.png)
Before my decision to share with you guys my struggles and triumphs in my journey with depression and anxiety, I was working on finding solutions for myself. I would try to read anything, and everything related to those topics, and still do. After Zeke was born, I had lots of time to work-out and listen to podcasts. One of my friends told me that she ran listening to sermons. That seemed strange to me, but at this point I was opening to trying anything. She said she loved Steven Furtick because he was intense, and amped up and was very motivating to listen to. I began listening to Steven Furtick, and fortunately for me probably the most powerful sermon I’ve ever listened to was my first. Let me say this upfront, I won’t do his sermon justice, but I mean it when I say this sermon changed everything.
Because of my depression I was at their mercy, and my thought life was a result of the life around me not a pattern.
I had always been under the assumption that my thoughts were out of my control. I merely saw each attack, as a series of random events. That is not the case. We all recognize that the world is full of patterns; traffic patterns, sleep patterns, music patterns, coding patterns, etc., so why was it so far-fetched that my thoughts would be a pattern? Often, we see new patterns, or habits we have created as ineffective. We focus on the results instead of how we ended here. We either give up too soon, and don’t see the result of our labor or we aren’t looking at the pattern that let us to the product or results.
Think of all the times you’ve done something, and you kept at it, for days, months, maybe even years and you saw only minimal results, and then one day everything clicked, things were easy and the result you had been working towards was finally accomplished. My first piano lesson didn’t result in recital where I performed a Bach Invention in front of a packed audience. I had to practice for hours and hours, day after day, month after month, and year after year, before I was an accomplished pianist and even then, there is always more to learn. I knew the result was possible, so I kept at it.
The same can be said when it comes to depression. Depression is a pattern of negative thoughts that over time have resulted in a brain that is not functioning at its’ best. Often times we think we are the victim of life’s patterns, and other people’s choices, which can be true some of the time, but more often than not the results we see in our lives are products of our own patterns, that we have created over time, sometimes patterns we don’t even recognize. The world isn’t the problem, God loves the world (For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life John 3:16), but the pattern of the world is the problem. (Do not be conformed by the pattern of this world, instead be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:2) Everything in your life is a result of a pattern. EVERYTHING. If we can perceive the patterns in our lives than we can solve the problems.
The patterns in creation, at one of my favorite places, The Natural Gardener.
So what can we do to change this pattern? How can we beat it? How can we tame it? How can we be in charge instead of be the victim. Our mind is powerful, but we are in charge and we can take control. I am fighting this battle with you, you are not alone.
Your fellow warrior,
Sara
Yet, in all these things (death, destruction, feminine, heartbreak, depression, anxiety, etc., ) we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. Romans 8:37