Depression

Sometimes I feel brave enough to say it. Sometimes I don’t.

Sometimes I feel empowered. I feel stronger. I feel a purpose. And then sometimes I feel nothing but shame.

A woman once said not everything has to be shared. I had hoped this could be one of those things. But not everything that is needed to be said is easy to be said. This is that.

It has been little over a year since I overcame the very lowest part of my life.

But I’m not talking about depression alone.

It takes more than I have in me to finally confess that I am an overcomer of suicidal depression.

Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul, to those who long for death that does not come, – Job 3:20-21

Words alone cannot express the torment that entangles and swallows your mind when you suffer from inescapable pain. When your brain down to your spine literally feel like they’re being pressed by all forces of gravity, and there is no end or relief in sight. No doctors. No medicine. Nothing. Nothing but the feeling of death that never kills you.

You’re surrounded by bottles, waiting and praying for something to finally kick in. Minutes turn to hours, but the next dose seems pointless when the first never even worked to begin with.

Hours turn to days and days to weeks to months. Eventually, you feel that perhaps the medicine may be good for something else.

And this is where I was. If I could only somehow accidentally lose track of the doses. If I could only end this pain once and for all.

I could be free.

What else was left for me? We had tried everything. Brain surgery was our last hope, and even it had failed. You can’t fix a condition with no cause or cure.

How could I continue to live my life this way? Dying every day could not possibly be considered living to begin with. I needed relief. I needed it all to end. I begged for God to take me before I took myself.

What can be so hard for others to understand is how nothing matters at this point. Not your family, not your spouse, not even your own children. When the pain is too bad to even be with them, then what is the point to even being there at all?

It is not that you don’t truly love anyone. It is that the pain leaves no room for any other feeling. All thoughts of them lead you back to thinking about the burden you are. Wouldn’t even their lives be easier without you?

Everything would be so much better for everyone. If only God would take me.

I couldn’t take myself. I knew it was not my life to take but God’s. He would have to do it.

Please, God, just do it.

But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen! – 2 Timothy 4:17-18

I don’t know the day I came across this Scripture. But I do know it was the moment I realized God was not finished with me, yet. It was when I finally realized that death was not the answer. Deliverance was. But not just for me, for all those like me.

As alone and weak and desperate as I had felt all that time, God was standing with me. God was holding me up, saving me from death. God was strengthening me and giving me the endurance I needed to make it through each wave of pain and torment.

The devil was roaming around my body, soul, and mind, like a roaring lion seeking to devour me, but God shut the lion’s mouth. And because He did it then, I knew He would only continue to do it. He would save me every time. He would preserve me till my time finally came.

God had chosen me to bear the suffering. God had proven His strength in me through it. And now, it was my job to be used fully, to have His message preached to all the world. God did it for me, and He can do it again for you. To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen!