Days of feeling despair were becoming more prevelant. Any happiness or joy I had felt in the past was long gone. Highschool was proving to be more than I could handle and thoughts of suicide were creeping in. I felt hated, despised and rejected. I was threatened in the hallways, stalked and tormented. There was no way out. I begged my parents to take me out or send me to another school but they didn’t understand my desperation. Doctors thought I should be put on antidepressants and one doctor even told me after the first hour of meeting me, “Young lady, you just need to put a smile on your face.” I wanted to reach across the table and put my fist through his face, then maybe I could smile.

A cloud of depression had settled over my life. I escaped through sleep.

It wasn’t only the atmosphere of school life that tormented me. It was mixed with a lethal combination of bad choices and rebelion. I would lay in bed and cry. I wanted to die so badly. I had let my parents down, I was a poor student, and the list went on and on. Thoughts of suicide became a daily occurance. The only thing that kept me from acting on my thoughts was the fear of spending eternity in hell. I was raised going to church every Sunday, even though I rebelled against that too, it taught me the fear of God and his punishment.

After graduating highschool, my parents decided to send me to a treatment center for depression. The “professionals” would encourage us to pray to our higher power, discouraged us from smoking (that was good), interpreted our dreams, introduced us to our inner child, and would take us on weekend trips to Walmart. I left feeling more confused than ever and still felt that gnawing feeling of depair.

A black hole was beginning to form beneath my feet. My adversary had a stronghold on me.

I continued the cycle of bad decisions through my relationships, health and religion. I can’t remember how I got into the healing power of crystals but I had my chart along with my quartz, amethysts… and what ever else supposedly kept me in line with nature. I kept them secured around my neck like a noose and waited for things to change. Slowly, they were but not in the way I thought.

My turning point came one night while I was sitting on the back patio, smoking my cigarette and talking to God. (I still talked to Him occationally but it was only to gripe.) I asked Him why my life was so bad. Why did He let me feel this way? Why was there such a dark hole in my life that sucked out anything good? And why didn’t he just end my life? To my surprise, He answered me. Was it audible? It was absolutely audible to ME but anyone else wouldn’t have heard it b/c He spoke to my heart!! I didn’t need ears to hear Him loud and clear.

This was His resonse: You have tried to fill your hole with drinking, drugs, idolatry and bad relationships. You have searched out this world for happiness but never found it b/c it wasn’t there for you to have. The only thing that can fill that hole is ME and you never asked.

My heart was changed that night. God’s response was simple b/c I was simple minded. That’s all He had to say to me and it spoke volumes. I repented that night of my sins and the very next morning, I went to a lake nearby and threw every single crystal I owned into that water and acknowledged the power of the Lord.

Since Bad-Decisions was my middle name, it took me a long time to undo years of bad habits. God was so patient with me and would guide me like a parent guiding his tot to walk. I stumbled and fell (meaning I would do what I knew was wrong.) He would help me up and encourage me to keep trying (through His Word.) I wobbled and at times would crawl (not wanting to do the right thing but doing it anyway.) He was always there with me through every stage, I could feel His presence. It felt awkward at first because I didn’t know how to live without the depression and being that I was a poor judge of right and wrong, God cleansed my mind and purified my contaminated way of thinking. But I was excited and could feel the joy of the Lord working within me.

Satan was at work too. He would stalk me by reminding me of my past. He would tell me how horrible I was and that I didn’t deserve God’s love. But as I read God’s Word and began internalizing what Christ did for me on the cross, I knew Satan had no power over me. I was a new creation and through my baptism, was dead to my old self. That person no longer existed. I was free to start anew and through the power of Christ, a transformation took place.

When I think about my past, I now feel like that is a disconnected part of me. As if that person is someone else. Sometimes I mourn for her because she was so tormented. Jesus Christ became Lord of her life and set the captive free. She emerged a new person and that is who I am now. He brought me out of depression. He brought light into my darkness. He exposed my sin to me and saved me! I am eternally grateful to Him. May God bless all who are reading this.