He was an outstanding athlete and student in small-town Kentucky with an outlook so bright that sunglasses should be required. Hampton packed his bags and headed for more success as a student at the University of Kentucky. The accolades he carried from Pikeville did not translate into the big city.
Now he was a little fish in a big pond, and it was not long before he started to drown. It created an identity crisis. I needed an identity. That was awesome until about December when I became aware of how anxious and depressed, I was. It hit me like a Mack truck. Hampton went to a therapist who diagnosed him with anxiety disorder and depression. Two months later, he attempted to end his own life and ended up in the emergency room. He then spent a week at The Ridge, a psych ward, with mental disorders.
I started dabbling in weed more, started selling it. Daylight to dark, every second, I was looking for the next high. I tried shrooms, coke cocaine , and other party drugs. Hampton said his life verse, 1 Timothy , The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life, describes him best.
I wanted to get my life in order. But then he had a gospel intervention from a friend who played the video game Fortnite regularly with him. That friend saw him as a lost soul and never gave up on him, no matter what Hampton said to him. He kept sharing the gospel, kept praying, and kept pouring into him.
I wept and wept and wept. As soon as the altar call came, I sprinted up there. It was like nothing he had ever experienced, making him realize that going through the baptism waters those years ago did nothing more than make him cold and wet.
