What does the future hold

What does the future hold

by | Sep 24, 2020 | Bible Study, Faith Blog

God has a good plan for your life, despite what things may look like right now.

I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve been worried about what the future holds.

When I was reading The Bible the other day, God showed me that we don’t need to worry or be in fear over our future.

By applying God’s promises to our every day life, we put our faith in God and trust Him with our future.

There are five simple steps to doing this:

1) Notice how you are feeling (worried, anxious, fearful etc).  Ask yourself what you have been thinking about.  This is what usually causes our negative feelings and can lead to depression and anxiety.  Write this down or type it up on the computer so you can refer back to it later.

2) Remind yourself of 2 Corinthians 10:5 from the Bible “we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ”.

In practical terms, this means you take all of your fearful, worried, insecure thoughts (and any other negative thoughts) and choose to reject those thoughts.

Choose, instead to focus on what God says in His Word and believe God’s Word instead of your own thoughts.

3) Look up Bible promises that are relevant to what you are thinking and feeling or whatever type of problem you are facing. Write them down.  Have them handy so you can read them frequently. Choose to believe God’s promises.

4) Ask God to speak to you through His promises.  Write down any ‘impressions’ you get – this is often God speaking to you.

5) Meditate on these promises day and night.  That means to read them, think about them, quote them in your prayers to God – literally be “mindful” of them any time you start to lose your sense of peace.

Continue to choose to trust God no matter how things look right now.
God is faithful.

I’ll give you an example.

As I said above, recently, I started to worry about my future.

I am just in the beginning stages of trying to build an online ministry through blog posts and You Tube videos.  This includes a section on my website that contains my favourite Bible promises.

While I was looking through Pinterest the other day, I found a site that has the most amazing, beautifully designed Bible promises and You Tube videos.  The person who has designed them has such a gift.  They are so creative – much more so than me.

This left me feeling discouraged and unsure of what I should do

For a moment, I considered trying to create something similar to the other website, but it would have taken me months and I couldn’t do it as well as they had.

Then I remembered the five steps above and began to apply them.

I started looking up Bible texts that were relevant to my future and God’s guidance.

I found scripture after scripture where God promises to lead us and guide us.

As I found them and typed them up, I started to become more hopeful and I once again, felt a sense of peace about my future and the direction I should take.

I’ll walk you through the five steps and show you how God spoke to me and brought me comfort and hope and how God will do this for you too.

 

Step 1 – Notice how you are feeling and ask yourself what you have been thinking about

I was feeling discouraged about my ideas and my ability and uncertain about which direction to take.  I knew that if I continued to dwell on these discouraged, negative thoughts, I would end up depressed.

I was comparing myself to others (big mistake!!!).  I did not feel as creative as they were. 

I am just at the beginning of my journey to build a ministry and an online presence. 

Sometimes it’s hard to keep going when no-one knows you; hardly anyone (except maybe your parents!) are reading your blog and only a handful of people are watching your You Tube videos.

I was wondering whether I should continue to create Bible Promises for my website when others had already done that – and better than I could do it!

Once again, I was unsure of which direction to head.  I started to doubt everything!

Step 2 – I reminded myself of 2 Corinthians 10:5 to “take every thought captive” and made a deliberate choice to replace my negative, discouraged thoughts with the promises in God’s Word.

Step 3 – I started looking up Bible texts about God’s guidance and about the future.

This is so easy to do these days.  I just went to my favourite online Bible resource called Bible Gateway and started doing a word search on ‘Guide‘ and ‘Future‘.

I also made a deliberate choice to believe the promises of God.

I asked God to speak to me through His Word and I wrote down any ‘impressions’ I noted as I read.  This is often God speaking to you.

The more I read, the more encouraged I felt!!

I started with Jeremiah 29:11 as this is an all time favourite and guaranteed to encourage me.

When I typed the word ‘future’ into Bible Gateway, a great verse that I have never heard before popped up.  Job 8:7 “Your beginnings will seem humble, so great will your future be”.

What a great verse!

So this tells me that God has a good plan for me, even if it is not 100% clear to me right now. I know the general direction.  I am not sure about all the specifics, but I do know enough to keep going (writing blog posts, making You Tube videos about my life experiences and God’s faithfulness). I was starting to feel encouraged already!

The next verse was Psalm 37:37 “A future awaits those who seek peace.”

If there is one thing I am – it’s a “Peace Maker”.  I always seek to be a peaceful person and to have peaceful relationships, so I knew I could claim this promise for myself.

I went on to read the next verse.

Amen! Another promise that I have a good future.”

The next verse was similar, Proverbs 24:14 “Know also that Wisdom is like honey for you; if you find it, there is a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off.”

I do have a genuine desire to seek God’s Wisdom.  Therefore there is a future hope for me. 
My hope will not be cut off.

Next, another favourite.  We can claim this promise for anything. 

God promises that if I call on him and ask him what I should do, He will answer me.

I actually already had this Bible verse typed up, so it was easy to look it up. 

This shows the value in spending time reading God’s Word on a regular basis and typing up favourite Bible promises as you find them (or having a Bible Promise book or a favourite website you can look up).  This is precisely why I want my favourite Bible promises to feature on my website – I want the promises of God quickly available to anyone, any time they need it.  

Having easy access to the promises of God is life saving because when you are feeling down, you don’t always feel like reading the Bible.  You might just choose to curl up in bed instead.

But when you already have these special promises at hand, it takes no effort to look them up and read them again and it starts to bring comfort immediately.

Next, I found another favourite.

 

This promises that even though I don’t have a really clear picture of my online ministry, He is always with me and will never leave me.  This comforts me.  God is with me while we figure this out together.

Next I typed in the word ‘guide’ into Bible Gateway and these Bible texts came up.

Psalm 23:3 “He refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths, for His Name’s sake.

Psalm 25:5 “Guide me in Your Truth and teach me, for You are God my Saviour, and my hope is in you all day long”.

Psalm 31:3 “Since You are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of Your Name, lead me and guide me”.

Psalm 48:14 “For this God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide, even to the end”.

Psalm 73:24 “You guide me with Your counsel and afterwards You will take me into glory”.

Psalm 78:53 “He guided them safely, so they were unafraid; but the sea engulfed their enemies”.

Psalms 25:9 He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them His way”.

All encouraging.

Isaiah 49:10 “They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them besides springs of water”.

Isaiah 57:18 “I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; I will guide them and restore comfort to Israel’s mourners”.

Isaiah 58:11 “The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail”.

 

Proverbs 6:22 “When you walk, they will guide you; when you sleep, they will watch over you; when you awake, they will speak to you”.

Isaiah 42:16 “I will lead the blind along paths they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them”.

It was really encouraging that God promised to lead me ‘along unfamiliar paths’.
It has taken me a whole year just to decide on a business name, create a website,
learn to use WordPress, learn to use the Divi theme, learn to use Canva, learn to use Pinterest, learn to use Filmora 9, to create and edit my You Tube videos – all new to me!

Isaiah 63:14 “Like cattle that go down to the plain, they were given rest by the Spirit of the Lord. This is how you guided your people to make for yourself a glorious Name”.

John 16:13 “But when He, the Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come”.

I felt impressed that God was saying that He will reveal my future direction to me little by little, as I am ready to receive it.  This was quite a breakthrough – knowing that God would reveal the way forward to me step by step, not all at once.

We are growing, spiritually, all through our lives.  We can only handle so much truth at a time and God does not want to overwhelm us.  He could tell us our whole future tonight and we would be so shocked, we would fall down in fear and give up. 

God only tells us what we are ready to hear.  Just the next step or two ahead.

 

The next verse gives me confidence that in my heart, I am going in the right direction.

Psalm 22: 30 “Future generations will be told about the Lord.”

This year, I have been really enjoying putting the Bible on video.

So far, I have put Romans 1, Romans 2 and Romans 12 on Powerpoint, added beautiful pictures, videos and music and created You Tube videos.

I am doing a similar thing with Bible promises – both on my website and in You Tube videos.

I have also been making You Tube videos about my life’s journey and the faithfulness of God.

My intention is to minister to this generation as well as ‘future generations’.

Psalm 102:18 “Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created can praise the Lord.”

Another confirmation about the direction I should be going with my online ministry.  That’s two Bible texts along the same line as each other.  This is encouraging.

I now feel confirmation that even though my Bible promises are not as ‘creative’ as someone else’s, it doesn’t matter.  Getting the Word of God out there in an easy to digest format is what matters.

After reading all these great Bible texts, I feel really encouraged and hopeful!!  I no longer feel down and discouraged. 

I feel like God has confirmed that creating content around the Word of God is what I’m meant to be doing.  He has also shown me that He will not reveal my whole ministry to me now, but will lead me little by little.  I definitely feel that I know the next few steps to take. I am also now certain that creating a ‘Bible Promise‘ section on my website is the right thing
to do.

You don’t need to read as many Bible texts as I have included here.  Sometimes, it is enough just to read one or two Bible texts.

The really important thing is:

1) Taking notice of what you are thinking and feeling.

2) Choosing to give your negative thinking to God and replacing it with His Word.

3) Looking up some relevant Bible texts and choosing to believe that they are for you.

4) Asking God to ‘speak’ to you as you read His Word.

5) Continuing to read and think about these Bible texts frequently and have them handy to re-read any time you start to lose your sense of peace. 

I would love you to let me know if you try this and how it goes   Next time you are feel negative emotions, try this out and see if you find encouragement, hope and guidance. 

 

The life changing power of gratitude

The life changing power of gratitude

by | Aug 1, 2020 | Faith Blog, Mental Health

In the challenging times we are living in, it is more important than ever to deliberately look for things to be grateful for; to focus on what we do have, rather than what we don’t have.

I’m saying this to remind myself as much as anyone else.

I have to admit, I have struggled to be content about some things lately.  But I know from past experience, that no matter what you are going through, being grateful for what you do have can be truly life changing.

As we begin to focus on the positive things in our life, it tends to lift us up out of depression and pain and give us hope for the future.

One of my favorite people on You Tube, has recently purchased a 14th century mansion in the English country side.  Now they are completely redecorating it and purchasing luxury furniture to fit it out.

I have to admit, I have found it a bit hard to watch lately.  I live in a small, old, run down house on a main road and we still have quite a decent size mortgage.

But when I choose to be thankful on purpose, it changes my mindset completely.

I am so grateful that we have our own home.  It’s warm and cozy and it’s enough. 

I especially love how the sunshine streams in our bedroom window all day long – the sunshine is so healing.

As my husband has said many times:

‘it’s not much, but it’s ours and it’s full of love’.

I have to admit this is true.  It helps you to see beyond the cracks in the walls, the flaking paint on the window sills and the broken tiles around the fire place. 

But it is ours, and it is full of love.

This is something to be very grateful for.  And it reminds me of the miracle God has done in our 

For many, many years, our home was full of drunkenness, fighting, sadness, depression, anxiety and apathy.  We have been on the brink of divorce more than once.

It is truly a miracle that God has completely restored our marriage.  So much healing has come to our home.  It is now filled with peace, calm, laughter and love.  We love each other more now than we did, when we got married 30 years ago.

Many, many years ago, when things were at their worst in our marriage, I started to wish I had a different life partner.  I really thought it would be easier to start over.  Only the Grace of God stopped me from doing the unthinkable and betraying our sacred marriage vows. 

I will be forever grateful for one special person, who advised me:

Next time you feel like walking away, I want you to sit down and write down all the things you love about your husband.

This wasn’t easy and I really didn’t want to do it.  It felt like it would have been a lot easier to just walk away, but I followed their advice and before I knew it, I had written a list of more than 20 things I loved about my husband.  And I can tell you, it really helped.

It reminded me of the man I had fallen in love with and married.

Knowing that he was still in there, somewhere, buried deep within his own pain and numbed every night with large quantities of alcohol.

Writing this list of things I loved about my husband; things I was grateful for, really worked.  It was one of the things that helped me to stay the course, for well over fifteen years of heartache, when it looked like things would never change.

I am ever so glad that we stuck it out.  God has completely restored our marriage.  We love each other now more than ever. 

Now our house truly is ‘full of love’.

I am forever grateful to the person who told me to write down all the things I loved about my husband; all the things I was grateful for about him, when I was right at the point of walking away.

I know that many of you are facing the seemingly impossible right now.  Perhaps, like me, your marriage feels like it’s on the brink of break down; perhaps you have lost your job or you have had to close your business down; perhaps you have a child who has gone off the rails and is caught up in drug addiction.

No matter what is going on in your life, there is always things you can
be grateful for. 

I want to encourage you to take time today, and every day, to be grateful on purpose.

Write down what you do have, rather than focusing on what you don’t have.  You might be really surprised just how many things are still good in your life; things to be truly thankful for.

And the most surprising thing is how much better you feel, when you approach life through a lens of gratitude.

I guess this comes a little easier to me as I’m naturally a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, but even if you are a ‘glass half empty’ kind of person, you will be amazed at how much better you will feel, by choosing to be grateful on purpose.

In Philippians 4:11–13 the Bible says “I have learned to be content, whatever
the circumstances.  I know what it 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 all this through Him (God) who gives me strength”.

And if you are in need, as so many people are at this chaotic time in world history, God says in Philippians 4:6-7

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.

In the challenging times we are living in, it is more important than ever to deliberately look for things to be grateful for; to focus on what we do have, rather than what we don’t have.

I’m saying this to remind myself as much as anyone else.

I have to admit, I have struggled to be content about some things lately.  But I know from past experience, that no matter what you are going through, being grateful for what you do have can be truly life changing.

As we begin to focus on the positive things in our life, it tends to lift us up out of depression and pain and give us hope for the future.

One of my favorite people on You Tube, has recently purchased a 14th century mansion in the English country side.  Now they are completely redecorating it and purchasing luxury furniture to fit it out.

I have to admit, I have found it a bit hard to watch lately.  I live in a small, old, run down house on a main road and we still have quite a decent size mortgage.

But when I choose to be thankful on purpose, it changes my mindset completely.

I am so grateful that we have our own home.  It’s warm and cozy and it’s enough. 

I especially love how the sunshine streams in our bedroom window all day long – the sunshine is so healing.

As my husband has said many times:

‘it’s not much, but it’s ours and it’s full of love’.

I have to admit this is true.  It helps you to see beyond the cracks in the walls, the flaking paint on the window sills and the broken tiles around the fire place. 

But it is ours, and it is full of love.

This is something to be very grateful for.  And it reminds me of the miracle God has done in our marriage.

Our house wasn’t always full of love.

For many, many years, our home was full of drunkenness, fighting, sadness, depression, anxiety and apathy.  We have been on the brink of divorce more than once.

It is truly a miracle that God has completely restored our marriage.  So much healing has come to our home.  It is now filled with peace, calm, laughter and love.  We love each other more now than we did, when we got married 30 years ago.

Many, many years ago, when things were at their worst in our marriage, I started to wish I had a different life partner.  I really thought it would be easier to start over.  Only the Grace of God stopped me from doing the unthinkable and betraying our sacred marriage vows. 

I will be forever grateful for one special person, who advised me:

‘next time you feel like walking away, I want you to sit down and write down all the things you love about your husband’.

This wasn’t easy and I really didn’t want to do it.  It felt like it would have been a lot easier to just walk away, but I followed their advice and before I knew it, I had written a list of more than 20 things I loved about my husband.  And I can tell you, it really helped.

It reminded me of the man I had fallen in love with and married. 

Knowing that he was still in there, somewhere, buried deep within his own pain and numbed every night with large quantities of alcohol.

Writing this list of things I loved about my husband; things I was grateful for, really worked.  It was one of the things that helped me to stay the course, for well over fifteen years of heart ache, when it looked like things would never change.

I am ever so glad that we stuck it out.  God has completely restored our marriage.  We love each other now more than ever. 

Now our house truly is ‘full of love’.

I am forever grateful to the person who told me to write down all the things I loved about my husband; all the things I was grateful for about him, when I was right at the point of walking away.

I know that many of you are facing the seemingly impossible right now.  Perhaps, like me, your marriage feels like it’s on the brink of break down; perhaps you have lost your job or you have had to close your business down; perhaps you have a child who has gone off the rails and is caught up in drug addiction.

No matter what is going on in your life, there is always things you can be grateful for. 

I want to encourage you to take time today, and every day, to be grateful on purpose.

Write down what you do have, rather than focusing on what you don’t have.  You might be really surprised just how many things are still good in your life; things to be truly thankful for.

And the most surprising thing is how much better you feel, when you approach life through a lens of gratitude.

I guess this comes a little easier to me as I’m naturally a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, but even if you are a ‘glass half empty’ kind of person, you will be amazed at how much better you will feel, by choosing to be grateful on purpose.

In Philippians 4: 11 – 13 the Bible says “I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances.  I know what it 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 all this through Him (God) who gives me strength”.

And if you are in need, as so many people are at this chaotic time in world history, God says in Philippians 4:6-7.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.

You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

by | Jul 7, 2020 | Faith Blog, Mental Health

I want to say up front that I am not telling this story to put my husband down in any way.  Rather, I want to glorify God who restores marriages, even when it looks like it would be impossible.

I am married to a great guy, who was an alcoholic for over 30 years.

He stopped drinking 3 years ago – something I never thought would happen.  God’s restoration of our marriage is truly a miracle, given all that we have been through together.

One cold, dark night, about 11.30pm, my daughter, who was 4 years old, came rushing into our bedroom choking and struggling to breathe.  I had to get her to a doctor or hospital – and quickly!

I looked over at my husband, who was passed out drunk as usual and I knew I couldn’t leave my 2 year old son home while I sought medical assistance for my daughter, because if he needed any help, my husband would be too drunk to get up and help him.

So I woke my son up out of a sound sleep and bundled both the children into the car.

I knew that there was an after hours doctor’s clinic about half an hour and way, so I drove straight there.

When we got there, we found that it had closed for the night just 5 minutes earlier.  I was gutted – and worried.

I knew that there was a hospital about 10 minutes away, so I went to re-start the car, but it wouldn’t start.  The battery had died!

I checked my mobile phone – the battery was flat.  I couldn’t believe it!

How could all this be happening when I was in the middle of a medical emergency?

I had to get to a telephone so I could ring roadside assistance to get the car going.

I remembered that there was a Nursing Home just a few doors up, but it was a bitterly cold night and pouring in rain and I knew I couldn’t take the children with me.  It would only make my daughter sicker.  But I didn’t want to leave them alone in the car either.  I didn’t know what to do.

I turned to my daughter and said ‘can you be a really brave little girl and look after your baby brother? Mummy has to go and find someone with a phone.  She bravely nodded ‘yes’.

I locked the car and prayed that no-one would find the children in the car.

I went a few doors up to the Nursing Home and told them I needed to use their phone to ring roadside assistance.  They wouldn’t even let me come inside the building!  But they passed me a phone through the window so I could make the phone call.  I thanked them and ran back to my car, hoping that the kids were fine.  They were.

The operator at roadside assistance said that someone would be there within about 45 minutes.

We would just have to wait.

It was freezing cold in the car, but I put both kids on my lap, covered us all with a big jacket and waited for help to come.

It was during this 45 minutes wait that I realised that I had a choice about how I could respond here.  I absolutely love the preacher, Joyce Meyer, and in the past week, she had preached about how God would give us His peace despite our circumstances.  God reminded me of these timely messages.

I chose to be at peace – despite my daughter still struggling to breathe, despite the fact that our car had broken down, despite the fact that my husband was passed out drunk when I really needed him.

I could choose how to respond – and I chose peace.

I cuddled the children and helped them get back to sleep while I calmly waited for roadside assistance.

I prayed and prayed, but I continued to choose to be at peace and calm.

The level of peace I felt was unbelievable.  That’s why the Bible calls God’s peace “the peace that passes understanding”.  It is a peace that looks to be impossible given the situation.

God is faithful.

Approximately 45 minutes later, the roadside assistance man came and jump-started my car.

I quickly drove to the hospital and just as I got to the main emergency entrance, where the ambulances drive in and my car died again in the middle of the emergency drive way.  No ambulances or other vehicles could get in or out because my car was in the way.

I just left the car in the middle of the driveway and took the children into the emergency room.

To my surprise, my daughter had actually improved while all this was going on.  Her breathing was much better.  By the time we got to see a doctor, they gave her some oxygen but said that she should be fine.  They said that with things like this, the cold night air can actually help!

Meanwhile, some staff from the hospital came and pushed my car off the driveway so that ambulances could still get in and out.

It was about 2.00am by now.  I knew I would have to get roadside assistance out again to get my car started again, so I used a public phone at the hospital to call for them to come out again. 

I then tried to ring my husband.  I rang and rang and rang, trying to get hold of him to let him know what was happening and that I could use his help.  He didn’t answer – no doubt he was too drunk to get to the phone.

Another hour later, roadside assistance came again, but the technician was a horrible man and he started yelling at me for not ‘servicing’ my battery.  Apparently, with these kinds of batteries, you had to regularly top them up with water.  I had never heard of such a thing.  Plus it was a really, really old, bomb of a car.  I had endless battery problems and breakdowns, but couldn’t afford to buy anything better.  I told the technician that I didn’t know I had to put water in the battery regularly.  He kept yelling at me.

I knew I just had to stay calm and ‘hold my tongue’, even though he was behaving like a bully.  Here I was, stuck in the driveway of a hospital at 2.00am in the morning, with two small children and this was the second break down I’d had for the night.

He should have had empathy for the plight I was in – but he didn’t.  I kept my mouth shut, while he replaced the battery.  I thanked him very much for his help and began driving home.

It was now that I started feeling angry at my husband.  He didn’t have to work the next day – but I did!  I could feel myself getting angrier and angrier, but once again, I remembered that I could choose to hold my temper and stay at peace.

We finally got home about 2.30am in the morning.  I woke my husband up to tell him what had happened, but he couldn’t care less.  He was just annoyed that I had woken him up.  All I had wanted was a little bit of empathy – just an arm around me telling me he was sorry for what I’d been through, but I didn’t get that.  He went straight back to sleep.  I tucked the kids back in bed and they went back to sleep.  I went to bed and contemplated the night’s events.

It was truly miraculous that God had kept me at peace in the most stressful of circumstances.

I thanked God for this peace and his strength and went to sleep.

“And the peace of God which is beyond our understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  Phillipians 4:7 (The Bible)

You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

My journey out of a deep depression

My journey out of a deep depression

by | Jun 17, 2020 | Faith Blog, Mental Health

In January of this year, my husband and I were in more pain than we’ve been in for many, many years.  Our pain was so intense.  It was a physical force, attacking our mind and body in continuous blows day and night.

I had forgotten how bad depression felt –
really bad depression.

My husband had lost his job on the last day of work before the Xmas break.  It was totally unexpected – a real shock.  His boss kept saying ‘don’t take it personally’, but how can you not take it personally?

If it’s not personal, then why me?  Why now? 

He was an excellent employee.  He didn’t have a single sick day in his first 12 months on the job.  He always got to work early.  He worked at late as required – overnight when necessary.  Even though lunch breaks were almost unheard of, he never complained.

So it seemed really, really unfair.

Now this, by itself, could have easily led to depression – or at least shock and sadness, but the bigger problem, we’d had hard (and sometimes) devastating things happen to us for years.

We were battle weary.  Enough was enough.

Every time something goes wrong, my husband gets angry at God.  I don’t.  I keep trusting God – until this time.

My husband was in the depths of despair and so was I.  Seeing the pain that he had been through over and over and over again was unbearable – I couldn’t bear to see his pain any more.  I “lost it”. 

I started screaming at God “I hate you.  I hate you”. 

Something I have never felt or said before.  I broke down and sobbed floods of tears in my anguish.

I lost my faith that God was good.

How could God be good – when He let so many bad things happen to people.  I had never felt this way before.

When I lost my faith in God, that’s when the really serious depression really hit.

The physical and emotional pain was palpable.  It was unbearable.

Down, down, down we went into a world that only had depression – nothing else.

Thankfully, I realised that it was my “thinking” that was really making me depression worse.

The more I thought “poor us”, “my poor husband”, “God isn’t good” or “God doesn’t care about us”, the more depressed I got.  My faith in God had always brought me through hard times in the past.

Thankfully, I had the realisation that it was my thoughts that were dragging me down.

I also realised that no longer trusting in God was also dragging me down.

So I did two things:

  1. I finally made a decision to change my thoughts; AND
  2. I decided to deliberately put my faith in God again.

I didn’t feel like trusting God.  I felt that He had really let us down, but I was DESPERATE to feel better.  I had hit my rock bottom and I could not physically stand to feel that depth of pain anymore.

To my surprise, just changing these two things started helping me to feel better quite quickly.

Not fully better straight away, but just a step or two better.

Enough to help me to keep moving forward.

Slowly but surely, I climbed out of the deep depression.

I started deliberately thinking of all the things I was grateful for

– simple things like having clean drinking water and being able to have a hot shower any time I felt like it with just with a turn of a tap.  I was grateful that I have arms and legs that work – many people don’t.

I started also started to remind myself of the ways I had seen God work in the past.

I recalled Romans 8:28 “All things work together for good, to them that love God”.

I had seen this come true many times in my life.  Hard, hard things in the past that I could see God worked out for my good in the end.

I continued to slowly climb out of the deep depression.

I started reading the Bible again and found scriptures like these ones:

Psalms 86: 4 “Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you.”

Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.”

And my favourite in Proverbs 3: 5 and 6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight”.

This reminded me to stop try to work it all out myself.  Stop asking ‘why’.

Just choose to trust God – no matter what the circumstances looked like.

It probably took about a week, but I slowly returned to some semblance of normality through choosing the trust God and to be grateful on purpose.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying this is a magic pill for clinical depression.  I’ve been on medication for depression for half my life and it has been a tremendous help.  But it’s helpful realising that it’s more than just medication. 

When you are in a deep depression, it can help to:

1) choose to be grateful and

2) choose to trust your Creator.

Try it – and see how it goes.

I would love to hear your stories in the comments below.

Can you relate to my story?

What are some things that have helped you crawl out of a deep depression?

 

 

My journey back from a deep depression in 2020