Things are about to get real. It’s been a good while since I last posted and here’s why: depression and anxiety took over my life. This post is full of vulnerability and hope and I hope that you take a second to read this. For the past year I have struggled with anxiety that kept me up at night and depression that caused me to miss class. I fell into a dark place where I pushed friends, family, and God out. I felt hopeless. When summer finally came around, I was surrounded by the most encouraging people and was being continually poured into. I thought that I had overcome the depression and anxiety that I experienced during the school year over a period of only 3 months. I was wrong. On move in day, I said goodbye to my parents, which normally kills me, but this year I was fine. No tears, just happiness for a new school year and a new chapter. The first week was great, and then Saturday came around. It was the first time I’d been by myself in over 3 months. The anxiety crept in and the fear of being by myself was overwhelming. I experienced the worst panic attack of my life that day and I have never been more desperate for the lord in my life. Thankfully, the Lord knew this was coming and he had prepared the biggest and most loving support system I have ever had. My parents came to be with me for the next few days and I started counseling. Counseling is the absolute greatest thing that everyone needs. It doesn’t make you weak, it doesn’t make you inferior, it makes you human. Counseling is a tool that we are so lucky to have and no one utilizes. Everyone has problems, no ones perfect, and talking it out to someone who is unbiased is the best thing this world has to offer. If you have been going back and forth about counseling, go forward and take that step. The past 5 weeks have been the most transforming of my life and part of that is due to the work and progress I’ve made through counseling.
Mental health and counseling both have such a large stigma around them that makes me so angry. Mental health is so important. Work doesn’t come before it, school doesn’t come before it. In order to be your best self and do well at work and in school, you have to take care of yourself and those things will follow. Since that first week of school, God has been working tremendously in my heart. This past weekend, I went to fall retreat with the campus ministry I’m involved in on campus, and as we like to say, God wrecked me. I have never been so desperate for him and because of that, our relationship has never been closer. He has used this time in my life to be vulnerable with others going through it because you are not alone. I’ll say it again, you are not alone. So many other people are going through this and if you isolate yourself, you’re making it more difficult to get through it. I’ll be real with y’all, all the bibles verses that we hear on anxiety and being sad are nice and all, but they did not help me one bit. I knew God was with me, but I needed him to slap me in the face with the word and not through sappy verses that are over used (for this particular topic, I still love those verses, I just needed something more). In my bible study on Monday night, we looked in Romans 4 and the relationship between God and Abraham, and y’all, the lord spoke to me and I haven’t been able to shake it. 17 As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.”[a] He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not. Every other time I’ve read this I just though God brought a dead person back to life, and that’s cool and all, but that’s easy for us to picture the Lord doing. But on Monday when we read it, I saw a different meaning. God takes the dead parts of us, the parts of us that we see as useless and worthless, and he brings them back to life. He prepares those parts of us and makes them whole again to be able to share our stories with others. To be vulnerable and reach people we never envisioned reaching. He is constantly taking the dead parts of ourselves and bringing them back to life. He took my depression and anxiety and made them a part of me that I’m proud of. He gives us what is necessary to complete his works through the parts of us that he wants to use. Not the good, happy and easy parts of our lives, but the parts that are hard to talk about and make us gain true and real relationships with others. Embrace the broken, God is working in you. The closer we get with Jesus, the more the devil will try to tear us down. This isn't torture or punishment. Lean on Jesus, he using you.
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