The wind was explosive, the down draft was so forceful I felt it was depressing me into the solid earth. It was a tornado turned upside down! Instead of raising me up and into the air - it had punished my lungs so I could hardly breath. I was spiraling downward at a rate so fast it would have been exhilarating had I been a child on a roller coaster.
Truth be told, I am only hanging on by a thread that is quickly unraveling from it’s anchor of support. The noise in my ears is a roaring vibration blocking out all the familiar and comfortable sounds. I can’t hear the voice of my God.
He is shouting, “I love you my daughter hear my voice!”
But I cannot. The voices of my Christian friends are trying to call me back from the depths, but I’m free falling into a whirlpool and the rushing water is too loud to hear their words of love and encouragement.
I’m on a path that is out of control; I go where the river, the wind and my emotions take me, which is far away from God. All I hear now is the other voice, the one I have listened to since I was a child.
“You are alone, and you always will be” the voice mocks me. “You are insignificant, your life does not matter.”
The heaviness in my heart drags me down, down, down to the deep abyss, where all is dark and cold. I find myself settling onto a kind of shelf. The words of the Psalmist in 139 come back to me; “Where can I go from Your spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence. If I go up to the heavens, You are there. If I make my bed in the depths, You are there.” He is here with me, I cannot see Him but He is here in the depths. Just then, the “shelf” begins to rise as I am seated on it. It pushes past the darkness! As I am breaking the surface I take a gasping breath in, and look around amazed. It was not a shelf that I had landed on. Instead I found I was sitting in the palm of God’s hand!
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I have heard those same mocking voices drowning out the Lord's voice on more occasions than I want to remember. Depression is a dark demom indeed. It takes practice and time to remind yourself that even while you're in the depths of it, you're still safe in the hands of God. Great article. Beth
