Thankful People: 'God never fails:' Keegan Meyn finds new identity in his faith

Editor's note: This article contains references to suicide ideation and depression. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255 (TALK).

Everything Keegan Meyn touched seemed to turn to dust before his eyes.

With a commitment on the horizon to play baseball at a "prestigious" Division 1 college, a loving, supportive family and an "awesome girlfriend," Meyn had it all.

But during his senior year -- long after Meyn had committed to play baseball at the school and only two weeks before National Signing Day when his commitment would be "written in ink" -- things changed. He was contacted by the college with a disappointing message: for reasons Meyn preferred not to disclose, his scholarship had been revoked. Without an athletic scholarship to pay for tuition, his dreams -- and his purest form of identity -- began to fall apart.

"I was really, super reliant on that, like I found my identity in it," Meyn said of his collegiate baseball career. "When they ended up taking my scholarship away, it really started the downward trend, and ... it caused me to want to prove myself, want to rely on my own strength in a lot of different ways."

Southeast Missouri State senior baseball player Keegan Meyn, right, speaks to a group during a Fields of Faith event sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes on Oct. 9 at Houck Stadium in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

With little time left to find a new collegiate home before National Signing Day, Meyn said he "scrambled to find another college" at which to play baseball.

"At that time, I basically, in my mind, was saying, 'Man, if I don't find another Division I college, then I'm a nobody,'" Meyn recalled.

He ended up finding one, though he now admits he wasn't sure it was where he really wanted to be; but it was a Division I school, and therefore, checked the right box.

Things with the team didn't work out like he'd thought they would, and Meyn said his coaches told him he was "the worst teammate they've ever recruited" and he had "lied about who [he] said [he] was."

"Looking back on it now, they had some truth there," Meyn recalled, noting his release from that team was the catalyst for the depression he experienced.

Southeast Missouri State senior baseball player Keegan Meyn prays with (from left) Drew Dirnberger, Hunter Sutherland, Sam Dirnberger and Grason Welter to conclude a Fields of Faith event sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes on Oct. 9 at Houck Stadium in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

It wasn't long before Meyn found himself spiraling into a "deep depression," one unlike anything he'd felt before.

"So I finish out that semester not being on the baseball team, and I go home and my arm's busted, so I can't play summer ball to get recruited, and my relationships with my parents and my girlfriend at the time and friends at the time really suffered because of my depression," Meyn said. "I didn't want to go out, I didn't want to partake in basically anything. I would just shut myself in, which led to more depression, by the way."

Meyn didn't think he would ever play baseball again and didn't foresee his relationships being mended. In short, he felt overwhelmingly alone.

So it was in the summer of 2017, Meyn sat in his childhood bedroom in Oklahoma City, mere feet away from his sleeping parents, and contemplated suicide.

With a gun in his hand, Meyn said only one thought had the power to reach him. Only one thought compelled him to put down the gun.

Southeast Missouri State senior baseball player Keegan Meyn shares his testimony during a Fields of Faith event sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes on Oct. 9 at Houck Stadium in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

"I thought ... 'If I kill myself right now, then I ... might not actually have a relationship with God, and I might spend eternity away from Him,'" Meyn remembered.

In that moment, the realization of a life -- and death -- without God seemed unthinkable. From the ashes of his baseball-centric life, Meyn found something bigger to live for.

If you met him today in a coffee shop or on the Southeast Missouri State University campus where he is a student, you'd never know the darkness Meyn has lived through. He speaks about that time in his life from a perspective that is removed, as if it happened to someone else.

"I know that it was used to change my heart," Meyn said of his depression. "When I was not a Christian, I would completely and fully put my identity in my sport, how popular I was, you know, whatever was going on on the weekends. ... And even though I called myself a Christian, my life and my heart [were] actually fixated on the things that were not of God."

Now that he is living out his faith -- and has been for the last two years -- Meyn says he has experienced a "completely radical change."

"[God] basically took every single thing that I was idolizing in my life and stripped me of it, to prove that it would never satisfy me because the things of this world really are never going to satisfy you, only God will," Meyn said.

Meyn was raised in the Christian faith by parents who are both believers. But Meyn gave voice to a fact many raised in a Christian household know to be true: A parent's dedication to Christianity does not a child's faith make.

"[True faith] is actually your personal relationship with God," Meyn said. "I would come to events like [Fields of Faith] and I would experience God through other people, and I would think that it was my personal experience."

But it wasn't. Meyn knew the Bible, he knew the stories -- he knew Christianity.

But he didn't know God.

"The fact of the matter is knowing that and believing it in your heart are two completely different things," Meyn said.

A fifth-year senior studying integrated marketing communications and a pitcher for the Redhawks baseball team at Southeast, Meyn now spends much of his time off the field in ministry. Whether it be through Campus Outreach, a non-denominational campus ministry, or the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, he lives his life in service to the very thing that saved him that summer night.

Despite his journey to faith, Meyn says he continues to live with depression.

"I still deal with depression all the time," Meyn said. "It's not something that just goes away. It's a real thing. It's a dark cloud that you really feel you cannot escape, and I still have phases of that throughout my life.

"But God never fails," Meyn said with a triumphant smile. "Even in the continuation of my depression ... God has given my fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. That's why I am able to live."

To anyone dealing with depression, Christian or otherwise, Meyn has a message.

"If people are dealing with depression out there ... I would plead with them to investigate God because only He is able to save."

As for hope? That's something Meyn has in abundance.

"My hope is not on this Earth anymore," he said. "My hope is in eternity, because I know the Bible says in Heaven, there is no tear, there is no pain, there is no sorrow, there is no sin; there's just true, pure joy in the presence of God. And that's where my hope is, and I want people to know about that."