Things went pretty well for about 3 years. I was connected to a
great group of Christians. I was pushing myself to learn and grow. In that third year, God called me to a longer
short-term trip. I said yes to leading high school and college students
in short-term trips to Philadelphia where they prayed for and
volunteered with various people groups and organizations in the city.
It was an incredible experience with amazing people. And even though I was surrounded by amazing people every day, I felt very alone. I prayed daily, asking God to give me the words to lead the nightly debrief sessions. Silence. I couldn't understand what was happening. This didn't seem like the Depression that I was so accustomed to. And yet there were elements of it that were so similar.
At the end of the trip, my closest
friend flew to Philadelphia and we drove back together. We had been
inseparable before I left, but were completely unable to get along on
the way back. When we finally made it home, I sat in my apartment with shards of broken friendship and loneliness lying at my feet. There was a twisted comfort in the familiarity of the feelings I was having. But, when I started to imagine myself walking into a lake to drown, I became certain of what this was. I looked back in my blog to see when this had begun. It had been going on for months and coincided with the start of a birth control pill. I immediately discontinued the medication and begged God once again to pull me back up from the depths of the darkness. Once again, He was faithful. Once again, I was free from Depression.
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