; BUT GOD

I have no idea for how long I have suffer from anxiety, but I know very well the events that made it explode. We all have an area in our lives that is our biggest weakness and in which, normally, we built the confidence of our worth; knowing this area is imperative so we can work on knowing who we are in Christ specially there. For me is/was men, more specifically men accepting and loving me, for me to feel worthy; I know as a Christian and as a grown up woman living in the 21st century it sounds ridiculous and stupid, but I am not here to be fake but brutally honest and I know I am not alone here. I can honestly tell that right now I have grown a lot in this area and I am more confident than ever on whom I am in Christ and my identity in Him, but this was not always the case and that weakness led me to the darkest moment of my life, but also the most gracious. One of my biggest desires has always been getting married (I am still single) and saying I am not the most patient person is an understatement, specially when I was younger, so finding a boyfriend was always a priority in my life, which made me a little desperate. I was permanently seeking the attention from men in any way possible, with little success I have to add, until I began college.That is when I started to have the male attention I have always wanted and so finally I had my first boyfriend and let me tell you, being the rushed person I used to be, I fell in love with him quicker than you should let yourself fall in love with someone and I tried to be the perfect girlfriend (which DOES NOT exist). But all that was not enough and after three months of dating he decides, and I quote, "I can never love you" and broke up with me, braking my heart and leaving me with the idea that I was unlovable. So what did I do? Try to find someone else to prove myself that I was in fact worthy of a man's love; so my "friends" introduce me to whom would be the person who finally crushed me. I didn't take long to star dating this new guy and he was, apparently, a great guy, a gentleman. It wasn't long into the relationship that he started to show his true colors: he started to be controlling, sick jealous and worst of all, he didn't know the meaning of the word no.

To make a long story short, he abused me physically, psychologically and sexually. The sum of this with the words of my ex boyfriend and some complicated things that were going on at home led me to think that I was worthless, that I didn't have anything to give to anyone anymore and that I would hinder everyone around me, so they would be better without me. In other words, I started thinking that it was better if I was dead. So yes, I made the decision of killing myself, and because at the time I was taking sleeping pills because I was having trouble sleeping, I had my plan, no pain, smooth, falling sleep and never waking up again. But God had other plans. For an odd reason, or better said, because God is good, the church needed a translator for a missionary that was going to be preaching there and they called me; I really didn't want to do it but my mom made me. So that day I translated and when the missionary finished preaching she started to pray for people and suddenly she said, "there is someone here that is going to commit suicide and God wants you to know that He loves you very much" and then she asked for the person to come upfront to pray for him or her, so when nobody came forward I turned around to her, told her it was me and started crying, this in front of the whole church. After that I told God that since I didn't want my life he could have it to do with it whatever He wanted to. Since that day I started a hard and long process of overcoming first what happened and second the depression. Yes, that well known word but not well enough understood thing call depression. Depression doesn't always looks sad, unable to get up from bed and unable to deal with everyday life, sometimes depression looks happy, moody, irritable and is always messy. So yes, besides anxiety, which I am still successfully fighting with, I used to deal with the big d. And let me tell you, that process was far from easy, first because I refused to look for help, which nowadays I think was very foolish of me since maybe the process would have been shorter than it was, and second because at the time I was no at all founded in the things of God, in fact that is what made me start founding my life on God.

Through that process I had a lot of up's and downs, and no I was not laying on my bed all the time, I went to college everyday, had interactions with people, even laugh a lot, but that didn't mean I was not fighting depression. It means that our idea of depression is very different to what it really is, and most of the times this is the reason why we don't know how to help the people that are hurting in their soul. So we dismiss it as it is just a lack of renewing our mind or lack of prayer, and we forget or are not acknowledging the fact that, the same way the body gets sick and it needs to be taken care of and depending on the sickness needs the professional help from a doctor and medicine, the mind, the soul gets sick too and also needs to be taken care for. In the same way that a cancer needs chemotherapy, and the person has to be cared by his/her family and close friends, a person with depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety, etc., needs a treatment, a process, but above all, needs to be cared by his/her family and close friends to get better and overcome whatever heartbreak the are going through. And we, the church, are part of that family, those close friends, we need to be the place where people that is broken run to find help and the ultimate solution to their problems, who is God; but unfortunately due to our lack of knowledge, our preconceived ideas, our religious ideas, our fear of what’s different and our we are better than you attitude we are doing the opposite. We are not being the answer, we are being part of the problem and we are not representing Jesus as we should, since we should be healing the brokenhearted the same way He said he came to do and did. During my process of overcoming depression I also had to learn to forgive, had to learn that my worth comes from who I am in Christ and had to learn how love I am by my Heavenly Father, a love that never changes and never runs dry no matter what. I would be lying if I said I was all by myself in this process, but I did felt judged many times because I was not being what I was supposed to be at the time. I always wondered if the the people that judge me ever thought of asking what was wrong or if I needed help. I know my story, my testimony is extraordinary, and to this day I don’t understand why God prevent me from killing myself and there are so many Christian people and even pastors that have committed suicide, I guess I was in the right place at the right time. That day was the first of many suddenly from God in my life. Where I put a final dot God put a coma and then introduce himself as the God of suddenly, whom we can see along the Bible: we can see how suddenly God intervene and changed a situation and when things seem impossible we can see a “BUT GOD”, and he changed the whole situation around. That is why I pray for a church that is used by God to be the suddenly or the “but God” of someone hurting, someone that is thinking of taking his/her life but sees the love of Jesus reflected in our lives and realizes that there is a plan and a purpose for his/her life. A church that heals the broken-hearted, no matter who they are, a church that can see others with compassion and mercy, helping them bear their failings frailties and their tender scruples as Romans 15:1 says. And for the church to do this, we need to realize that we need each other’s help. We need the knowledge from doctors and psychologist who can help in a professional way, but also and most important, we need to be the representation of the love of God on this earth for all of those who are hurting, not only outside of the church, but also and specially inside of it, and we have to stop just talking about it and star really doing it, through our words and actions. And this is my action, if by any chance any of you that is reading this is going through a hard time experiencing depression, Christian or non Christian, leader or no leader, no matter who you are or which “position” you have, and even thought about committing suicide because you thought your life was not worth it anymore, please reach out, I am here, you are not alone, your are worthy and enough and you are here on this earth for a purpose, even if you can’t see it and don’t know what it is. Let God put a coma where you want to put a final dot and turn your life around as He did with mine; He is not a respecter or persons and if He did it for me, He will do it for you too. And now, to the rest who are reading, what will your action be? Do you know someone that is hurting or going through a hard time in their mental health? How are you going to show God's love and mercy to them? How are you going to be Jesus representative as a healer of the brokenhearted? The world is hurting and we have the answer, so it is time to stand up and be the light and salt God has called us to be.