Former Flyleaf front woman, and now author, Lacey Sturm shared her amazing testimony of being a suicidal atheist on the brink of ending it all who then found Jesus in the most unlikely way. She chatted with BreatheCast about depression, growing up, and music being therapeutic.

First and foremost Sturm's book is called, 'The Reason: How I Discovered a Life Worth Living - Confessions of a Rock Princess'. The singer's goal with the book is to share her past with depression, drugs, and poverty in hopes of encouraging others who may be in a similar situation.

"The people that I care about reaching with this story are wanting to find someone who they can say, 'I understand where you're coming from' before they hear anything different that says maybe the way that you're seeing life isn't the best way to see it," she shared, "So I think before you can try and help someone see a light at the end of the tunnel, you have to explain why you totally understand why all they see is darkness."

She continued, "Also, for the one that hates God and maybe isn't a believer that's what I would hope for. That they would feel understood. And for the Christian, I would hope they would understand and recognize this is just a person trying to deal with life the best way they know how even if they look like the complete antitheses of everything you think is right and makes you want to write them off and not give you any attention or the time of day."

Sturm's story of her intention to commit suicide is unfortunately very detailed. In her book she places the reader in the room with her. She describes the posters on the wall, the way the light reflected off of things, and her mood surrounding those days. In her head the decision was made up and she began to believe the lies her mind began to tell her.

"I think we all want to be the hero in the story to some degree. A lot of times that lie of suicide will trick us into thinking that somehow it's going to be noble or brave because maybe we won't be a burden to the world around us," she explained, "At the time I was going to commit suicide I was getting in trouble at school. I was fighting with my grandmother all the time. I was making things harder on my grandparents. I was making it stressful on them."

Her thought on suicide was that she was being "selfish" by stressing them out, so to kill herself would make things easier on them. "There won't be so much stress, which is the complete opposite of what their reaction would be."

"The truth is, the reason they are getting stressed out over me getting in trouble in school and fighting with me is because they love me," Sturm said, "If they didn't love me they wouldn't care what I did in school and they wouldn't fight with me about it. But because they love me, that's why all that was happening and if I died, that would be just that much more stress for them."

She explained that a suicidal person is always looking for an excuse as to why their deed is justified and they do not have to think long to find it no matter how untrue it might be.

However, when Sturm was ready to end it all, God intervened in the form of her grandmother unexpectedly being home. What happened next was a Paul like conversion that saw this once God hating teen hanging on the edge of life, turn her life around and dedicate it to Christ and share about how He saved her.

(Photo : M Collective)

Check back in with BreatheCast tomorrow to hear more about Sturm's transformation in Christ and how that affected others around her.

Read our book review here.