If You Dont Know Who You Are Then You Dont Know What Youre Capable of

I sabbatum at a stoplight, trembling with anxiety's rattle and hum. The sky was dour with charcoal clouds seemed to mirror my soul. The familiar fog of depression had rolled in and I was weary of the struggle.

It was exhausting: wrestling to exist whole, never shaking the bone-deep loneliness. The fog formed a dense wall, hedging me into isolation. Most days, it seemed nobody, not fifty-fifty God, can break through.

There'south an excruciating physicality to mental affliction that'south rarely acknowledged. But this pain was nix new. I couldn't recall a time earlier low's waves rolled through me. I'd grown accustomed to smiling, maxim I was just tired, doing my all-time to show up for my commitments while my chest burned and my body felt like lead.

Still, the worst part was the manner underground questions carved out my insides. God, are you there? Why tin can't I be unlike? Why won't you ready me? I know you can.

It wasn't only the questions, just the story I believed underneath them: God doesn't want this mess and neither does anyone else. I knew that if I didn't grin and act okay, I would lose my people…and even God.

"Merely choose joy."

When I tried to share glimpses of the darkness, well-meaning Christians said things they didn't understand. You have control over your emotions. This is a choice. Cull joy, they told me, every bit though it were a switch to flip.

Depression is then cocky-focused. How can y'all exist sad with all God has washed for you? Y'all just demand to serve others.

God answers prayers given in organized religion. Just speak life. If you don't accept annihilation squeamish to say, don't say anything at all, fifty-fifty well-nigh yourself.

Those words left my pare flushed hot and nausea ascension in my throat. I'd tried, and so difficult, to make myself better. I just kept declining.

Countless begging prayers with all the faith I could muster hadn't changed the ache inside. Years of spending every free moment in ministry building, serving and caring without rest, hadn't filled the gaping void. Instead, I felt even more strangled by the unforgiving pace .

And, in my mind, cull joy sounded an awful lot like snap out of information technology . I couldn't strength that, no thing what I did. So I kept the ache to myself, hiding questions and unkempt prayers until I could let out the mess.

I establish that place in my former Taurus, a messy sanctuary in all my here-to-theres. Empty newspaper cups rolled on the floorboards. Clothes were strewn over boxes of books and trinkets – I was always moving in those days. Despite the ataxia, that onetime automobile was my safe place. There was no need to smile, no show to put on. Nobody to hear or judge.

I was running ministry errands that day, grateful for a reprieve from interaction in the offices. My heart raced with a sinking question: What if I never get meliorate? Shame seared my flushed skin. Nobody wants this. How do I live like this forever?

There at the stoplight, my body trembled as the gray and weight and deject pressed in. My thoughts spiraled and buzzed. The bony hand of anxiety started to close around my throat.

Then clear, sweet words whispered in my heart,

"The darkness may always exist there, but I will ever be there in the darkness."

My rima oris gaped open up, eyes wide with all of a sudden welling tears. Only it wasn't sorrow. Information technology was hope, bloodshot, shocking hope.

To some, it might have sounded similar a capital punishment. Just not to me. It was a beginning-time promise of life. That whisper in my eye, "The darkness may ever be in that location," told me to stop fighting to fix myself.

Stop burying the pain.

Stop hiding.

The darkness exists. Information technology's okay that it'south there and it's okay that it's so difficult. Information technology's okay to face bravely into it, to let get of denial and larn to live with it.

The second one-half of that whisper was sweeter still. "I will always be in that location in the darkness." It shook my soul like tectonic plates shifting, foundations rearranged. I reeled from the shock of realization.

God isn't disappointed in me.

He's not borer his foot and looking at his sentinel, impatient for me to go it together. He sits with me in the darkness. The rattle & hum quieted, vibrations and tension slowly fading. I remembered a favorite verse from Psalm 139: if I make my bed in hell, you lot're there. The heaviness in my chest lifted as I drew a deep breath.

Those words released then much guilt and fear. They pledged that I'm not so profoundly screwed upwardly that the God of the universe would ever back away. He isn't afraid of my low. He doesn't shrink from the darkness.

God doesn't lose patience with my pain.

He isn't uncomfortable when I share nighttime thoughts, telling me to snap out of it. Zilch I tin do, nowhere I can go volition ever push Him to abandon me. Instead, God welcomes honesty. He runs toward my pain and questions.

In a messy, old Taurus, my tearful voice shook in hopeful response. "Okay. If you promise to never leave, I tin can walk through annihilation with you."

Sometimes God doesn't heal, and information technology's non anyone'south fault. Sometimes sickness is just the ugly reality of living in a cleaved world. My hope can't rest solely on the actions of God, on the miraculous or a mystery I can't comprehend. I don't take to be healed to trust Him. My promise rests on His character, who He'due south proven Himself to be time and again.

It takes more faith to believe he'due south good and kind and present when he walks through darkness with u.s.a. instead of plucking us from it.

I've learned to cling to the Lord come hell or high h2o, and they both surely will rush in. I know to press my face into His clothes and breathe in deep. When I'grand terrified or my breast is filled with the burn of depression, I lean into Him and heed.

"It's okay. I'1000 still here, fifty-fifty in the darkness."

And, much as I would love Him to wave His magic wand and put my soul back together without cracks and scars, I am grateful. I know the Comforter because I have been comforted. I know a God who sees me and is nowadays with me. He's proven it past showing upwardly in my auto when I needed Him most.

Mayhap today, yous're wondering if God is present in your hurting. It may non exist depression or feet. Information technology could be loss, failure, illness, or injustice; at 1 signal or another, we all come up face-to-face with these big questions. Are you lot here? Are you lot with me?

In the midst of ache and ache, God doesn't condemn y'all . He is not disappointed or impatient with you. And, though he often doesn't bring a sudden change of circumstance, he's sitting with you lot in your hurting.

God is with us. He isn't leaving. He isn't giving up.

If the darkness volition always be here, so will God. He'll sit in its midst with us, holding our sometimes-drastic, flailing hearts. Nosotros won't be solitary. Perhaps that'south all we need to know to become through.

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Source: https://www.beautifulbetween.com/where-is-god-when-im-depressed/

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