So we're having so much fun here at the NRB 2020.
And, you know, it's never a dull moment, really, as God brings person after person with amazing passions to build the kingdom. How about a sergeant? Sergeant Mike McGraw is now with us. And, you know, he's written a book called A Call to Higher Duty. And so when it says Sergeant Mike McGraw, I've probably said that wrong to begin with, but sergeant, a sergeant of the police or a sergeant? Yeah, a sergeant with the Santa Barbara Police Department.
I was there for 31 years out in Santa Barbara, California. Wow. And you didn't get to be a sergeant without first doing a lot of other stuff. I bet. And so, but at some point you got a higher call.
I did. I started that career 34 years ago. And when I became a cop, you know, there was, it was a different time, different era. And we had a lot of Vietnam vets who were senior officers. And I think they paid the price in post-traumatic stress injuries. And, you know, so the culture back then was, hey, you're getting a paycheck, you know, it's a tough job, so just suck it up.
And so you do, you know, until you can't. And I didn't know the Lord for the first 20 years of my career. And I worked major crimes. I worked homicides, robberies, stabbings, shootings, the gang stuff.
Also sex crimes, rapes, and child molests as well. So I saw the worst of the worst if I had a job that was very demanding. I wasn't home a lot because of the work. You know, when you're chasing down murder suspects, the stakes are high. And in my own personal life, you know, things began to unravel. And, you know, you think we're tough until you realize that, you know, we're there for other people. And the cops are good in the fight. You know, we're there to serve and they do a great job. But it's when the job stops, you know, at the end of the day, what happens.
And I think that's where the attack is on first responders. My youngest son was 12 years old. He was diagnosed with bone cancer and he lost his left leg. And we spent about 200 days a year in the hospital doing chemo treatments. And, you know, my world was turned upside down then because here I was, somebody who was always in charge, you know, handling the problems for other people. And now I was facing something that I had no control over.
But at the same time, my older son became involved in drugs and developed a very bad drug addiction. And so I was fighting a fight on several fronts. Around the same time as all this, I lost a second marriage. And so I was in a pretty dark place. And I met my current wife and she saw where I was. She saw that I was in a dark place, but she loves the Lord. And her first date, she took me to a Chris Tomlin concert.
Yeah. And I had no idea what I was getting into, you know. So I walked into this place at the Santa Barbara County Bowl. There's 5,000 people there.
It's a beautiful place. Chris Tomlin was playing and then Louie Giglio came out. He was the pastor touring with him. And he gave a message that just hit me right between the eyes. I was hit so hard by that, you know. And he went down the list of, you know, is there anybody out there in the audience who has. And then, bam, it was just, you know, in a hopeless place, in a dark place, you know, feels like everything's out of control. He went down and I checked every box that he was talking about in my own life.
And that struck me so hard that I hung on to that for a night. And the next day, I reached out to my cousin who is also a police officer. But he was raised as a Christian. Their family raised him as a Christian. So he knew God. And he had been praying for me for a lot of years, you know. So he saw me going through all these struggles and the things happening in my life, you know. And his name is Dan. I said, Dan, could you tell me about Jesus? And he just smiled and said, yeah, I've been waiting for this day.
I've been praying for this, you know. And it was that day that I gave my life to Christ. I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
You know, the mustard seed was planted. And I started with, you know, it wasn't an overnight, you know, everything got better. But, you know, I started praying. And I just, I prayed a lot about more faith, you know. I just wanted to have more faith, more faith. And God did that.
It was a gift from the Lord. And he just poured that out on me. And I couldn't get enough. Then all of a sudden I couldn't get enough of the word.
I couldn't get enough of being around, you know, fellowship and home groups. And just, you know, I was, my heart was just set on fire for the Lord. And my first prayers were a little selfish. They were, you know, hey God, can you get me out of this?
Can you get me out of that? And he did. But I quickly learned that it wasn't about me. It was about serving Him. And then that's when the blessings really started to happen, you know, when I was in that place of service and just wanting to serve Him.
So my job changed then because no longer was I a cop answering a 911 call. You know, I was somebody that I knew God was putting me in these other people's lives and the traumatic, probably the worst thing that ever happened to them, you know. And I was there to bring His presence and His comfort. And when I looked at it that way, it was just, you know, it was really amazing. And, you know, because of my own testimony and my own experiences, I was able to relate to people, you know, but also testify about God's strength in my own life. My youngest son fought the cancer for six years and it was a few years after I received the Lord. He was 18 and he ended up committing suicide. And, you know, that was probably the hardest hit I ever had. It's the hardest hit a parent can have, I think. And, but God was right there for me. You know, God. So, can we talk about that a second, since I actually have a little of that in my own history.
Okay. That in itself is trauma as a parent because you go to bed every night not knowing what might be coming tomorrow. And so, was there a threat of suicide prior to the actual suicide attempt? You know, I think there was talk about it. You know, we had them in a therapist. I mean, because of the cancer. You know, cancer kids are very special kids.
They're very strong, but they've been through a lot. And, you know, there was some talk about it before, but it wasn't anything, you know, it was more like, I don't feel like being here or something like that. But, but about two weeks before it happened, I know I can look back there and see that he was getting everything prepared. Started cleaning his room up and he started doing a bunch of things. And the last night, you know, I saw him. I was at the hospital. We were at a meeting at the hospital and he wanted to go talk to the pediatric nurses.
They became a big part of our family, you know. So, he was saying goodbye to everybody. So, I can see if I look back on it, yeah, there were signs, you know, right in the middle of it. You know, it took me off guard. I didn't know what happened. But, and that day I was working, I was working patrol and they were trying to get a hold of me and told me to call into the watch commanders and, you know, report in there. They were trying to be nice because the call had come in.
My first wife was, she was living with my first wife at the time in the city. And so, I went into the watch commander's office and he wasn't there and I asked one of the officers, he said, hey, where's the watch commander? He said, oh, he's over at a dead 18-year-old's house over at this address.
And I knew that was my son's address. So, I went over there and there was a sea of blue. There were just officers lined up, you know, they were just standing there. You know, nobody had a word for me. Nobody could, you know, it's hard to say anything at that time, but their presence was very important to me. And I went in and my son was lying on the ground.
You know, I held his hand, it was cold. And I prayed. But God gave me strength that day because when you're the father, it's, you know, everybody relies on you. You know, you're kind of, you're the pillar of the family.
And so, it's, you have to have strength that you don't have, basically. And so, God gave me the strength. He gave me the strength to give my son's own eulogy. You know, I was just very grateful. And then it was important to me to know that my son was with the Lord. So, God did show me that, show me that supernaturally.
Well, in a couple of ways. One of them was when I was standing in the apartment. He was in another bedroom and the therapist actually came and wanted to say goodbye to him.
So, I said, okay. So, she walked in, the door was closed. And a little while later, she walks out and she was just white as a ghost.
And she was white, really pale. And she was shaking, trembling. And she just grabbed a hold of me and she said, Mike, your son's with God, your son's with God.
And I said, well, okay, you know, thanks. You know, I didn't know what to say. Well, three days later, she reached out to me and she was not a believer. She didn't go to church, nothing. And she says, I have to tell you what happened.
I have to tell you what happened in that room. She said that when she sat down with Titi, that's what we called him. She was holding his hand with her left hand and she said, something grabbed my right hand and then made the sign of the cross and it wasn't her. She said, it was something that grabbed me and just moved my hand on the sign of the cross.
And so, you know, I saw the reaction that day, you know, she couldn't even speak about what had happened to her. So, God's miracles are like, really, they're very personal, but they have a signature all over them. And there was a couple other things that happened and it was just confirmation. I knew that my son was with the Lord.
So, that was important to know that I'll see him again. So, what inspired you to write the book? Well, I gave my testimony at a prayer breakfast in Santa Barbara and there was a group of people that said, you need to write a book and share your testimony in a bigger way. And at the time, I said, no, I don't think I need to write a book.
But I prayed about it and the Lord led me to do this. And so, it's very prayerful. The book talks a lot about, you know, my life as a cop, also as a parent, you know, dealing with drug addiction in the family. So, how about that child?
What's that? Your son that was struggling with drugs, how is he doing? He's sober today, but that's another journey, you know. For me, that was another, you know, you say there's a lot of lessons that we learn. And for him to be involved in drugs, you know, first off, it was horrible because here I was a cop chasing down drug dealers and, you know, I couldn't see it happening in my own home, you know, for like a year or something. And then, there was a process, you know. There's families that have addiction.
There's a thing called co-dependency, you know. And, you know, I was the parent and I was supposed to fix this and I was going to, you know, get him into rehab. I'm going to do this.
I'm going to do that. I'm going to pay for this, you know, and run around cleaning up his messes. And, you know, because we're parents, we love our child that much.
It just, that's what, you know, feels like the right thing to do. But it wasn't until after my other son died that I was in a place where my son was, he was living on the streets and he was not in a good place. And so, I was riding my motorcycle. I was a police motor at the time.
Santa Barbara has beautiful sunsets. So, I pulled over to this one place and just watched the sun set, you know, but I was praying. I had to come to this place where I had to give my son up to the Lord. And, you know, I told God, I said, I know what it's like to lose a son, but I'm going to trust you with my other son now. And I release him to you, God, because I know that you love me more than I do. And that was really one of the hardest things I've ever done.
But there was a release that happened at that time. And it wasn't, you know, it's not that I didn't love my son, I even loved him more, you know. So about three days later, I saw him on the streets. He was, I was on my motor and saw him and I pulled over and he was sitting on a curb. And he said, Dad, can you take me home?
Can you feed me? And I told him, no, you know, if I do that, then you're not going to do what you need to do, to get better here. I can't stand in the way of what God's doing here. So, so it gave me the strength to say that. God gave me the strength to say that. And I drove off.
Very hard thing to do. But three days later, my son got himself into a rehab. And, you know, up until that point, it was always me, you know, taking him to a rehab and getting him in and trying to fix things. But, you know, there was a shift that happened.
And once I was away from that situation, you know, and just trusted God with, with him, a lot of peace came to me, you know, and, and a lot of strength and then things got better for him. So today he's sober. And, you know, he's doing good. As listeners, I know myself, what's his name?
So we can pray for him. Yeah, his name is Matt. So Matt McGrew. Yep. So the book is A Higher Call to Duty by Sergeant Mike McGrew. You can get it on Amazon. You can get it on Amazon.
Yes. And what we would say is for all young authors, it would just be delightful for you not only to go get the book, read the book, share it with somebody maybe that's lost a child, because I have a friend that lost his son. That is beyond anything, you know, somebody that's like, well, you want to lose all your money, you want to lose, you know, you take your pick, this would be the last that, you know, most people, I can't even fathom. So people that are going through that, you need that sea of blue. You need a bunch of people and that maybe would hand you a book like this.
A Higher Call to Duty, go out on Amazon, get it, review it, send, you know, put five stars on or whatever, tell them, you know, give them some feedback. This is what I heard in the book. This is what I really enjoyed. It means so much to young authors that God called him to do something. He stepped out in faith and then came to Tennessee to share this story. Like, I think it's beyond beautiful that I get to hear this and you get to hear this today.
Is this just an accident or does God want to use this in your life? And so thank you, Sergeant, for your service to our communities, but also for your service to the kingdom. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Wow. What a story.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-09-21 17:05:35 / 2023-09-21 17:12:31 / 7
