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

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.

When People are Big and God is Small

You rule the universe, Lord, and we need you so much to rule our lives.

I pray that as I share this message, those who are listening will be able to be blessed richly.

They will see personally how the gospel applies to their lives and their situations.

Thank you so much, Lord, for your love for us.

Alright, today I'm talking about when people are big and God is small.

This is, from my own personal experience, an area that I really battled with.

This is actually part 1 of 2 that I'm going to be talking about.

This 1 and the next 1 kind of go together because they're talking about the 2 ways that we tend to get off balance in, once again, not looking to Jesus.

But I want to start out by telling about my own personal struggles.

This is how, for me, everybody, you know, everybody deals with issues of worship because we're created to worship.

We're all, if we're not worshiping God, idolaters searching for something else to worship.

And whatever else we worship, it's going to be some form of self.

We may think that this other person is the center of our lives, but they're not.

It's what that person does for me that makes me feel loved or worthwhile that becomes the center of my life.

So we're always either God-centered or self-centered in some way.

What I want to talk about today is how I fooled myself into believing that I was not self-centered.

But The reality was my life was obsessed with worshipping people and what people thought of me.

Now when I was like 14, 15, see my older sisters got to go to academy, but then I didn't.

And academy didn't, shall we say, didn't always help them to become who they needed to become.

So my parents decided I wasn't going to Academy.

But all my friends went off to Academy and I was left not having any friends and feeling most sorry for myself.

But every month we would get the Mountain Echo, the newspaper from the academy where all my friends were, and I was so desperate for friends.

Here, everybody else is going on, they're becoming popular, they're having all these great times, and I was at home by myself.

Well, I would read this Mountain Echo newspaper and I would memorize all the stuff about the popular people.

When I'd gone up and visited my sisters, I'd gotten to know people, you know, a lot of the upperclassmen and whoever.

So I'd memorize, especially the senior profiles.

Every month, they would have several newspaper columns where they would talk about each of the seniors.

So by the end of the year, they'd talk about each senior.

So there'd be like maybe 5 or 6, something like that, each month where they'd tell about this senior, their hobbies, their birth date, what they love to do, their favorite foods, their favorite sayings, whatever.

And seriously, I ended up working at summer camp 1 summer, And I mean, I worked there several summers, but I was with 1 of the really popular guys.

And I was like, wow, I can't believe he became my friend.

But then I remember reading his palm 1 day.

Reading your palm, this is your birth date, these are your favorite foods.

It's embarrassing to me now and I think how obsessed I was with trying so hard to be popular.

And of course, along with that would be, I've got to wear the right clothes.

Now, I was never good at figuring out the right clothes.

We always joked I wore hand-me-ups because my younger sister was really fashion conscious, so she'd pick the right stuff.

And then when she was tired of it, she'd hand it up to me.

But, you know, The 1 thing I knew is if you wear really tight jean shorts, you'll pretty much get attention.

I figure out I can wear this and some spaghetti strap kind of shirt and it'll work.

So I would do this and just notice, guys like to sidle up to me, put their arm around me, hang out with me at summer camp.

And I remember when I finally had arrived at where I felt I was popular.

And I was hanging out at a staff party 1 night at the camp.

Here we were, you know, watching In A and Style.

I think we were watching The Little Mermaid.

Yeah, it was around 20 years ago, believe it or not.

And we're, you know, nothing, It's not like an evil party where we're all dancing and ripping our clothes off.

And here we were, a bunch of empty people, and I thought, here are the people I worked so hard to earn favor with.

And they're all so mean to each other and bickering and so and so's dating so and so's ex and so they won't talk and you know.

I just realized how empty it all was and I actually left in the middle of the party, these parties that I'd been thinking about all year long, maybe I'll be able to go to the staff parties and be so popular, you know.

And I went back to my room and I just laid on my bed and cried because this is what I had been consumed with, if I can just get popular with the cool kids.

And now I realized I've got to do something different.

And that was when I decided I was going to pursue God with all my heart.

I'd been thinking, you know, suicide, is that a good idea, maybe, you know.

But now I thought, you know, it would be really dumb to kill myself if the God thing really works.

If you just give yourself completely to God, he'll satisfy your heart and all that.

But I'd always heard you have to do it 100% or it won't work.

So I knew that much, so I figured, Let me just give myself completely to God for a year and see how it goes.

And if it doesn't work, I can always kill myself later.

I haven't had to kill myself, isn't that great?

I've never needed to because when I gave my heart to Christ, it was incredible.

It didn't mean that all my problems went away.

I just shared in the last presentation some of the problems that I had that I really had to face only when I was 18.

18, 19 years old, I finally started coming to grips with how to find freedom from anxiety and major depression issues.

But God was at work in my life in powerful ways.

And 1 of the first things he helped me to understand was that I needed people's attention far too much.

You see, when you're in that whole mindset where you need people to care about you, at least for me, I was very obsessed with attention from the opposite sex, especially.

So I would try to dress in ways and laugh at the right jokes and do whatever it was that I could to make myself feel good.

I'm trying to, really, I was just using these guys to prop up my sense of identity.

I have a crush on somebody, but I had a crush on like 5 guys all at the same time.

And if any 1 of them was interested in me, hey, great.

And in fact, if 1 of them that I wasn't interested in was interested in me, I'd probably be happy with that too.

Just somebody, please, like me, you know?

It was just a recipe for destruction and for danger.

I praise God that He was so good to protect me from some of the things that could have happened.

But you know, whenever I would crash, when a relationship wouldn't work out, I would say the same thing.

I'll never let anybody close to me again all guys are Nobody ever said that maybe they don't say that these days anymore all guys are jerks Come on.

No none of you girls have ever said that or heard that, right?

From Self-Protection to Soul Connection

Lord Jesus, we need so much to have your spirit.

Lord, I pray that you will speak to every person who has listened to this presentation.

Help them to understand how deeply you want them to embrace community, how deeply you want us to understand how your love affects our lives.

Now this presentation, you remember, is part 2 from the first 1 that we just did, when people are big and God is small.

We talked about how when we're looking unto Jesus, that is the path to perfect balance.

But the devil likes to get us off on 1 side or the other side, and he doesn't actually really care which side he can get us off into because we will mar the image of God and damage our own relationship with God and others if we fall off onto 1 side or the other.

Now last presentation we talked about immersionism, that when we're not looking unto Jesus sometimes we fall into needing people too much, making our relationships with other people too important, and getting our sense of identity and worth and lovability out of what people think of us or how much they need us or how much we're valued or whatever, any of those things.

So When we are focused too much on relationships and needing people, we slip into immersionism.

This presentation we're talking about isolationism, the opposite side, where we don't need people, where we don't connect deeply enough with people.

And you know, remember, the narrow way has 2 sides we can fall off of, but both of them are the same thing.

Self-focus, thinking that we need others too much or thinking that we don't need anybody, neither 1 of those is a reflection of God's way of living.

On the 1 side is seeking pleasure, immersionism.

And both of those are self- centered ways to live.

God's design for his people is that We live in deep connection with 1 another as well as with him.

That's why he puts us in families, right?

Genesis 2.18, God said, It's not good that the man should be alone.

Does that mean that everybody must get married because it's not good for us to be alone?

But that would mean that as long as you're single, your life is not good.

But I'm here to tell you, I'm so glad I didn't get married before 27.

My husband is wonderful, and I am just so blessed to be married to him, but I'm so glad for all the adventures I had and the time that God gave me to ripen in my relationship with him and in maturing.

I always joke with my husband that nobody who I knew before I was 25 would have ever wanted to marry me.

I had so much growing up to do, so many ways that I needed to understand how to be focused on God and allow him to change me.

But at the right time and the right way, God brought the right man to me.

And while I'm not a proponent of saying, unless you marry exactly the person that God picked for you, wait until he magically, miraculously drops the person on your lap, then marry them at a moment's notice.

But I do know that God brought me together with my husband.

I know God can make beautiful relationships between people who marry even for the wrong reasons.

So I don't want anyone to be discouraged by going, well, you know, I married the wrong person anyway, so God can't do anything through our marriage.

God can take almost any 2 personalities and make a beautiful, rich, fulfilling marriage when they're both totally surrendered to him.

But having said that, I'm so grateful that I married the right person, the 1 who fits me so well and we have such a wonderful relationship.

So when I say it's not good that the man should be alone, I certainly agree, that's referring to marriage.

But that's not the only thing, because even if God ordains that you live your life single, you will still be able to live a life for His glory and it will still be rich and deep and fulfilling, as long as you're committed to Him and totally filled with His Spirit.

You see, it's not just marriage that God wants us to have, but deep connection with other people.

That's why it's not enough just to have a relationship with God.

In Acts 1, verses 4 and 5, Jesus commanded the disciples that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me.' He said, You shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.

Why did they still need to wait for a while?

Why did God want them to spend some time waiting?

Have you ever noticed that, how many of you have ever gone on a mission trip?

When you go on a mission trip with other people, do you sometimes, you find little personality issues and things flaring up between you?

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GYC SE 2011 Seminar: Relationships

Digging Out the Spiritual Roots of Depression and Anxiety

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Parts

Digging Out the Spiritual Roots of Depression and Anxiety

49m

When People are Big and God is Small

52m

From Self-Protection to Soul Connection

1h

Sound Doctrine