The Man in Black Finds the Light

In 1967, Johnny Cash crawled into Nickajack Cave outside Chattanooga, Tennessee, intending never to come out. Years of amphetamine and barbiturate addiction had cost him nearly everything — his first marriage, his health, his dignity. He had been arrested seven times. He weighed barely 150 pounds. He later said he wanted to lie down in the absolute darkness and let God take him.

Cash crawled deep into the cave until his flashlight died. He lay on the cold stone floor in total blackness, ready to quit. But something happened in that darkness. He described feeling the presence of the Almighty pressing in around him — not as judgment, but as mercy. He sensed God telling him it was not his time, that there was still purpose for his life. Cash began crawling back, following a faint breeze until he saw light at the mouth of the cave.

When he emerged, June Carter and his mother Carrie were waiting for him. They had come looking. He entered recovery, married June, and began the long, honest work of rebuilding a shattered life. His music became rawer, truer, more gospel-soaked than ever before.

Redemption rarely begins with a dramatic mountaintop. More often it begins in a cave — in the lowest, darkest moment when we have finally stopped running. The God who meets us there is not surprised by how far down we have gone. He is simply waiting with a breeze that leads toward the light.