Well, that basically held me over for most of life growing up. I was convinced I was saved and good to go. Had no need to worry. Not to mention I was living in a Christian home, going to a Christian school and went to church three times a week. How couldn't I be saved? And really I was a good kid. So there was no need to question anything. Then I got into high school--still a christian school, but yet things started changing for me. By tenth grade, I was finding myself to be very depressed. If anyone looked at the life I had, they'd ask why? How could I have any reason to be depressed? But yet I was even to the point of cutting myself. I sometimes scared myself that I had let myself get to that point. This continued on as my high school years went on. By my senior year, I was depressed and making decisions in my life that were probably considered insane. It is like I had gone off the deep end. My friends tried talking me out of a very bad online relationship I had developed but I just blocked them out and did what I wanted.
Then we hit my college years and things kind of smoothed out. I wasn't completely happy but the depression had seemed to go away for me and my focus changed to getting through my time at college and trying to have fun doing so. I knew how to live a good life and I even tricked my own mind into thinking I was a good person. I had some ups and downs along the way, but overall it was a good four years until my last semester. I felt like I hit a wall and couldn't get around it. My health was not good and had to deal with surgery and that put me behind in my work. Nothing went right with school or relationships or even things as little as my car always breaking down. I just sunk back into a deep depression and everything seemed to go wrong...and when something went right I would not even recognize it in my life because I was so depressed again. Fortunately, I made it through and graduated. But then I went from being surrounded by Bible teaching and church and being in a Christian bubble to having none of that at home really. Church was once a week but just because I was expected to go.
That summer following graduation was not good at all. I made some of the worst decisions in my life. Ones that I can never take back and have to live with. But I didn't care then and just wanted to live life to the fullest. I was still feeling depressed in life but now I just covered that with drinking and guys. At the end of the summer, I was tired of life. I was chatting on Facebook with a friend from college and she was hearing how I was living my life. She began to ask me questions...deep questions and ones that I really didn't want to answer because I knew my answers weren't good ones. I kind of brushed off the questions at the times because I didn't want to face the truth. The very obvious truth that I had spent so many years ignoring. But after a couple days of having those questions go over in my mind, I broke down. So I faced the truth and knew I was not happy in life and wanted to fill the very large void that I had been filling with all the wrong things. I talked to Emily, my friend from college again, and told her how right she was and that I was not truly saved. I never had really asked Christ into my heart. What I had done at five was meaningless merely to "see my dad again". I didn't care about a relationship with God, which was very evident in my life.
So I accepted Christ into my life. And things started getting better. I had a reason to live now and keep moving forward, however I let circumstances get in the way of what really mattered. Months going by without a job. A dying car. Bad health. Not being able to pay bills. Failed relationships. Why was God letting all this happen? Depression had kicked back in and it hit me full force. Cutting and everything. To points I didn't even want to live anymore. I knew for a fact I was saved now, so why was feeling this way? Why was I having such a hard time in life? Then it dawned on me---I never took the steps I needed after getting saved to make my new found life grow. I didn't change anything in my life except that one day I asked Christ into my heart. So I talked to my pastor and got help for what my doctor rules as "irritable depression". Things have certainly changed for me. I'm finally on the right road again. Still hitting a few speed bumps now and then, but have one focus in my life now--and that is growing and serving God with my life. Living a God-honoring life and being a true woman after God's own heart...a Proverbs 31 woman. I see things differently and have never been happier in life. So I am going to let God take control of my life and I know I'll be on track in this journey I've been on....and while it's been rough it has definitely been worth taking!
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11
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