A year ago, I was sitting with my head down. That figurative tail between my legs. Crying because I never felt more lost or broken. Desolate because I couldn't get through the day without counting my breaths and popping a pill. Without a day where my palms weren't wrought with deep finger nail marks and my mind muddled with giddiness and nausea (unfortunate side effects of the medication at times).
But yet there was never a day I felt far from Him. I cried for, leaned on, and looked to His unfailing nature and love to sustain me through days of my own downfall. I heard His voice reminding me to trust Him more than my own convincing me to do likewise.
"At My time. All at My time," I often heard in the murkiness of my own thoughts. There was no way I could have convinced myself of that anyway.
Today, all I need to do is stand up to hunt for a chocolate and crazy L will stand up and say, "Stress eating? Talk to me."
He's been good. So good. To remind me that I'm simply a victim of circumstances and not of people. That I'm surrounded by people who feel the same way. By people who I can rant and bitch to before we remind ourselves that it's the circumstances that are bad, not the people. And it makes the day easier to get through... the work easier to deal with.
And as such, I am grateful for the trials and tribulations for reminding me that He's all I need to sustain me through the days. That He provides the quiet spaces to cry in as much as He provides the listening ear.
And I am grateful.
As I learn more about theology to wrap my head around the meditation of His word, I've learnt to accept more things.
Like the fact that depression is a manifestation of sin. Not that I'm more sinful than others (which may still be a true fact but not an effect), but because sin is in the world and I am a sinner. I am imperfect. I am broken. I am helpless and hopeless. And therefore susceptible to depression the same way I am to the common cold and death. They stay with me to manifest as weakness or strengths at the oddest of times according to Him.
And even more so, my condition reminds me of how much my body now means nothing to me. My condition will follow me through my life the same way my shoulder injury and odd skeletal structure of my right metatarsal will follow me through life. These things never go away as long as I'm in this day and age.
But I have that perfect hope of a new body when He returns. Not now but when He comes back, He makes me perfect not because of what I've done but because of what He's done. And while that defies the human logic and ego, that's what I cling to with my broken and contrite spirit.
And I am grateful.