This month marks five years since the worst week of my life. Dramatic, but true. I hardly ate or slept. Everything seemed so pointless, so empty. It felt like living in a dream, as if I was a phantom just floating through time. I just wanted to die and go to heaven. I think I asked God as much.
Depression first hit me a couple months before this in November 2012. I felt incredibly down and I didn't enjoy things I usually did. It got better and I had several "normal" weeks. But it came back after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting and with greater force. Was there any good in this world? I could only see the sadness, the heartbreak. What was the point of it all? And what about me? Was I worth anything? Was I anything more than a lazy, ungrateful wretch? Could I ever be good enough?
One night that terrible week in March, I was trying to do my schoolwork. I found it near impossible to focus on anything or answer the simplest question. Dad was talking to me, trying to help me through it. I started to cry, thinking,
I don't deserve this. I haven't been doing anything all day, all week. I don't deserve help with my work. But in that moment, I realized. Maybe I didn't deserve the help. But I didn't deserve lots of blessings God had given me. Yet he gave them to me anyway. It wasn't about what I deserved, it was about who He was and is. He is a good Father, and he used my earthly father's love and care to show me that.
So many times I told God, "I can't do this! I can't do this anymore!"
It was like I heard him say,
No, you can't. You can't do it on your own. But I can!
One night after trying so hard to make it through the day, I thought, "Was it enough? Did I do enough?"
And again I felt in my soul,
You don't have to do anything. I love you no matter what. You don't have to be enough, because I am enough.
I still struggled after that. Just last fall, I had a few rough weeks. I'm tempted to stay away from God when it happens. I don't want to tell him how I feel, though he already knows. Then I start to feel guilty and I want to do it even less. But he's always there, waiting for me to call on him. And through my depression over the years, I've drawn so much closer to him. He has shown me so much about myself, things I needed to work through. I have felt his great love for me on the darkest nights when I thought morning would never come. And dealing with my depression has been a way I can share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13) and take up my cross daily and follow Him (Matthew 16:24).
I don't know what the future holds. I don't know if I'll struggle with this for the rest of my life. I don't know if my darkest days are behind me or still to come. But I know without a shadow of doubt that God is good. He is faithful. He will never leave me. And this too, I am glad He didn't answer those prayers five years the way I wanted him to. I am so thankful for the years He's given me since that awful week. They've been some of the best years of my life.
I read this passage the other day and wanted to share it here. I say along with David,
"But I will sing of your strength;
I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.
For you have been to me a fortress
and a refuge in the day of my distress.
O my Strength, I will sing praises to you,
for you, O God, are my fortress,
the God who shows me steadfast love."
~Psalm 59:16-17 (ESV)
