Trough Period

In class yesterday we were talking about how God uses our trough periods and afterwards one of our classmates and I had a great talk, which was cut short by the need to go to my next class. The topic of the trough period has been very prevalent in my thoughts over the past year and a half. Last year I went through a very serious depression and suffered from anxiety attacks. I would find myself laying on the floor of my dorm room, sobbing uncontrollably, unable to pick myself up. Sometimes I would get to angry or so stressed that I would shake uncontrollably. I struggled with God why can I not give this to you? Why won’t you take this away from me?
The church so often tells you that if you suffer from depression you are not trusting God enough. Your must not have a very strong faith. But they don’t take into account that there are many psychological things that attribute to depression and anxiety. One of those is that some people just have a chemical imbalance in their brain. I have seen the effects that a little bit of medication can do to help a person. My father suffers from a fairly severe depression and if he is not taking his medication…He is such a different person. He cannot focus on his faith because he is so consumed struggling with himself. Other people, as in my case, deal with severe anxiety which is a huge contributing factor in depression. My anxiety was caused by a fairly severe manipulation caused by some people I was very close to. And I just felt like I couldn’t do anything to protect myself.
My faith just felt attacked. Part of it was that I didn’t know how to deal with my anxiety. I wasn’t taking the steps I needed to prevent myself getting hurt and I was letting my bitterness and my fear of getting hurt further take over. It took medication, counseling, and putting new tings into practice to get me back on a normal footing. And while I was questioning my faith, while I was hurting, in there I felt the peace of God. He showed himself to me in ways I would not have seen if I had not been just barely crawling, at the feet of Jesus. And I learned so much about God’s provision, God’s grace, God’s love because of how low I was. And if the church thinks that if you don’t have faith if you are depressed then they are missing out on some awesome God experiences.
If I am at a peak time in my life, that is when my faith suffers most, I think. Well, maybe not suffer, but it is on a back burner. I get busy, I forget that I need God. The love points are when I remember that I need God, that I can’t survive without him.