...more depression...

After my bout of week long elation, it started to hurtle the other way and kept on going the other way until I felt really quite depressed and sorry for myself. That was a hugely intense time in my life, and however much people tell you and however much you want to just ‘pull yourself together‘, it seems an absolutely impossible and even more depressing task!

I felt so low and pathetic that at times I genuinely wanted my life to end, just to slip off the edge of the page, for God to just make me vanish. I couldn’t see any point in living if I was gonna feel this way, and I certainly couldn’t see a way out that was in the too near future. Saying that though, although the pain in my mind and with my emotions was huge, and for apparently no clear reason, there was something keeping me going, and that was my hope in what God had up his sleeve.

God was still speaking to me, whispering comfort in my ear just when I needed it most. I could by no means hear his voice all the time, but the times I could gave me strength beyond compare and at least hinted a way out, a light at the end of the tunnel perhaps.

The period of depression that I went through (and am still going through to an extent) brought me a much deeper understanding of other people and helped me not to judge others so quick. I mean, I was physically unable to do anything of the ordinary all due to my emotional blunder and I had no choice but to depend on God and other people. It really was life-changing!

I’m not saying that depression is good, and I’m certainly not advising that you go looking for it, but it didn’t half teach me a lot. Also, something else that I sometimes forget to mention is the prayers I was lifting up to God not long before my whole episode came about… I was praying that God would show me himself more clearly (which he did actually when he appeared to me in a vision and touched my face whilst I was having my elated patch which was amazing and I never wanted that feeling to end!), I was praying that he would change my character to be more like him…whatever it took (big mistake!!), I was also praying for a deeper relationship with him and others (especially my family) and looking back, through my depression he has answered all of them, whether I could see the good he was working or not. God's come through for me in an amazing way and shown that he is so faithful!

I don’t really know how to end my testimony, so I’ll just say God is good! Even when you’re far from him or hurting or struggling, he is always by your side and on your side. God has shown me things I never could’ve dreamed of and has a love for me that is incomparable to anything else I know, and although my walk with him is rough at times, when I’m finding it hard to trust him, I know that he is faithful and in all things he works for the good of those who love him. And I love him!