From heartache to big break

By DEVIN HEILMAN

Staff Writer

The tattoo on Lincoln Bevers' arm reads “Jeg Er Nok” — Norwegian for, “I am enough."

It's something he's adopted as a life slogan. The language honors his heritage and the words are from his good friend, "The Shack" author Paul Young, who pulled him out of a pit of despair.

"One of the things that Paul said to me all the time is, 'You are, and always have been, enough. You do not need to be anything else,'" Bevers said. "He really helped over the last few years through his works and personal interactions with me to develop a God view that I hadn’t had before in terms of interaction with this being, whatever words you use for it, and extreme acceptance and love of myself and forgiveness of myself.

"Nothing is harder than that," Bevers continued. "I think it’s easier to forgive others than it is to forgive yourself."

Bevers, 33, of Coeur d'Alene, lived in an emotional hell for several months after a life-changing split from his significant other last November. Deeply in love and unable to cope, he spiraled into a dark depression that almost sent him over the edge.

"It was so bad, and the darkness was so heavy, that I contemplated whether or not life is worth living," he said. "I spent the first part of this year going through a crisis. That’s not to say I won’t be hurt or broken ever again, but it was one of those defining seasons in your life that changes you fundamentally forever. You’re changed in ways where you look back, and you say, ‘That was me, but I am that person no longer.'"

Bevers shared that he was so affected by this loss that he lost weight, he lost hair and he lost his sense of self.

"The darkness really consumed me," he said.

But Bevers, slender, light-haired and green-eyed, luckily had something in the works that would also help pull him out of his misery and remind him that yes, he is enough — his acting career.

For his day job, Bevers works for the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare as a navigator to help people and connect them with resources they need. He loves this job. But in his heart, he always wanted to give acting a shot.

“For as long as I can remember, since I was a little boy, I wanted to be an actor," he said. "I remember being a little kid and walking to the grocery store with my mom and being theatrical about something and she said, ‘You’re such a good actor.’”

A couple years prior to his heart being broken, Bevers realized he needed to chase that dream.

“I was just like, ‘I never did it. I never pursued my dream,’” he said. “I remember thinking, ‘If you don’t do it right now, you’re going to regret it the rest of your life. If you swing and you miss, that might suck, but at least you swung.’ I don’t want to be 38 and thinking the same damn thing. I needed to reach for what was important to me. If I don’t do this right now, I’ll never forgive myself."

He followed his impulses, called a talent agency in Spokane and soon was auditioning and landing small jobs in advertisements. People recognize him as the "Toyota guy," the one in the commercial who drove his Tacoma to work when only another Toyota driver could get through the harsh winter conditions.

Acting never took over his life when he was happy in a partnership and domestic setting. But as the universe would have it, the same week of his breakup his acting jobs picked up steam.

“I was sitting there, extremely numb, and I said, ‘God, I have to have something to grasp, some sort of hope,’” he said. “I had no more than said that when I got a phone call from my producer saying Toyota wanted me back for another round of snow scenes."

Bevers received counseling to combat the darkness he experienced, and in July he said he just got tired of grieving. Soon after he began to finally look up again, his dream to be an actor called to him again, in a big way.

Bevers landed the lead role in an independent, feature-length film, "Forbidden Power," which began filming in August in Seattle. His character's name is "George," who, like Bevers, undergoes a life-changing experience that teaches him something about himself. It will be released in Asia and Europe, and possibly in the United States.

"Even if it doesn't get released in the States, there's a high chance of Netflix picking it up, or the SyFy Channel," he said. "No matter how you look at it, millions of people in the world are going to see this film."

This is an exciting time in Bevers' life. He went from a critically low point to rising above the pain where self-loathing is a distant memory.

Although he has lived in many places, including Texas and Norway, he considers North Idaho home, and he wants people to understand that no matter what heartache they endure or where they live, dreams are meant to be captured.

And when you give life a chance, something wonderful can happen.

"If there is something important to you, and it's a part of you, and if you believe, take the risk of jumping and anything can happen to anybody," he said. "Sometimes people in our area don't think there's a lot of opportunity available, it's what you believe about yourself. For me, it was a lot of learning that I am enough... that means that I can do it and be anything."