Dear Friend,
Blessings of peace and grace to you.
I am 50 years old. I am now living a very happy life. Without going into the details, I can tell you that I have been severely depressed for so many years. As I look back a few months, I would call myself a functioning depressed person. I could go about my daily activities appearing to be fine, but inside I was ready to kill myself. I hated my life. I just wanted to die! Death could not come soon enough for me. There were days where I could not even get out of bed or leave the house. I felt hopelessness, despair, sadness and apathy. Overall I felt gloom. I had no will power. I had started to lose my perspective on life, on my work, and my family.

All of my friends and relatives thought I had it all. I had the perfect home; the perfect husband and the picture perfect life. I tried telling my loved ones that I was extremely depressed, but they would not believe me. It did not show on my face, and I would never cry or freak out in front of them. I cried inside, but my outward cries did not come until I was alone. Therefore, nobody took me serious. Yet, I was the most miserable person on earth! Everyone around me seemed to be so happy, so I felt all alone. Even the bums in the street seemed happier than me. I thought I was the only woman on earth that was depressed. There was no one that I trusted enough to share my feelings. If I did share some things, no one took me serious enough, so I would close up and not discuss them with anyone. I felt pushed aside or that my experiences of my depression were minimized. I cried myself to sleep many nights.

God has always been the center of my life. I even called out to God for help so many times, and even He seemed to be asleep. He appeared to be on strike. He did not answer my prayers. In reality, God did answer my prayers, but I was too depressed to recognize it. I thought I was going crazy or losing my mind, because there was no physical or logical explanation why I felt the way I did. I waited and waited for God to send me signs, and yet the signs did not appear to manifest themselves to me. I hated God! I would drive alone far into the mountains and shout at Him. I would blame Him for my misery. I could see no way out! Although, I had much success in my daily life, I saw it as a failure. My depression became so bad that I had to end my life. Then one day, I decided I am going to do it! I am going to commit suicide. I will show God! I am going to teach Him a big lesson! This temporarily sick way of thinking, made me (so called) happy. I was so happy that now, I could finally get back at everyone and especially, God. He thinks He is so powerful! He thinks He can control the universe! etc. I was going to teach Him a big lesson! Since He gave me this miserable life, then I was going to take it!

I thought of ways that I could kill myself. I must have come up with at least two hundred or more ways to do it. I wrote them all down. However, I was a little hesitant because I thought that maybe those ways would just leave me half-dead. And maybe someone would find me and try to save me.

You know, I forgot, I never told Joseph this but I even prayed to God to help me commit the perfect suicide. One day I logged onto the internet to look for ways that others had committed suicide. Since I had decided that I definitely was going to do it, I wanted to make sure I did not make a mistake. It had to be permanent.

My mind is a little cloudy now, but I think I typed in the word suicide, or suicidal thoughts. I did not understand how to go to chat rooms, but I thought that this would put me in a chat room where people were talking about how they were going to kill themselves. Anyway, I typed in suicide and I clicked on a link. The link was strongfaith.net (Victory Tips). When I entered that site, for a split second, there was a sense of peace that came over me, but quickly left. I saw the beautiful happy faces of the people on that link. I continued reading over the different subject matters. Without reading everything, I found myself typing in one of the subjects that I would like discussed, was suicide. I still thought that they would tell me the best way to do it. Instead, I got back an email that said Joseph at hotmail…. “I want to talk to you.” I was very hesitant but unconsciously, I must have emailed him back. Then another email from Joseph came saying that God’s will is that you enjoy life. It was as if God himself was speaking to me through those words. You know, “the voice out of the sky.” Another sense of peace came over me after reading that, and it quickly left. Joseph wrote that it isn’t our circumstances that dictate our happiness. It is our response to them. But I thought there was no hope for me. I wanted to go ahead and just die! But again Joseph responded and said “Yes, you can be helped, and I’m not giving up on you, and nor is God for that matter.” For me, this was like a mystical experience to hear someone say those words to me at a time like that in my life. So, I continued emailing back and forth up until now.

The thing that helped me so much was the Power Lines page. I read it everyday without fail. Sometimes I read it repeatedly. I apply the Power Lines to my every day life. I even stay up late at night sometimes reading them. I printed that page out and laminated it. The Faith and Guilt Page helped me a lot too. After reading the entire website at strongfaith.net, I have come from a very dark place to a shining light place. Every day I go back and read over the website again and again. Each time I read it, I learn something new. That website is ever fresh to me. I have also reaffirmed my faith in Jesus and God. And I have asked Jesus to come into my life. The most important thing that I have learned is Faith. Faith is what has saved me the most. Faith in God. Faith in Jesus. I knew about faith, but I did not have it.

I just finished listening to some tapes they sent to me about “Pulling the Plug on Fear”. Have you heard these tapes yet? They are really powerful and nice. I know that I have a long way to go to beat this depression, and I am not out of the woods yet. But one thing for sure, by developing faith in the Lord Jesus, it will set you free. No matter how bad my depression gets, I will never ever dream of killing myself again! I have also asked for forgiveness from the LORD. This part of my depression is over for good. I have something to live for! I have strong faith in Jesus. I have God. I have new friends at strongfaith.net.

When they told me that there was a chance that I could correspond with others who have something in common with me, (depression) I felt like a child all over again. You know, like a kid in a candy store. I got butterflies in my stomach. My heart became overjoyed to know that I am not alone, and that there really are others like me in the world, that want to, or have chosen to choose life.

You know, I am learning about Jesus and studying the Bible all over again. This time I would like to focus on faith. Maybe you can help me in my studies. I would be forever grateful to you. And if not, that is okay too. The most important thing is that you get better. Coming from a person who has been there, please trust me when I tell you this. Whatever you do, “don’t trust your thinking” right now.

With a whole heart, I gladly endorse the wonderful knowledge and topics that you will find at strongfaith.net. I trust it will do for you what it did for me. I pray that you give the people a chance to help you. Remember that you are not alone. The best is yet ahead of you! The Holy Spirit will embrace you and restore you!

Take good care of yourself. May the Lord impart to you the Spirit of encouragement that all things are possible to those who believe! 

Blessings, and thank you.