As I continue to walk on this path of healing prayer, hearing His voice and being immediately obedient has become my heart’s #1 desire. Recently, a mentor mentioned she’s starting a study on “How to Hear God’s Voice” by Mark Virkler . . . my heart flip-flopped in my chest. I purchased this study last year but never started. I pulled out the companion book “4 Keys to Hearing God’s Voice” and began reading. A few days later, another friend sent me the link for Graham Cooke’s “Stillness and the Voice of God.” I love when God envelopes me with repeated echoes grabbing my attention and announcing that He’s speaking.
Trying to discern His voice daily can be challenging. Sometimes I feel like Samuel when he had trouble discerning God’s voice as God called to him in the stillness of the night. Yet in reflecting, God reminded me that I have heard Him in a myriad of ways: while I’m in nature at the mountains or at the beach, as I read my Bible, through conversation with other people I encounter, as I watch movies, through pictures He places in my mind and as He travels me through Scriptures when I question Him. Typically, when He speaks to me what takes Him a second to download requires pages for me to explain.
One of the first impactful times I heard God crystal clear was during my 2nd depression.
I walked into the Pet Store by Office Depot feeling fine but pressures and upon exiting my world was instantly turned upside down and fractured . . . everything felt tilted and sideways, anxiety engulfed and balance all askew. The stress of trying to figure out how to provide a sustainable habitat for my children’s frog they just found, pushed me over the edge. This seems like such a small thing, but it was the straw that crushed the camel. My world had become trying to be perfect mom, perfect wife, perfect daughter, perfect whatever anybody needed never saying no and never having boundaries. I had turned to being dependent on myself and left God somewhere behind all my cares and concerns. And there you go, I found myself broken yet again.
Trapped in darkness for months, doctors gave me medicine that only provided sedation and side effects. Counseling only plastered unwanted labels on me like atypical psychosis, dissociative disorder and anxiety. True healing evaded me. Fear overwhelmed me and heavy terror engulfed me. I’d crochet adult afghans in a day trying to distract myself. I’d read 800+ page books in a day trying to silence the tormenting feelings that incessantly pursued me. My world seemed like a surreal dream. Was I real? Was my family real? I lived terrified I would wake up and forget everyone I loved. So strategically I’d place their pictures everywhere practicing their names as I passed by. I even had visions of how I should end my life. Everyone would be better off without this crazy person adding chaos and being a burden.
I was so tired of living this way. The tears wouldn’t stop, as I lay curled in the fetal position on my bed crying out to God. Why was I broken beyond repair? Why me? In the little strength I had, seasoned with a tinge of anger from feeling forgotten, I cried, “Why won’t You help me?!”
God ever so gently replied, “Why don’t you read something that will truly help you?”
I KNEW it was GOD! There was no mistaking His voice…this gentle quiet whisper within my head carried profound sovereign authority. I knew instantly He was instructing me to pull out my Bible and begin reading. “Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He sent out his word and healed them, and delivered them from their destruction.” Psalm 107:19-20
What medicine and therapy could not do, God did in a matter of a few weeks as I began my journey back to being in His word…the depression disappeared.
God’s healing can be instantaneously miraculous. Or, it can appear over time. God gave me this imagery through a stranger a couple weeks ago. Imagine a pitch-black dark morning with heavy suffocating fog drifting through the land. As time progresses, the dark is eroded away by the brilliant sunlight and the fog is burnt off by the light’s warmth. Healing occurs as you patiently wait. “My son (daughter), pay attention to what I say; turn your ear to My words. Do not let them out of your sight, keep them within your heart; for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body.” Proverbs 4:20-22
I learned a very valuable lesson this second depression. NEVER LEAVE GOD’S WORD! Each time depression entered my world, I noticed I had become dependent on myself, neglected being in God’s word, thereby allowing depression to wrap it’s arms around me and engulf my soul. As I stay in His Word and remain dependent on Him, I remain healthy and depression free. Praise God and His mighty ways!