His Faithfulness!!

Do you ever have a problem in your life that just won't go away and you hope and pray that it will??? Well, that's something I've been dealing with. For a long time now I have been dealing with so many different emotions and internal struggles as I talked about them a little bit in my last blog entry. Today, I was supposed to work and last night I decided to give my shift away, which I never do, just to have a day to myself and do some things I've wanted to do lately. It's such a gorgeous day I'm so glad I'm not stuck working or whatever. Instead, I've been enjoying a nice "date" with Jesus at Caribou for the past hour or so. :-)

Last year I lived with my sister and brother-in-law in Indiana for just a semester. I was dealing with a lot in my life and needed a bit of time to get away. I don't think I will ever be able to express in words how amazing that time was for me. For those of you who have been on retreats and things, it was just like that, but for 3 months. I was on such an amazing God high!! Even though I was having an extremely hard time with a lot of things, I was overwhelmed with the presence of the Lord all day, every day! Well, of course we have those highs and lows in our lives in many areas of life. In our spiritual life there are so many times like that as well. So, of course when I came back to Gurnee, I had a very low time in my life. I did some things that I knew were SO wrong for me and people were telling me over and over how wrong they were, but I just wouldn't listen. I wouldn't even listen to God. I was back home now and what I had learned the 3 months I was gone was still in my head, but had left my heart and I really didn't care about it as much anymore. That caused me some major problems in my life!! I wish so badly I could go back and change those things I had done, but of course I can't and now I just look at it all as a huge learning experience and thank God for it.

As I'm moving on from all this stuff and working through a lot of things I have been consumed with depression in my life. I hate that word... depression. It sounds so awful. Well, it is!!!! In my last blog entry I talked about how draining it is for me to go on with things in my daily life and how I'm really good at covering up my feeling to the outside world. My real feeling are always shown in my room, my car or during my quiet times with God, but never really to any of my friends or family. I really hate talking about it with people because it's such a hard thing to talk over and over about and it's hard when people just don't understand. (I don't expect anyone to though.) I really feel like you don't truly understand what depression is unless you have gone through it before. It's an incredibly hard thing to live with. It's especially hard for me because I work 5 days out of the week and am a full-time student. Working, going to school, getting homework done, keeping up with other activities I'm involved in and trying to make sure to keep up with my physical and mental health is so exhausting. I have to work extra hard on things and everything takes me 5 times longer to do than normal because I have no motivation. It's really hard and I absolutely hate it! I wish I could just focus on myself and not have to go to school and work. I was so spoiled when I was in Indiana. I hope that everyone can have a time like that with the Lord like I did. Even though I was going through so much crap, I am so thankful for that time! Even when I was crying myself to sleep at night and calling out to God asking him why this was all happening to me, I knew that one day I would look back at that time and be so thankful for it. I hope that someday I will be able to help someone that goes through things like this.

During my "date" today I came across some verses that are very helpful to me.... Lamentations 3:21-23 "Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is His faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning."

I am so thankful that God is so faithful!!! There were so many times that I thought I would never move on from so many of the things that were going on, but God has not let go of me and has continued to push me to go to Him for everything and surrender my all to Him. All of the struggles I have are so little compared to so much and God is such a big and powerful God, but He still cares very much about me and helping me! It's such an amazing feeling that I hope everyone can feel in their life!!

He never lets go!! Amen!