When I’ve been taken to these dark places of depression, it’s important to understand that all self-confidence is stripped, all security is squashed, doing things alone becomes even more terrifying. So, thinking of jumping into a bible study with other people to be in His word was excruciating. The weekend right after encountering God encouraging me to read His Word, I entered church not really expecting much. But God had “A WORD” for me…specifically 17 words for me.
“For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.”
2 Timothy 1:7
Two days later on a Tuesday morning, I walked up the entrance stairs to Lakeside Church to attend a corporate woman’s Bible study known as Stepping Stones. The entire walk I recited, “I was not given a spirit of timidity but of power and love and discipline” over and over in my head and under my breath. However, I really wanted to scream it at the top of my lungs because all I felt was fear…fear had become my prison cell! Once inside I sat lonely at a table not knowing any one. I was a little town girl who had gone to church with the same 40 people who raised me in Sunday School. Now I was transitioning to a large church that housed 800-1500 at a time with 5 different services. Knowing people in this size of a church was not an easy feat. So when God sent a sweet, gentle soul in her faded blue overalls to welcome me with her carefree spirit, I felt at ease. She wrapped her arm around me and said you can join our group. She became my dearest friend, Shelly. I praise God for placing her in my life because she has helped me traverse the last 12 years of this journey. She is proof that God does have special angels for each of us that minister to our soul.
At some point after I started digesting His word again that suffocating darkness that attempted to swallow me disappeared as fast as it came. The fog 
dissipated and a renewing and restoring of my soul began . . . reading His word healed my soul. Over the summer I jumped into Beth Moore’s Believing God. And WOW! God had many words for me in that study. He helped me map out my journey with Him from the time I was little. He showed me the godly people He placed in my life to guide me. He showed me how I was living a cyclic life that resembled the Kings — call me Israel. Next, He proceeded to show me how my depressions were all spiritually related and how I resembled Nebuchadnezzar. I went through a time like Nebuchadnezzar where my reasoning would be taken, I’d be made to live as a wild animal, and my splendor would be gone. Only when I raised my eyes to heaven and acknowledged my God Most High would my sanity be given back, my happiness returned and I’d be restored to even greater than I was before. His ways are truly beautiful!