I've found myself recently in one of the darkest places I have ever been. I no longer trusted a single thought in my head. I doubted God, my family, my friends and myself. All of these thoughts and feelings were whirling around in my head, none of them making a lick of sense. In that, I also found myself getting physically sick. I couldn't keep food down, I had no appetite and no energy. I felt anxious all of the time and knew of nothing that was pulling me out of the darkness. I tried praying. I prayed more then I ever had. I found it a comfort, but as soon as I was away from the quiet of being alone with God, I found my soul screaming. The more I wasn't eating the worse I began to feel mentally. It was pretty ugly.
You hear about people fasting on purpose to get alone with God and search his heart. I was being forced to fast and that drove me straight into the Fathers’ arms. It took a while to become still and even when I was, anxiety was knocking on my door. I started to feel overwhelmed by the anxiety instead of the things that led to the anxiety. I doubted that even the Lord could heal my soul. On return from a trip home, a dear friend gave me a bunch of little note cards with encouraging songs and scriptures on them. I started reading through them and eventually began praying through them and then praised through them. For the first time I understood what it means to praise the Lord even through pain. Those cards, and intentional time with Lord helped me to begin to crawl out of the hole I had fallen into. Depression is a dark evil place and leads people to do, say and think tragic things about themselves, about others and about God. But hopefully in those dark times we find a Father. One that is bigger than the dark. Bigger than the fear. Bigger than loneliness.
Romans 8:37-39 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
No comments:
Post a Comment