UFC fighter Cody “No Love” Garbrandt recently revealed how his Christian faith saved him from a “very dark place.”
The 27-year-old athlete explained in a new video for the nonprofit “I Am Second” that he was at one point suicidal, but his older brother, Zach, saved him. Garbrandt said he was trying to hang himself when his brother walked in and stopped him.
In tears, Garbrandt recalled, his brother hugged him and assured him everything would be OK.
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“It was a changing point for me in my life,” the fighter said. “That moment, that bond and that thing that we went through really, you know, brought us even closer. [We began] attending church services together. It was nice to be there with my big brother, worshipping God and growing towards Him.”
He continued, “That was a start of a growing relationship with the Lord through going to the church, through reading different books about the Lord and just kind of growing my relationship with him on a spiritual level of speaking to him daily.”
But even when God felt distant or faith felt absent, Garbrandt said, he knows now that God “was with me” in every situation. The young athlete said he is confident the Lord “carried” him through a lot of trying and troubling circumstances.
It hasn’t been easy, though, introducing the word “surrender” to his vernacular, Garbrandt admitted, because for a fighter, it’s a “foreign” concept.
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“There’s a time and place that you do need to surrender,” he said. “And I’m always thankful that I’m able to surrender to Him.”
Looking back over his experiences in life so far, Garbrandt said he can clearly see moments when God was “carrying me, pulling me, pushing me.” He thought at the time it was a “higher power,” but now he knows his name: “Jesus Christ.”