really blew my mind. Immediately after that, it says, “Oh, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world but yet lose his soul.” That whole time I was pursuing my own plan, my own life, my own passions, my own desires. I was a fun-lover and I have the mentality—life is short and play hard. But in that moment, God’s purpose prevailed over my plans when He showed me the words of Jesus whenever He told me my soul was dwindling away at the hands of me trying to pursue my own plan.

So that changed everything for me, and I plant myself at the foot of the cross and I ask for God’s forgiveness and took a long bus ride back to Oklahoma City that same night with that Bible. As a matter of fact, the Bible is the number one stolen book in the world, and I stole the Bible that night. Yeah, and then I finally got home, I ended up in a church. And yeah, laid on my brother’s floor for a long time.

P: What advice do you have for those who are struggling with depression but also trying to maintain a relationship with God?

R: Depression is a bully and I think at the end of the day, we remember to not trust our own thoughts or trust even ourselves a lot of the time and go back to the truth of God’s word and really solidifying His truth in our hearts and remembering that our bad days don’t define us. I think those are some of the key things. I think one thing that really speaks to me is 2 Corinthians 5:21; pretty much our lives are defined by who God says we are, which is the righteousness of Christ was perfect in Him.

And I don’t have a perfect answer that will protect you or anyone else from this horrible darkness, but I do know one thing is that God and what He says in His Word to be true. Even during our difficult days, we’re completely fine with acknowledging when we’re not okay, and I think it’s important that we know that pretending to be joyful, like in these seasons, isn’t the answer. Pretending to have it all together isn’t the answer and I think this is why so important if we could truly just come to God in prayer and I’m just not saying that we don’t need therapists—like we need therapists, we need counselors, we need a community.

P: How do you remain positive especially in unknown times such as this?

R: A lot of times it comes back to discipline thinking for me, you know, not filthy thinking but filtered thinking. Think about things like Paul said in Philippians 4:8, Paul says, “Think about things that are pure, that are good, that are holy, that are admirable, anything that is praiseworthy. Think on these things and the God of peace will be with us.”

P: What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve been given?

R: Cool. Okay, but the best piece of advice that I’ve been given that is like at the forefront of my brain and heart is: Keep your hands wide open. Don’t hold on to anything too tight. And also, because anything can be taken at any moment, you know? That we have besides what we’ve been given in him, in God.

P: What’s your favorite Bible verse?

R: What’s been a really good, solid place that I always run back to is Psalm 1.