God miraculously stops author from raising his gun to end his life, demonstrating His power and relentless love that rescues and provides second chances

Relentless Love

by Dave Gatson

COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 18, 2026 — On a hot July night, author Dave Gatson sank into despair. He was alone in a strange new city, living in a crummy apartment furnished with only an air mattress laying on the dirty brown shag carpeting.

Within view was his favorite 9 mm gun. He welcomed the sight of it, for it seemed to offer the best solution for the deep darkness he was in. A way out of the pain and failure. A way to make the pain stop.

He says if you had seen him just a few months before that long dark night, you would have seen him living a highly successful life, rich with earthly blessings, not that he was giving God the credit it for it at the time, he says.

A minister’s son from a loving family, he discovered a passuib and talent for photography. After a move to California, he lived a life in Hollywood as a photographer for rock bands. He became in high demand, counting among his favorite photo shoots the one of U2 playing in the Rose Bowl venue in Pasadena, California. He has stories about time spent doing photo shoots for Metallica, Katy Perry, Steppenwolf, Joan Jett, and many others. He also photographed some Christian musicians like Natalie Grant, the Newsboys, and Jeremy Camp.  He eventually published a book of his photos.

He then went on to explore acting, and won a role in several episodes of “History’s Greatest Escapes with Morgan Freeman” on The History Channel.*

Before that show completed production and aired, an opportunity arose to join a family business so he relocated and moved to the South. Life appeared to be ideal, as he rose as a young executive, married and settled into family life with a new house in a country club neighborhood, sports cars in the driveway.

However, then it imploded.

It didn’t take long before the marriage ended, the company was sold and with it went his executive position.

There was nothing to do but start over elsewhere, so he found a new career several states away. He was there, just getting started in that unfurnished apartment, when a long-awaited episode of the TV show in which he starred aired.  But he was alone on a night that should have been a great celebration.

On top of every other hurt, it felt like the final blow.

So he decided he’d had enough.

“I was determined I had had enough of disappointment, betrayal, broken promises, feeling unloved and like I was not enough. I felt I had failed everything and everyone I loved. I was determined to make it end. Forever.”

Gatson writes this to describe himself.  “I have been blessed with an ironclad will and a relentless determination. Anybody who knows me well already knows that if my mind is set on something, I will make it happen. I would not be defeated, it simply was not an option.

“Or so I used to think.  This is the mindset God was up against that night in July.”

Describing it as both the worst day of his life and the best, he continues. “But that was the day God’s relentless love came head-to-head against my ironclad, relentless will. “

He had a calm resolve and readiness to raise the loaded 9 mm gun and end his life.

But God.

Gatson tells this story with awe and overwhelming joy that God loves him and saved him that terrible night. In an experience he can’t adequately describe, he says God supernaturally prevented the gun from being able to be moved. He was unable to lift it. He strained with all his might, then with both hands at once, but the gun wouldn’t budge. After trying over and over, frustrated and sick at heart, he exhausted himself and slept.

While asleep, he had a vision in a dream that showed him people would come and go in his life, but Jesus was enough. At the end of the dream, Jesus put his hand on Gatson’s shoulder and said, “Now let’s get to work.”

And that was the beginning of his new life.

Calling himself “a living, breathing product of God’s grace,” he humbly asks why God gave him a second chance to live.

In the book, he aims to help others find their way to build a life of faith in God’s relentless love. Generously laced with scripture and gentle admonitions to seek God, Gatson encourages.

“When you are at the end of your rope you are left with the only thing you truly need,” Gatson said. “That is the relentless love of God. He is the light that will guide you through the deepest pain and onto your purpose. God’s love has never left you and His purpose is still waiting for you. 

“God does not desire us to be consumed with guilt, shame and loneliness. He does not celebrate when we feel like a failure. Even when we are wallowing in our own chaos and God is last in our lives, His grace is not just sufficient, it is everything we truly need.

“He can restore us to a new creation of strength, power, peace, joy, forgiveness, love and purpose.”

Today Gatson writes and speaks about his faith and experiences from his home in Columbus, Ohio. To connect with the author and learn more about his speaking ministry, visit www.relentlesslovebook.com. Relentless Love (ISBN–979-8385061389, $16.99 paper, $33.99 hardcover and $7.99 Kindle)recently releasedfrom WestBow Press and is available from selected bookstores and online retailers. To interview Dave Gatson or for a review copy of the book, contact Joni Sullivan Baker, Buoyancy PR, at 513/319-3231 or jbaker@buoyancypr.com.

*David Gatson – IMDb