For the first time in my life God told me to shut up. Okay, maybe it wasn’t that dramatic but it got your attention right?
I’ve really had a tough time over the past year and a half being able to hear God clearly. I’ve struggled a lot with going from being as close to him as I have ever been, to never being able to hear him at all. However, before we can talk about what God told me after he told me to “shut up,” I guess we should really talk about when I stopped hearing him all together.
This means I have to be vulnerable with you guys, and being vulnerable can be difficult y’all. It is letting people into the parts of your life that aren’t social media worthy, the parts that show you may not have it all together, and its having to admit out loud that you may be struggling. For some, being vulnerable can be a positive thing. It gives you the opportunity to finally let go of what you are struggling with, but for others, like me, it takes everything in you to do it because you know that this means others can criticize you however they want. Personally I’m not a very vulnerable person when it comes to telling people outside of my family what I may be struggling with. I don’t like making others feel uncomfortable or feel like they can’t be happy when I’m not. But, what I’ve learned with my team and my entire squad is that sometimes we have to let others know whats going on so that they can help us, and possibly our story can help someone else. So here is my vulnerable moment. This story is not really comfortable for me to tell nor is it a really happy story at times, but I feel it needs to be told because it may help someone else who is struggling with the same thing. If that person is you I pray that the Lord brings you comfort in a time when his voice may be quiet or when it doesn’t even feel like he is there at all. In this blog I’m going to tell you about my personal struggles with depression. I know some of you may be reading this thinking “not another person talking about depression” but this is something that I work through daily, it’s not something I deal with one day and it’s over with, but God continues to show me with these daily struggles that I can always turn to him for support even when I can’t hear him.
So here we go… I’ve tried many times to think of the first time I realized I had depression, and I can’t really think of when it started. I’ve always just said I had the winter blues and that I was fine and it would go away, and during summer and spring I really thought it did but during the seasons that I didn’t have any symptoms, it was because I always had something to distract me from it. Whether it was sports, friends, or a project, I was always able to fill my time with something to keep me distracted. It wasn’t until college that I really started to notice how bad it could get.
During my freshman year of college I struggled with trying to figure out who I wanted to be, making friends, and figuring out who the Lord was to me. I was so depressed during this time that now I don’t remember a lot of memories from that year. By the end of my sophomore year all the way to my Senior year I had a really great group of friends in my bible study group that helped me get out and do things from time to time with them whether we were meeting at the church for service and worship or going and getting coffee together. Sophomore year was when I began to really develop a meaningful relationship with the Lord. I was able to hear him and spend time in the word regularly and I LOVED it because I felt a huge change in my life for the first time. But now looking back I can see times when I was depressed. I would nap a lot (which who doesn’t in college) and I would spend a lot of time in my bed and I thought it was just because of my busy schedule and everyone did it, but looking back I notice how it was an unbelievably excessive amount of sleeping and spending time alone because I had no energy to socialize with my friends.
So fast forward to my senior year and I started an internship working with children in a mental health hospital. When I say I loved what I did I mean I LOVED it. I loved the kids, I really loved my supervisor, and I loved the other women and men that I worked with everyday. However, this internship was emotionally draining for me. I wasn’t good at reading or listening to the children’s life stories and all their traumas without taking it home with me. My heart hurt on a daily basis and I really became upset with God.
- “Why this child?”
- “Why can’t they just see how much we love them?
- “They would be striving if you would have given them a different life, God!
- “They should have never been exposed to that!”
- “It isn’t fair that you gave them this life!”
“God, Why did you put me here? What was the point?”
Daily I wrestled with why the God that loved me gave these kids extremely tough lives especially when they were so young? I struggled, I became extremely unmotivated to do anything, and I gained 30 pounds. This was the season of my life where God stopped talking to me. I knew he was there and he still loved me, but I never could feel him the way I use to. So after I finished my internship I continued to struggle with being motivated to do things, but now I was uncomfortable with my body and so that just added more of a problem.
In August 2016 I decided to become a teachers assistant and apply for the world race! The first few months of school were great because it was warm and sunny and those are the times I really don’t have any symptoms, I LOVED the class I was working with, and in October I was accepted to the race. I was so excited but still so confused about where I was in my relationship with the Lord, and once a month I would talk to my mobilizer and she would ask me about my walk with God and I would be honest with her but was never able to fully tell her that I was struggling because I didn’t want that to hinder my race. But in October I began to struggle again, only this time is was the worst it has ever been. My mood was horrible, I had no interest in doing ANYTHING, I was sleeping a lot (by a lot I mean 6pm bedtime), and I never wanted to go to work even though it was a job I loved. Finally my mom said its time to get some help, and I cried. I felt like I failed. I felt like people would judge me or think didn’t trust that God was going to take care of me, I felt like I lost the battle against the depression.
I started taking medication and was reminded by my doctor that its okay to seek treatment, God won’t be mad. (Honestly that is the best thing about having a doctor that is a believer). I had to tell my mobilizer what was going on and the way she was understanding and talked to me about it, it was like a weight was lifted. When I started to take medication I was able to be me again, which means I was able to get out and see people and show them God’s love. My mind was able to clear away all the thoughts of sadness and negativity and see the joy in life again! Why wouldn’t God want that? I then began to be in his word more, worship more, and trust that he would begin to talk to me again in his timing.
So fast forward to last Thursday. I’m in a prayer meeting in Kosovo and I’m praying over one of the ministries here. I begin by praying about revival and change in this country, praying for fruit from this ministry, and for the staff to feel the Lords presence in this place; but I then begin to shift to “Why is it like this God?” “Why this why that.” and I finally hear him for the first time, and you want to know what his first words were to me? “Be quiet my child.” In that moment I got down on my knees in front of the Lord and put my face as close to the floor as I could and cried silently just waiting for what he had to say. And the father said:
Be patient for my timing,
have courage to continue my work,
and have the freedom to live knowing that my will will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.
I’ll give you a moment to just think on that one…
LIKE WOW!! He said daughter I don’t need you to do my work, but I love you wherever you are at in life because I want you to come alongside me. I HAVE THIS TAKEN CARE OF ALREADY.
So I’m sitting here in Kosovo, on the race, still struggling with depression, but not hiding my struggles because of the fear of rejection and judgement. Not afraid that God forgot me, but knowing that when I put our relationship as a priority he’s there. God meets us where we are, and I still struggle with it daily but he is still here. He won’t walk away, and he won’t judge us in the times we feel like a failure. He will pick us up off the ground as we weep, and hold us in his arms.
So maybe God told me to shut up, but it really was for the best reason possible: to stop talking, and start listening again.
