I Need You

For a while now I have been wanting to start a blog. Countless times I have wanted to write about songs that have spoken to my life and kept me holding on just a little bit longer. I believe that God speaks in so many different ways and one of the ways he speaks to me the loudest is through music. So, I decided to start a blog based on songs that have touched me or that God has used to speak to me in many different ways. Some may be old songs, most will be in the moment songs based on what God is bringing me through.

"Need You Now" by Plumb is the first song I want to highlight.

I have lived my life for the longest time thinking and believing that the fact that I struggled with depression meant that I was not doing enough, pleasing God enough, praying enough, reading my Bible enough, and even that it was a sin. Also that God desires to heal it so if he isn't there is something wrong with what I am doing. I don't know that it started out this way, but I have been told this by people, taught this by churches, and lead in a way that made me believe I was no good if I was struggling with this. This led to more shame over something I really don't have much control over. It was frustrating thinking that it was my fault every time it came back, and no matter how hard I fought, or what I did, it wouldn't go away. I lived believing that I was disappointing God by somehow "allowing" or causing this to be a part of my life.

While I have been feeling this way, I have also been pleading with God over the years, over and over, to take this from me. And wondering why he wouldn't if it was such a bad thing.

A lot of this song just describes how I've felt. But in the chorus it says "How many times have you heard me cry out 'God please take this'? How many times have you given me strength to just keep breathing? Oh, I need you. God, I need you now."

In my woman's Bible study at church we studied for a while Paul's "thorn" and what that could mean and what our thorns could be in our lives. The thought crossed my mind about this being a thorn, but I didn't really think much more about it. I didn't want to go there. At the same time I was asking God to help me be content in all situations. I didn't know how to do that when I feared and dreaded the days my depression would come back. I've used this verse at other times, but Paul says in 2 Corinthians 12:8-10

"Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 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. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

I don't know if Paul really only asked God 3 times to take it away, but I must have asked 300 times. Then one day a couple months ago I was driving and God stopped me dead in my tracks (OK well, I didn't actually stop my car, but I probably should have) and spoke to me saying that my depression was something I would deal with the rest of my life. But, what he needed from me was to trust Him to bring me through those times, and to lean on him for the strength I need to get through those times. WHAT?!? This may seem like something that you wouldn't want or suspect to hear, but honestly the second he spoke this to me a peace and joy like I have never felt before came over me. I didn't dread the fact that I was just told that I would be living with this, but I rejoiced in the fact that God had me in his hand. That I could stop striving to get through in my own strength, because I thought God didn't want to help someone who kept getting herself into this. Everything that I thought I had to do was put at the feet of Jesus and God picked those things up and let me know that He has made me perfectly and He will provide and I just needed to trust him. God was letting me know that he was "giving me strength to just keep breathing." 

This was so contrary to everything I have ever believed that I had to check it out with some wiser people in my life because despite the overwhelming sense of peace I had, it just seemed so contrary to the character of God I had been taught for so long. Now do I believe God desires to bring healing to people? Of course. But, sometimes he chooses not to for whatever reason. The ways that I get through might look different at different times. Maybe that means medication, and definitely learning to manage my life so that when it does come I am not overwhelmed and consumed by it, but most importantly God's strength is there, and I can trust him to bring me to the other side of it. I KNOW that one of my life's purposes is to use what God brings me through to touch other people's lives. What that will look like all the time I'm not sure. But, if this is part of that story then I am grateful for something that is so difficult but in some odd way has shaped me and will continue to shape me into who I am, and all that God has me to be.