Healed from Depression

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL FROM ONE SAVED BY THE GRACE OF GOD

I have a story to tell. It is a story about hope where there was no hope, about a God who is bigger than anything I ever imagined.

I have had serious depression for the last 10 to 12 years. Each year seemed to get worse and worse. I had been through all the antidepressants, alcohol, counseling, praying, being prayed for and nothing was helping. The last week of January 2002, was the worst it had ever been. Crying every day in sadness and desperation. I was as far down the dark end of the street as you can go. There was no hope left for me in family, friends, myself or God. The only thing I could take comfort in was the thought of killing myself and ending the pain. It was so dark, lonely and hopeless I couldn’t face many more days hurting like this. I was at the end of my rope.

That week some friends who are involved with a ministry out of town invited me to go back with them and see what God might do. I didn’t really want to go out of town but I had nowhere else to turn, so I went.

I spent many hours each day before God. I found myself in the midst of others praying, interceding, praising and worshiping. I was prayed for several times. The best way I can describe what happened was that God met me there and His love flowed over me. When there was nothing but God things began to change. By the time I left for home the depression was completely gone! I have been totally healed! Not only is the darkness gone but also many things from deep in the past are also gone. I now have a new love for God and people that I never had before. So many things have changed I don’t have room to tell them all.

In the Book of Acts a lame man is healed. He jumps up and tells everyone what God has done for him. Like that lame man I was crippled in my mind. Like that lame man I now have a story to tell about what God did for me. Miracles and wonders will happen so the world will know of the power of God. I am telling my story so you will know. If you have never before seen or heard of a miracle you have now.

My life is a new adventure. Each day I look forward to what God will do. I don’t have an agenda other than loving God and looking for Him to guide. Everything is not perfect but with a new mind and God’s love there is lots of hope.

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the Living. Ps 27:13

If there is some way in which I can encourage, talk to or pray with you please let me know. My desire is that you know the same freedom Christ has given me.

Gary
gkr50@yahoo.com

Shocked by the Voice of God

From gracEmail, by Edward Fudge:

"Sure, God spoke to Noah, Isaac and Phillip," we sometimes think. "But he would never speak to me." Little wonder that when he does speak directly today, it is often a shocking experience. At my request, gracEmail subscriber Jack Outhier has reluctantly but kindly given me permission to relate his shocking encounter with the voice of God -- and the good fruit that resulted from it. Jack's email address is jack.outhier@LegacySolutionsLLC.com

* * *

"I was driving alone. Suddenly, within my spirit, I felt moved to turn at an upcoming intersection to go 'speak' to a couple who lived nearby. I knew who they were but did not know them and had no idea what I would say. I struggled for a mile as I approached the intersection, my logic arguing with the Spirit’s leading. I sped past the intersection at about 70 m.p.h. when the next instant a voice boomed into the silence of my vehicle, 'I SAID TURN!' It was a loud and forceful demand that shocked me into slamming on my brakes and pulling off the road. I turned around and took the road He had first 'nudged' me to take.

"Pulling into the couple's driveway, I was totally confused, scared and at an absolute loss of what to say. To my relief, no one answered the door and I headed back to my car. Then, as if a rubber band were pulling me, I was drawn around to the back of the house where I found them working in the garden. They were probably as confused as I was to see me walking back there. They knew who I was, but we had no common ties, had never visited and I now lived 100 miles away,

"We never even shook hands. I just began to speak, revealing things to them that I did not know and could not have known. That scared me to death and turned their faces white with shock. It was my voice but they were not my words. I spoke of their addiction to alcohol and drugs, naming places they frequented which I had never heard of. I named a man whose name I had never heard, with whom the wife was having an affair, and charged the husband with other sins. My 'speaking' went for about ten minutes while all the blood seemed to drain from their faces. When the words stopped coming out of my mouth I had no idea what to say next. I felt terrible for what I had said and simply departed, leaving them arguing, crying, screaming and denying as I drove away. For the next hour I drove in stunned silence. I dared not tell my own church what had transpired and had no one else to discuss this with.

"The next week the woman checked herself into treatment for chemical abuse and the man divorced her while she was in the hospital. Five years later this lady remarried and asked me to perform her wedding. During that interval she had given her heart and life to the Lord and I had baptized her into Christ. She had daughters who all led their husbands to Christ and are raising their children in the Lord. Last year the mom told me that 26 people are joyously walking a Christian walk today because of the voice I heard that day on the highway."

For more about the Christian grace-gift of prophecy, click here.

Copyright 2008 by Edward Fudge for Jack Outhier.
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