GYC SE 2011: A New Beginning

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GYC Southeast

GYC SE 2011 Seminar: Relationships

Nicole Parker

Digging Out the Spiritual Roots of Depression and Anxiety

When People are Big and God is Small

From Self-Protection to Soul Connection

Father in heaven, we just thank you so much for bringing us here today and for allowing us the privilege of being in your presence.

Lord, I pray that you will help each 1 of us to dwell in the light of your presence today.

You know what's going on in our lives and our hearts, Lord.

And I just pray that you will be glorified by everything that I share today, and that each person will be able to know and understand better the love that you have for them through this presentation.

All right, the spiritual roots of depression and anxiety.

Let me just share a little bit about myself.

I grew up in an Adventist home, so I went to church every week.

Growing up, I had a lot of things that were great.

I had 3 sisters and We all played out in the woods all the time.

There were a lot of things that I had going for me, but there were also some things that didn't go so well in my life.

There were a lot of abuse issues and things that were very painful to me.

You can hear about some of those on a different presentation that I've done that's on Audioverse, where I talked about the things that I've been through and how the Lord has helped me through some of those things.

But I want to talk today especially about depression and anxiety and my struggles with those things personally and how I found that the Lord has really set me free.

You see, what I was going through as a result of some of the things that had happened to me was even though during the day I would be this happy person who made a lot of jokes and had a lot of fun and I was always trying to be the life of the party.

I was a little nerdy, so that didn't work out so well.

So the struggles that I had, I kept inside.

I didn't want to tell people what I was going through.

But at night, I would have nightmares, and I struggled with major depressive disorders.

Now, I didn't talk to a counselor, we didn't have a counselor, you know, I wouldn't have ever asked for going to talk to somebody about something anyway.

In my mind, you just keep those things inside and try to put on a happy face.

And isn't that what a Christian is supposed to do, right?

And When I was 15, I was attacked by a neighbor of my parents.

And he grabbed me and kissed me and started dragging me into his house.

This is this old guy who's like 300 pounds.

And I was probably 20 pounds less than I am now.

And this guy grabs me and tries to drag me in his house and there's no 1 around even to hear me scream.

My mom had just sent me over to his house to invite him over for supper.

And when I came out of that experience, now the Lord delivered me.

I hung onto the door frames and I pleaded for this guy to let me go and finally he did and I praised God that he helped me but I didn't praise him then.

What happened when I walked away from that house was I just was so angry at God.

I said, here you are, you never do anything to take care of me.

I always have to fight off things and take care of myself.

Obviously you're not the kind of father who would take care of his daughter, so I'm going to take care of myself." And this was my prayer to God.

I said, I'm through with the stupid trust God thing, because you don't take care of me, So I'll take care of myself.

I'm not going to go drink and do drugs and do crazy things with my life, but I'm not going to trust you because you don't take care of me.

And that conversation with God launched me into a very different way of living.

Because I felt that I needed to protect myself, I started having some strong problems with anxiety that just built over the years.

Over the next couple of years, as I turned 16, 17, I went away to academy, and it was a wonderful school.

It really introduced me to the gospel for the first time, and I surrendered my life to Christ.

And in many ways, that was a wonderful time of my life, a brand new Christian.

But In other ways, the struggles weren't going away.

No matter how much I prayed and how much I spent my devotional time with God every day, at night I would be in fear.

I was afraid that someone would break into the room, somebody would crawl through the window and drag me out and kidnap me and rape me.

Now, I was living in a dorm with alarms on the windows and my roommate is on the bunk right above me.

It's not like anybody is going to rip me out of the window without anybody finding out, right?

But you can't reason with fear like that.

So every night I would sleep in jeans, I would sleep fully clothed, everything except for my shoes, and I would lie there in bed at night and I would worry, what if they get me and I don't have my shoes on and who knows how far they're going to make me walk.

You know, it was insane and I knew it so I didn't tell anybody what I was struggling with I just laugh Yeah, I'm a jeans girl.

That's why I sleep in jeans But down inside I lived in fear it was a terrible feeling and it got worse and worse as time went on Eventually I got to where if a man walked behind me.

I would have a panic attack my throat would close up I wouldn't be able to breathe So I would compromise by always kind of trying to keep my back against a wall.

Now, if it was a guy who was my age that I knew I was comfortable with that, that wasn't the kind of guy who would hurt me or endangered me.

So instead, I would only freak out if there was some guy who was maybe 20 years older than me or significantly bigger than me, then that would be what would scare me.

But if I feel a man walking past behind me and my throat might stiffen up, I look back and I see, oh, that's just my friend.

This is just my little weird thing that I do, and I'm fine.

And I'd stand in line waiting to have lunch.

You know, I'd just lean against chairs along the table or something so nobody would walk behind me.

But it was still a prison and it was getting worse and worse.

And I want you to know that that's not the way it is anymore.

I don't know what you're struggling with, but I want you to know that even when you've given your life to Christ and you're still struggling with something and you've prayed and prayed and it hasn't gone away, don't give up.

You need to understand how the gospel applies to your life and that will set you free.

I don't struggle with those anxiety problems anymore.

I don't struggle with major depression anymore.

Sometimes a little, you know, blue mood will hit me or I'll have frustration in dealing with my house, but it's not like the way that I used to live.

So I want you to know, depression and anxiety are temptations.

They are situations that make us more vulnerable to temptations of the devil to think in unbiblical ways.

But that doesn't mean that because you struggle with depression or anxiety that you're not converted, that God is not working in your life or anything like that.

Jesus struggled with depression when he was in the Garden of Gethsemane.

I want you to know right off what this seminar is not.

This seminar is not an accusation that depression is a sin or even always necessarily a result of a person's sin, because it's not.

Sometimes you know, some people ride the waves of hormones and they just have a certain day that they are more depressed than other days and they know it, you know.

Other people, they have something that's going on in their brain, and you can call it a chemical imbalance.

There's really no scientific test that can be done to say, oh, this person has a chemical imbalance.

But if a doctor gives you a medication and it seems to fix it, they say, oh, see, there was a chemical imbalance.

Well, I think it's a little more complicated than that, because often the chemical imbalances in our minds come as a result of imbalances in our lives and ways we're not appropriating the gospel.

So we, by the way that we think, can create a mindset that contributes to things like ulcers, right?

Why could they not also contribute to things like depression?

The way that we think can change whether we're depressed or not.

Series

GYC SE 2011 Seminar: Relationships

Digging Out the Spiritual Roots of Depression and Anxiety

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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Sound Doctrine