The Biggest Name in Country
Johnny Cash was the biggest name in country music—and the most self-destructive. Pills, alcohol, affairs. He once took so many amphetamines that his weight dropped to 150 pounds.
In 1967, he decided to end it. He crawled into Nickajack Cave in Tennessee, determined to die in the darkness.
A Presence in the Darkness
Deep in that cave, his flashlight died. He lay down and waited for death. But something happened in that absolute darkness.
"I felt a presence," Cash later wrote. "I felt God saying, 'I'm still here. I'm still waiting. It's not your time.'"
Cash crawled toward what he thought was the cave entrance. For hours, he felt his way through the darkness. Against all odds, he found his way out.
Redemption
June Carter was waiting. His mother had been praying. His faith—the faith he'd learned as a boy in Arkansas—came flooding back.
Cash checked into rehab. He married June. He got clean. And he spent the rest of his life singing about redemption, grace, and the God who meets us in our caves.
"I'm not a Christian artist," Cash would say. "I'm an artist who is a Christian. And everything I do is an offering to the God who pulled me out of that cave."
