Well here I am at Friday.  I have been through a lot this week.  My apt with the therapist was hard and emotional.  I haven’t eaten since Sunday night, really – I did manage an egg on Wednesday I think, I am not sure what day it was.  I was sliding into sadness and loneliness again.  I could feel the darkness around me not as thick as before but for a few days it was following me.  Wednesday and Thursday I could not stop shaking, it was bad. It came from the centre of my being and radiated through my body.  My heart would beat fast, and I was having trouble catching my breath.  I was a mess.  There was a reason I was under attack.  My pastor, my best friend (his wife,) and my husband and I had planned a prayer session for me.  In my depression I have seen evil and darkness.  I have felt it rush me, circle me, follow me, engulf me.  Thursday, we covered me over with prayer.  We held hands and they prayed for a while, then they laid hands on me and prayed for me.  I shook like crazy, it was emotional and draining.  God was with me you could feel him.  We asked the Holy Spirit to come to us, we prayed protection not only for me but for them too, our collective children our marriages, it was a very very powerful prayer session.  When it was done we sat and huddled for a bit talked about depression the lies, our relationship with each other, the things I have been through, my therapy appointments.  We went to our respective homes and duties that needed to be done for the rest of the evening.  I went home to an empty house and stared at the ceiling for a while, collected my thoughts, till I had to pick up my daughter from field hockey. Got home, went to bed.

The next day- I tossed and turned a bit through the night but got up in the morning and had my coffee went to work and let the day sink in.  No shaking.  I felt calm, dare I say happy.  The last thing my friend prayed was that the peace that passes all understanding rest on me and there was peace.  Peace that I haven’t felt in quite a while.  I felt God near me, I felt Love well up in my heart where  days before loneliness dwelled. I felt happiness where I had felt sadness.  I went on my lunch break and caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror in the bathroom.  To be honest I had to take a second look. Who was that girl!  There was a gleam in her eye. A happiness in her face. It was wonderful.

So what happened – this is not hocus pocus!  A spell, a trickery, an illusion.    This is real life. This is real God. This is real Love.  If you suffer from depression then you know there is darkness there.  If you suffer from depression you know its a fight to try to trust your mind.  If you suffer from depression you know there are lies that try to steal everything away from you including your life. If you do not suffer you must believe that depression is not sadness it is a fight between good and evil.  When you are suffering you are wounded you are vulnerable. The devil senses that and attacks.  He lies, he misleads,  he tricks. You don’t know what thoughts to trust you don’t know what is truth.  You end up feeling like you are a burden to everyone, and that no one loves you, you isolate, you push away, you hurt yourself for allowing this illness to take all that was solid from you. I stop eating as my punishment.  I hide in my room. I allow the lies to convince myself I have no love and no one has love for me.  I can’t trust people cause they lie, they cheat, they don’t mean what they say.

God is Love he covered me over with his Love and tonight my heart is busting, I am crying at this moment.  Crying has been hard for me I have not been able to cry sad tears.  But these are happy tears.  God is the power of the universe.  He is the creator of the world of you of me.  Jesus is our brother who finds the lost children of God and brings them back. If they want to.  I want to.   Jesus died on the cross to break the bonds of sin.  We prayed in the name of Jesus to break the ropes of lies and darkness that in my weakness attached themselves to me.  Jesus set me free last night. He has wrapped his arms around me as my friends wrapped their loving arms around me last night.  I can still feel it today. God is near and I am drinking from my saucer cause my cup over flows from his Love. How good is God!

Am I cured!  No probably not. But in my weakness God has shown me his strength. In my weakness he has shown me a safe haven. In my weakness God has shown me his great Love, Grace, and  Forgiveness.  Could I have seen this in my strength.  I knew these things before my depression, then did I know them as deeply as I do now? No.  I have a chemical imbalance I am going through a change, that is caused by environment, DNA, hormones, or a combination of all of the above.  God takes these things and uses them to his good.  If you are reading this testimony – it would not be here if I have not been through the darkness of depression and felt a need to express my thoughts.

I pray for you that God may open the eyes of your heart and show you His great power and love.  God Bless you.