I was visiting a friend in the hospital when it dawned on me that what people thought would be the end of me was actually the beginning of me.
This September five years ago I admitted myself to the psychiatric ward of Victoria General Hospital. I was so afraid. I was so ashamed. I was so broken. Like Danny Gokey’s words that I listened to over and over again say it:
“You’re shattered
Like you’ve never been before
The life you knew
In a thousand pieces on the floor
And words fall short in times like these
When this world drives you to your knees
You think you’re never gonna get back
To the you that used to be.”
And for about three weeks only one single friend knew where I was. To the rest of my people I had vanished. And Danny Gokey’s song kept speaking to me:
“Tell your heart to beat again
Close your eyes and breathe it in
Let the shadows fall away
Step into the light of grace
Yesterday’s a closing door
You don’t live there anymore
Say goodbye to where you’ve been
And tell your heart to beat again.”
For years I had battled with suicidal depression. For years I looked for God with my whole heart but found only emptiness and silence. And now I had begun medical treatment for depression and anxiety; the thing that for years I had been told would destroy me.
And suddenly heaven seemed to open to me. Suddenly I began to feel God’s love for me. Suddenly I saw light at the end of my tunnel instead of death.
I spent five weeks in the ward before I was released. Five weeks of experiencing the love of Jesus through nurses and doctors who had no idea they were showing me what it meant to be loved by God. Five weeks that set me on a journey of healing.
It’s been nearly five years since then. And I’ve come a long way. Though the people walking closest to me will know that life is still not all bright and smooth for me. I still have seasons of depression. I still have seasons I believe in lies. I still have seasons in which I don’t believe I am capable of life. And I still go to therapy. I may still do so for a while. But if you knew me five years ago, you know that I am not the same person anymore. There was no light in my eyes. Anxiety had completely emotionally crippled me. And I spent most of my waking hours wishing I wasn’t alive.
God has used what I was told to believe would break me to instead bring me into fullness of life. And, yes, I realize that medical treatment for depression may not be everyone’s route of healing. But for me it was the beginning of it.
And I now know that all the years that I believed God was not interested in me, He was there, as is said in Psalm 91:
“If you make the Lord your refuge, if you make the Most High your shelter…He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
All the years I spent contemplating suicide, it was God’s angels that kept me alive!!
“In the waiting, in the searching
In the healing and the hurting
Like a blessing buried in the broken pieces
Every minute, every moment
Where I’ve been and where I’m going
Even when I didn’t know it or couldn’t see it
There was Jesus.”
Zach Williams
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