Sufficient

I've talked about Depression here before, and how it affects me and the people around me. Today, I'm feeling good - so don't worry, mom and dad, but I do want to talk a little more about a specific time when "the funk" as I sometimes call it, got ahold of me. I told this story to a friend yesterday, and was reminded of how powerful it was... or is, I suppose.

The year we moved here to Nashville was hard. Really, really hard. I was alone almost all of the time. Dave was working 80-90 hour weeks with many nights spent out at the studio. I had no friends or family in Nashville, the closest ones were 8.5 hours away. So I spent a lot of time by myself in our 530 sq ft. apartment. I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself and a lot of time spiraling into the deepest depression I've ever experienced. One evening, I was dropping Dave off at work for another 2 or 3 day period away from him and trying my hardest to not show him the sadness I was feeling. Basically as soon as he got out of the car, I broke down. I don't remember a time in my life where I was crying harder than I was on that drive home. I pulled over a couple of times because I couldn't see the road through my tears, and when I finally made it back to the apartment and pulled into the parking lot - I had had enough. I was sad and angry and alone, and I couldn't deal with it any longer. I remembered the verse in 2nd Corinthians that says, "But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." And that made me more angry. I cried harder to myself and to God, and I said, "YOU SAID your grace was sufficient. YOU SAID you wouldn't give me more than I can bear. Well this is it. This is not enough, and I'm not able to bear this. I can.not. live like this. WHERE ARE YOU?"

I walked inside to the apartment still sobbing, still feeling sorry for myself, still unable to handle the sadness. When I woke up the next morning - it was gone. The anguish, the tears, the hurt... all gone. It's as if God was standing next to me the entire time I was falling into the depression, holding His hands above me with all the grace and love in the world, and that He was just waiting for me to ask Him for it. He wanted so much to let me feel that, but I was too focused on my own despair to come to Him and ask Him to wrap me up in His arms. As soon as I did, He opened His arms wide open and I finally felt it.

His grace is sufficient. And His power is resting on me.