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My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are You so far from saving me,
So far from my cries of anguish?
My God, I cry out by day, but You do not answer,
By night, but I find no rest (Psalms 22:1-2 NIV)
This had become my incessant prayer and cry to the Lord every time my heart felt like He had hidden His face from me. Depression will do this to you. The spirit of disbelief crawled its way through my soul and all the goodness I had ever known from my Father seemed to have disappeared. All I had ever received from Him was favor to heights undeserved, but when doom hit, I spent 1 year and 6 months declaring that the God I had believed in couldn’t save me from the pit of darkness I endlessly spun in.
Now do not get me wrong! I grew up in a super Christian family which unsolicitedly exposed me to the Word of God from a time when I was too young to understand. My siblings and I often attended Sunday school which was supposed to help us grow with the Word of God in our lives. The Bible says that a child should be taught the way they should go and that they won’t depart from it even when they are old (Proverbs 22:6). One thing that the Holy Spirit made clear to me was that my salvation did not come from my parents’. The grace I received which saved me from the eternal wrath of God was not based on my parents’ calling. I acknowledge however that the exposure I had from their cover ushered me to a place of knowing God and later into a journey of fellowship with Him. I received Christ when the Holy Spirit convinced my heart to live for God alone from the knowledge that Jesus was made sin that through Him, I would become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV). I grew up with almost all Bible stories taught to me and a solid knowledge that we (my family and later I) serve a mighty God who is able to do all things. I grew up instructed to never doubt God or His unfailing love.
"The spirit of disbelief crawled its way through my soul and all the goodness I had ever known from my Father seemed to have disappeared."
January 2022 was when my faith started shaking and saw myself take the greatest blow my life had ever known. When the new year kicked off, my church had a series of prayers for the new year, and the faith brought by this new grace made me so excited for a greater year like never before. As a medical student, this new year meant a big deal to me because I was about to start clinicals and learn directly from my patients, a step closer to becoming a doctor. I was expectant of God’s goodness and faithfulness with an unshakeable hope that everything would be sustained by Him to keep me supplied with all that I needed.
It wasn’t until the devil’s scheme kicked in that I started doubting every word of hope and faith I had started the new year with. Out of nowhere, my life turned into a place of brokenness overflowing with an unquantifiable depth of emotional agony. I found myself indulged in so much darkness that I forgot the purpose of my life. Why was this happening? What was going on in my soul? Why was I suddenly overwhelmed by feelings of worthlessness and emptiness? I couldn’t answer any of the questions and so seemed God. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in Spirit (Psalms 34:18), but I couldn’t feel the warmth of His closeness at the moment, and it scared me so much. Reading the verse seemed easy and straightforward but I completely failed to see past my hurt and allow transformation from that piece of scripture. My Google search history was filled with queries like “Bible verses for a desperate heart”, “Bible verses for a depressed soul”, “Bible verses for when I can’t trust God”, … I tried to dive deeper into scriptures of hope day after day, hoping that my soul’s pain would be eased, but with futility at each attempt. I felt alone and desolate, yet this was just a drop in an ocean compared to what laid ahead.
"Reading the verse (Psalm 34:18) seemed easy and straightforward but I completely failed to see past my hurt and allow transformation from that piece of scripture. "
One quite inspiring Bible character is a man called Job. From the beginning of the first chapter in this very book, Job was a fulfilled person with so much wealth and His righteousness was one to talk about for many generations. God Himself felt joyous as He talked about him with Satan: “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8). I can imagine the smile God might have had on as He said those words. The devil being himself started doing what he does best, which is indulging us in endless accusations: “Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has? You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land. But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you to your face” (Job 1:10-11). All the devil wanted was to take Job’s contentment away which he ultimately tried to do, but only because God had allowed it. In my understanding, God knew very well of Job’s genuine love towards Him and according to the promise which lies in His word, “…God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it (1 Corinthians 10:13); He wasn’t intending on letting him fight alone. The devil took away Job’s children, cattle, wealth, and he caused infirmity to his body. Throughout the whole misery that Job went through, God never left him by himself. I used to think that Job’s hardships might have not been that tough or that since God called him a ‘righteous’ person, his faith must have been so mighty to take him through. I thought that people like Job who were righteous in the face of God knew very well how to deal with pain on an extraordinary level. Sometimes we think that Bible characters were more fit than we are and that going through hardships was easier for them. I told myself that maybe pain felt different and more bearable for them since they had a special relationship with God, but I was wrong. Job got hurt! He was hurt and was left with no person to turn to. His wife and friends were determined to discourage him to a point where he’d give up on God. Apparently, this man suffered! It looks as though he was challenged the same way we, people of the modern age, suffer indeed. I told myself.
"He wasn’t intending on letting him fight alone....Throughout the whole misery that Job went through, God never left him by himself."
I think that Job and I have a few things in common. I have held God’s blessings from the moment I was born until now. I really had nothing to complain about because all I had ever needed, God provided in abundant measures in due time. Satan proposed that I should be tempted and that every good thing I held dear to my heart would be taken away. God agreed the same way He did with Job or maybe with you at some point in life. Hurt is an understatement to how I felt. This wasn’t just emotional pain but felt more like death cutting through my soul and ripping away every inch of goodness in me. As time came by, my emotions wandered to frightening places of darkness that I had never known. I saw myself grow into a creature that had no hope for the few seconds of life ahead. I became bitter and filled with so much anger and hate to myself. Feelings of worthlessness and regret filled my existence. Tears drowned my pillow at night and weakness overtook my days. All that brought solace to my soul was an overdose of sleeping pills which kept me from thinking about my messed-up life.
Yes, I had friends and family, an amazing medical school, and an assured future! Why was I not seeing the goodness of God even in the midst of the torment I was going through? Well, I guess I cared less about all the blessings God had covered me with. When the devil started going through my mind, the first thing I dropped was God’s love followed by hope, then fellowship with Him. The devil in his maleficence has a way of blinding our eyes from God’s love until we helplessly label it as ‘meaninglessness’. Satan worked his way through my mind and convinced me of how terrible God was as a Father seeing all that I was going through while He remained silent. He showed me how alone and lost I was. He assured me that I was broken beyond repair and that God did not care about me anyway! He sold a huge lie to me which stained God’s integrity and faithfulness and I followed along. Does this ring a bell? A few Bible chapters back will take us to the Garden of Eden. Remember when the serpent confused Eve’s belief by telling her that God is selfish because He didn’t allow them to eat from the tree of wisdom so that they wouldn’t be as knowledgeable as He is? (Genesis 3:4-5). I consider Adam and Eve among the most blessed people on earth in that they experienced the amazing in-person fellowship with God. They witnessed this much glory around them on various occasions. Yet, the devil played with their minds, and they chose to turn their backs against God, our Creator. In his notorious ability to exercise his utmost role in fooling God’s people, the devil remains the father of lies and I can testify to this. The liar came to them and hid their eyes from their Creator’s faithfulness and unmatched love. This is what he did with me and does best: lying.
The more I prayed, the dimmer my faith grew or so the devil made me believe. Praying ended up feeling ineffectual whenever I tried, but that was another reckless lie the devil painted so that I would give up on prayer completely. As I was expected to fulfill my responsibilities as a student, I decided to employ “better” coping mechanisms because at that rate, it looked like I was never going to graduate anytime soon.
"Praying ended up feeling ineffectual whenever I tried, but that was another reckless lie the devil painted so that I would give up on prayer completely. "
