Freedom from Depression
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in GOD, for I will yet praise HIM my Savior and my GOD. Psalms 42:5 NIV
If you are a person who is having thoughts of suicide or does not want to live anymore, a person who is angry or stressed out, has a loss of interest in all or most activities, a person who is tired all the time or has no energy, has significant weight gain or loss not due to dieting or decrease/increase in your appetite everyday, a person who is irritable or cries, has insomnia or hypersomnia nearly every day, a person who feels worthless, excessive or inappropriate guilt, has difficulty thinking, concentrating or indecisiveness, a person who has frequent aches or pains for which there is no known cause, are you a expectant mother, a woman starting the phases of peri-menopause or going through menopause, having PMS syndrome, a person who has had an abortion, someone who lies all the time, a person who has committed adultery, a person who has lost a loved one, a person who has a chemical imbalance, etc. remember, you are not alone.
Research has shown that in a given year, there are at least 17 million people that live with some form of depression. As Mark R. McMinn wrote “ Many people feel demoralized, empty, and directionless. Many dehumanized people believe no one cares about them, but only about what they can produce or provide for others. How could we not expect these and other social conditions to produce depression? And what about attitudes towards GOD? Could it be that depression results from lack of spiritual rootedness?”
The good news is there is hope for everyone who is depressed. The first step is to see a licensed physician and get a complete physical. Then you may need to see a counselor to sort out your feelings. These are important steps in getting to the root of what is going on in your life. I am not a physician, psychologist, psychiatrist, etc.
My prayer is that my experience will give you some insight into what you may be going through. I am a woman of GOD in CHRIST JESUS who experienced some very painful situations in my life. One of those painful times was when I cried out to GOD in prison. Death seemed like a beckoning friend as the guards locked me in a cell. As I laid in my bed, I cried out “Oh GOD help me! I don’t think I can live one day in this place much less five years!” Sobs wracked my upper body until my ribs ached. “GOD please take me, let me die now!” My heart was beating so fast I was sure it was going to explode, and I wanted it to. I wanted it to be over.
Staring at the wall a strange and powerful vision came over me. There was a face. I knew it was the face of death. The face was very pale with black eyes and no hair. And I saw a lake that looked like it was full of black tar. The only thing sticking out of the black tar was my arm holding a Bible. I recognized the Bible. I had put that Bible under my pillow many nights and slept on it, but I had never lived by it. As I watched myself sinking down in the tar I felt the life inside me seeping out. I was dying.
Then a still, small voice told me to take a sip of water. I leaned over and picked up a glass of water I had by my bed. I took a sip. Keep on drinking, the voice whispered. With each swallow I felt the life being restored in me: first my feet then my legs then the middle part of my body. When The LIFE flowed into my heart it felt like a hurricane was blowing through me. My heart began to beat fast again. Oh no GOD, I’m having another attack.
I sat up and when I did a PEACE rushed over me. I looked around my small cell and knew my strange vision was from GOD. I felt HIS presence all around me and my heart slowed down. Then HIS voice spoke again to my heart, “Would’t it be amazing, Cheryl, if you got up and showed them you could do this?” I knew what GOD meant. I was a ninety-five pound scaredy cat. Anybody that looked at me knew I wouldn’t make it in prison. But with GOD I was like David, I could take on the giant in my life and win-through HIM I could do this.
Shortly after I had THE LIFE-changing vision, GOD put a hunger in my heart that I had never experienced before and guidance from HIS HOLY SPIRIT. I had no clue what was to be expected next. I just kept reading HIS word. As I came to the book of Job, GOD let me see HIS GLORY. Job was tested. With a life filled with prestige, possessions, and people, he was suddenly assaulted on every side, devastated, stripped down to his foundation. But his life was built on GOD, and he endured. As I have come to know, “the foundation of any building is critical. It must be deep enough and solid enough to withstand the weight of the building and other stresses. Lives are like buildings, and the quality of their foundation will determine the quality of the whole. To often inferior materials are used, and when tests come, lives crumble." (Job NIV notes)
For twenty-five years I went looking for love in all the wrong places. My life was filled with desperation and torment, both from my own choices and the consequences of them, and the circumstances that I could not control or avoid. From a little girl who was violated and angry, I became a woman on the edge, desperate and seeking, unable to find what I was looking for. Like so many men and women in Scripture I used the gifts GOD gave me for selfish and prideful pursuits only to find that what I struggled for did not satisfy.
Like the woman at the well, I searched for happiness though dangerous liaisons but only found bitterness and isolation. Like Jezebel who tried to control all those around her, I sought fame and fortune in a cut throat world of entertainment. Instead of finding happiness, I became a pawn of those around me and went on a journey into sexual immorality, money addiction, watching pornography and gambling. Like Rehab, she was a woman of ill repute who longed for a better life outside the walls of her choices, not just for herself but for her family also.
And, like Mary Magdalene, who was delivered from demons, I fought the ever rising oppression in my soul. Yet, just as GOD approached each one of these people in the Bible with hope and the offer of eternal life through Jesus Christ, He also pursued me when I least expected HIM to at the lowest point in my life that night in my prison cell when I cried out to GOD with a sincere heart to let me die, HE was there waiting for me to surrender all of myself to HIM.
I thank GOD in JESUS NAME today that HE spared me from myself and hell. That through HIS gracious mercy and love HE showed me a much better way to live and have peace. Remember, you do not have to live in darkness any longer. HE is waiting for you just as HE was waiting for me to surrender everything to HIM. HE will guide you as HE did me. Just start reading THE word of GOD and watch what HE will start to do in your life.
“For GOD who said 'Let THE LIGHT shine out of darkness,' made HIS LIGHT shine in our hearts to give us THE LIGHT of THE KNOWLEDGE of THE GLORY of GOD in the face of CHRIST. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from GOD and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned, stuck down, but not destroyed.” 2 Corinthians 4: 6-9 NIV
My dad John wrote something that touched my heart: "If you think you have big problems then you must have a small god." If you trust GOD then you have small problems. We are never given more than we can handle.
I know what is is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through HIM who gives me strength.
Philippians 4: 12-13 NIV