Though I didn’t realize it at the time, my marriage ended one Saturday afternoon when my husband walked out the door. I was hopeful, certain even, that he’d be back in a few days, but the LORD knew it would be six years before I saw him again. I continued trusting the LORD to help us, asking God to change his heart and to fill him with the truth about me. That he would know that all the accusations he had hurled at me for years . . . that I didn’t love him, that I’d been unfaithful . . . were not true, that those accusations were from the pit of hell, from satan himself, the enemy of our souls and marriage and family. The one who comes to steal, kill, and destroy. As the months and the years went by, three to be exact, and he remarried, I still had these crazy thoughts in the back of my mind that he would leave her and come back to me. Sure, she was 16 years younger than me, but he and I shared two daughters and three grandchildren and 33 years of beautiful memories and experiences together.
Then, the day came when my daughter told me that they were expecting a baby. The cord was finally severed. After the years of denial and clinging to the hope that we’d be one of those beautiful redemptive stories of couples divorcing and remarrying and serving the LORD together, reality set in. This was my life now. I was single, divorced, alone. And the plummet began.
I had never known depression. In fact, I had never been able to understand why people couldn’t just pull themselves up, think positive, be hopeful. Especially those who had the promise and hope of Jesus. But this was something I couldn’t pray or praise my way out of. I knew I was in a pit. There were mornings when I had no desire to get out of bed and only wanted to pull the covers over my head and hide. I was full of hope for eternity but not for this life, not in this age.
Then the LORD would mercifully grant me a reprieve of sorts, sometimes for a few months, sometimes longer, when I felt like myself again, like everything was going to be okay, like I was going to be okay. And then another dip and slide down that slippery slope would come. Year after year after year. But, hallelujah, the LORD never let go of me. He got me out of bed every morning. He lifted me up every time, and during those years of depression and hopelessness and clinging to Him, I came to know Jesus in ways I would have never known Him otherwise. He is the faithful One, my Deliverer, my Sustainer, my Restorer, my Hope. My heart is full of thanksgiving to the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, and the Savior of my soul, Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.
Lana