Why write about my grudge with God? I don’t know exactly.  Maybe I want to tell you so you will help me not go down that road again or maybe so you don’t or maybe I just need to write it out to understand it myself.

I want to trace back my steps to how it happened.  But I won’t do all of that today because I believe it was a long and gradual process.

I guess the straw that broke the camel’s back was my ongoing struggle with anxiety and depression.  These two things have been constant demons in my life.  Last summer I wrote about shame.  And shame was a precursor to anxiety and depression for me.  It’s all part of the same beast.

Before I get into it I want to ease the worry of some, by saying that I know some of you who read this will simply not understand my struggle.  I know this because I am married to someone who simply can’t wrap these concepts around his head.  He happens to be the kind of wonderfully created child of God who does not get depressed.

In 2004 I sat in my Children’s Literature class at UT watching a video on Early Childhood development.  I had a wonderful professor who now happens to be the librarian at my school.  Anyway, I was trying to pay attention to the video and getting sleepy, when something in the video struck me like a lighting bolt and ruined my chances of getting in a short nap before it was all over. 

What struck me to my core was hearing an expert discuss the effects of traumatic events on children.  Since I heard this years ago, I don’t quite remember what was said but I have researched it and this is what I found:

from www.Michiganinbrief.org   “…neglect, stress, and trauma also affect brain development. Such experiences compromise development by affecting how the brain releases and modulates stress hormones, lowering the threshold at which one’s brain activates fear and anxiety. Repeated exposure to stress usually programs a child’s brain to expect and seek similar situations. Chronic stress and neglect can create a constant state of anxiety and anger that becomes a permanent trait in a child, which leads to many learning and behavior problems.”

When I sat in my Kiddie Lit. class and heard that my volatile upbringing may have a direct impact in my lifelong struggle with anxiety and depression I, for the first time in my life, felt justified and understood in a topic that NO ONE had ever understood me in before.

You may be wondering, “What do you mean by volatile upbringing?”

from www.upliftprogram.com “A seminal 1992 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) report defines childhood abuse as “a repeated pattern of damaging interactions between parent(s) [or, presumably, other significant adults] and child that becomes typical of the relationship.”

I will leave out specifics for now, but in my upbringing I was the victim of sexual abuse and ongoing domestic violence.

I remember a time I had written a suicide note when I was 13 and having my mom find it and confront me about it.  She was absolutely confounded.  She could not understand why I would want to take my own life.  And more recently last October I tried to overdose on some old anti-depressants.  My husband also was completely ill-equipped and lost.  He could not begin to understand why I would want to take my own life.

It was at this time last year that I hesitantly made the choice to commit to taking medication for my problem.  Adding to the demon of shame, now I had the shame of being on anti-depressants to deal with.  How unChristian of me to use medication for my depression!

I was ashamed of it.  I felt guilty that I turned to them instead of God.  I was angry (an understatement) at God because my decision to take medication ended a 4 year period of prayer and begging for Him to heal me of it. God had failed me.  I resented our church. I used to believe that church was a place for sick people to be healed, but I had no outlet there to help me deal with my demons.  I resented Scripture because I had believed that God’s word is living and active, that the truth sets us free, that God’s word is life and healing to our bones…but I was a prisoner of shame, anxiety and depression.  And I resented my husband because he did not make anything better, he just wanted to know his wife wouldn’t kill herself.

My pills made it all the easier to grow apathetic.  I had so much pain inside and yet my pills numbed it all.  I didn’t care about my pain, I cursed God, “Fine, you let me down, forget You and everything I thought You had for me.” 

For the first few months I was a living zombie.  My husband would tease me and say that I had turned into a zombie.  Whether I was working until bedtime or playing my computer game, I zoned out everything else and focused on everything but interpersonal relationships.  I resented everyone in my life and grew apart from everyone in my life.  The most hurtful of these broken relationships was the one I had with the Lord.  I kept Jesus at arm’s length, I would pray to Him when I really needed something but the trust was gone and so was the intimacy I had previously enjoyed.

I recently found out just how much it  hurt me to be away from Him.  During one of our marital counseling sessions we started to discuss my anxiety and my distance from God and suddenly I began crying and shaking uncontrollably.  I started to get the sense that I would not be able to confront all this in a ‘normal’ manner until I talked to Him first.

Recently we were at our pastor’s house talking about our marriage when again, seemingly out of the blue, the issue of my depression came up.  All of a sudden, I began to cry uncontrollably.  I felt a dagger in my heart. And again, a gentle voice, “You are crying because you need to come back to Me.”

It was this night that I finally decided I needed to come back.  The following day I came to God in prayer and I can now say we are back together!  I am very grateful that God’s grace is so great.  I accept His forgiveness for my 9 months worth of unconfessed sin.  I love to be able to talk Him again.

But we have so much work to do!  I don’t understand what God’s role is in my depression.  I desperately want out of my dependency on my meds.  But the question remains: Will God heal my low threshold for expecting fear and anxiety?  Will I truly experience a full life in Christ?  Or will I always be subject to fear, shame, anxiety and depression? 

Scripture points to healing, to fullness in Christ, but my life experience shows me that God did not take it away.  Will He now?  I pray that no matter what happens, I don’t ever turn my back on God again. I would rather suffer it, yet serve Christ and love Him, then be free of anxiety and yet distanced from Him who saved me and loved me even knowing my sin, when no one else could (well, maybe my mom).

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Romans 8:38-39