Victory

On this May 18th, 2014 I was restored to freedom. And dearest self, remind yourself daily of this victory for when the enemy tries to snatch your victory away declare that He has won!

I can't possibly fit in all of what God has done for me tonight and the events leading up to this moment, but in these moments that my heart still trembles with fear of the Lord and a heavenly peace has been instilled in my soul I must record this feeling. On my darkest days, I have to hold on to this.

The first time I thought about killing myself I was about 7 years old. I remember it so vividly as the devil has used this image to degrade my self-worth. I knew it wasn't normal to want to die at that age and this thought grew with the help of the enemy. My journey with depression and suicidal thoughts started long before seven however. My parents divorced when I was two and my sister was five. I always remember hearing my mom or other adults saying the oldest child has a harder time with things like divorce. That may be true, but from my earliest memories I believed the lie of the enemy that I had to hold everything in because the oldest was the one who had the privilege to release their pain.

The divorce and its aftermath destroyed a lot. Our situation was like a pressure pot and our constant instability with swinging back and forth between two houses left my sister and I with a lot of built up steam waiting to be released. We primarily lived with our mom and our house was a safe-haven.  Here, my sister released all of the her stress and anger and it wasn't always pretty. It was terrifying for me at the time and was the beginning of Satan's scheme to feed me lie after lie. I constantly felt my mom couldn't handle me letting it go. I felt as if I wasn't allowed to and for that resentment towards my sister flooded my heart.  This didn't mean I was an easy child, but I did attempt to suppress as much as possible.

 A war in my heart arose. This anger towards my sister that she got to release everything when I had to fake it every day built up. While at the same time I recognized that she was truly an amazing older sister. So this vivid image of myself as an elementary student, begging God to just let me die resonated in my heart. I just remember feeling so alone and exhausted. It seemed so unfair that my sister got to be not okay. For the next eleven or so years I had a constant battle with dark forces and my lifestyle that kept the depression and pain brewing.

But here's the good news. Tonight, I am restored from all depression, thoughts of self-harm, and depression. I am still in the reformation process so listen up self and declare daily that you are free and you will never go back to that life. Not because you worked hard to read the Bible and spent time with God, but because of His grace. His grace has done it. This is the over-simplified version of tonight's events. But for now, this is all I can manage to stay awake for.

God is so good and the way He provided and planned everything today is overwhelming. I can not express my awe. I never want to lose this awe of my Savior. There are about ten more days here and my fire for the Lord has just begun.

And Satan, you have no power and I am free and this is just me.