I am often prone to depression.  Depression seems to have been a life-long companion for me since the ripe old age of 12.  Always knocking at my door – ready to embrace me even when I don’t want it, to have it ruling in my life is a pain.  It is like a curse. I am learning that life ebbs and flows.  Fleeting moments come and go.  Moments that will be cherished for ever will come and will go as quickly as they arrived.  That everything has to be taken in a stride.  That even when the high moments in life disappear, the other moments in life don’t need  be full of gloom and despair but that they should be viewed as an adventure. And this devil is persistent, likes to lurk beneath the undercurrents, and likes to remind us of his presence. Therefore plummeting us  head first into a world of unwelcoming depression, into a world of loneliness once more. And you wonder in those moments is that God’s best for you?  You want to scream but you don’t have the emotional energy to face your own demise of a dream that could have been but isn’t to be.

You ask God why?  Why are the fleeting moments the good high ones of life? And then everything else seems mediocre in comparison.  Receiving platitudes ‘there, there, you have to go through the pain to become spiritually strong’…. ‘there, there, the pain will go away. You’re strong, you’ll come through it.’ Only you want to scream, and let the pain be there.  The tears are the reminders of what those moments were, those special moments were. Those wonderful months of serving the Lord at a peak.  Knowing that you were doing the Lord’s will. Only you know that all good things seem to end… eventually.  And that everything in this life is a long and I mean looooooooooooooooooong drawn out process. Sometimes in my mind an unnecessary process to get to God’s best.

The tear drops that drop means that the past months have been extremely challenging and yet full of wonderful peaks, full of amazing experiences.  Full of God’s grace.  Full of God’s blessings. The tear drops means you have had an amazing impact on me.  It means that you have made a lasting impression on my heart – and I for one know that God wanted me to be a part of this journey.  A journey of wonderful discoveries.  Learning to trust God in the day to day trials, but knowing that God’s got your back.  Knowing that God cares for you.  Knowing that God was with you all the way as you shared your story with people.  Knowing that God would provide, even when there was no money, or when there was little gas left, or no personal space.  It was a time of spiritual growth.  It was a time to expand my wings into a free butterfly.  It was time to grow out of my comfort zone, and embrace the adventures that life can present in the palms of God’s hands.

So, do I let go and accept the new norm?  Accept the long, I mean really looooooooooooooooooooooong drawn out process before I get to a stage where I am completely ready to minister to people?  Or do I let the devil come into my life and steal what God has prepared for me?  I know I have to crawl forward, despite the pain, despite the loss… but I also know that God will meet me.  Haven’t I the last months been sharing to pin our struggles to the foot of the cross rather than suppressing them until they eat us alive like a cancer ridden body?

I will trust the Lord, I will crawl forward even if it hurts me, even if it means I have to go through that wretched pain again.  That unwelcoming familiar presence of pain, hurt, depression, and loneliness in my life again. I will let go, and let God in and let Him guide me further into the unknown familiar route of life’s mundane tasks.