I Don’t Know Where I Would be Without God

We often hear this phrase in many Christian circles, “I don’t know where I would be without God”. Essentially, when we say this, we are saying had God not encountered our lives, we could be anywhere but the position we find ourselves in today.

For me, I know exactly where I would be had God not encountered my life.

I would be dead.

As in, not alive, not existing. I would be dead.

Seeing it written like that makes all the more real what God has done in my life. In my teenage years, I started displaying signs and symptoms of depression and anxiety. At the time, I remember thinking that “everyone must feel like this” until I realised, they did not. I was diagnosed with mixed anxiety and depression. This struggle continued and continued until the point of feeling suicidal. My mind was consumed with darkness and I longed to cease to exist. 

I was in university but barely functioning. Sleeping was a problem. Eating was a problem. Moving was a problem. Just breathing was a problem. All I wanted to do was stop breathing and stop living. So, one day, the thought of “I don’t want to feel this anymore” became so great. I took a few too many prescribed pills. To this day, that was the lowest of lows that I have ever felt in my life.

Following on from this, I dropped out of university and returned home. The shame alone that I felt was so great. I felt like I’d let my parents down after they had invested so much in my life and education. I felt that I’d failed and let myself down. I felt like a bad example to my younger siblings.

Somehow, in the midst of this, is when God shone His light. In my most desperate and bottom barrel moment, I decided to try this God I had heard about all my life. I had decided that if it did not work, that was it – I would have to end my life because I could not live on with how I was feeling.

It worked.

I found the light I had been searching for all my life.

Now, I will not lie to anyone that my mind was healed in an instant and I never felt sad again. Whilst that would be a nice story, it would not be the truth. The truth is, from the moment I gave my life to Jesus Christ, I found HOPE. Hope that I could get better. Hope that I could overcome.

Then, from that moment to now is what has been a process. A process of journeying through the darkness and out to find His light. A process of understanding how my mind could be so warped when I believe in a God who can heal absolutely anything and everything. A process of trying to understand how and where my problems started. A process of knowing that, with God, the deep crevices of pain in my mind could find peace, joy and wholeness.

A process of becoming all that God wants me to be.

I am who He says I am and at the same time, I am becoming who He says I am. It is a beautiful – complex yet simple – process. I am transformed by Abba Father whilst being transformed more into Him every day.

I write from my process; I write through my process and I write because of my process.

So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

2 Corinthians 3:18