My Deliverance from Anxiety and Depression

There was a time in my life when all things seemed hopeless and all I wanted to do is crawl up in a ball and die.

The only thing at that time that kept me going was my daughter. I am telling you she was a gift from God. I held on for her.

Somewhere along the lines of my life things got so out of hand. I allowed myself to be abused by so many people, I allowed myself to be affected by their words. I believed them and eventually over time those words became who I was.

At the age of 24 it was discovered that I was suffering from anxiety and mild depression.

I hadn’t been feeling very well. I always felt sad and going out became a mission for me. The moment I set foot out the house or the thought of going out I clammed up and felt this overwhelming feeling to throw up. There were times I had no choice I had to go out. For 8 years I lived this way. Things got so bad that I eventually just didn’t want to go anywhere as everything was just so hard. I had to plan things well in advance. The moment someone planned things for me I completely lost it. I broke down and cried or got exceptionally angry. These 8 years were the toughest years of my life.

I had walked out of a two year abusive relationship. I was a mother of a then year old daughter and I decided my child deserved better and so did I. In order for my child to be happy I needed to be happy. She could feel at her young age the stress and anxiety in that relationship. Little did I know that what lay ahead was going to be the darkest days of my life.

So after realising there was something wrong my first thoughts were cancer. I made an appointment with my doctor and after about 5 minutes into the consultation he was ready to diagnose me. He of cause did the necessary tests to put my mind at ease. But said to me after a round of questions that I was suffering from anxiety and slight depression and he had recommended I go see a Psychologist. He wanted to give me some medication to help with the anxiety but didn’t want to do so until the Psychologist approved it.

I was very reluctant to go but at that point I was tired of feeling this way.

It was not easy to do. The medication and the consultations didn’t really help me so I stopped the medication. I believe that if something was wrong and it wasn’t medical then medicine wouldn’t help. If it’s an emotional or mental thing medication is just going to control the symptoms but the cause or the underlining problem still remains. It’s just in a sense swept under the rug which means it will keep repeating until you destroy the root of the problem. Eventually I just realised that the Psychologist, bless her heart, was not helping me but trying to created things that had never existed. The devil my friends, is very sly. He loves to use the psychologists to make you out to be worse off so that you can think that there is no hope. But JESUS His love just cures anything and everything mental physical emotional you name it.

Sadly at this time of my life I didn’t really know JESUS other than what I had learnt in school. I knew He existed and I knew of God and I knew of some of the Bible stories. But that really was it. I didn’t know much about either, or what they could do for me.

I left the doctors and medication and psychologist behind after 3 months. I decided it was time to fix myself. I had to start looking at what was the possible root cause of it all and I had to deal with it. I didn’t want to accept that as my life.

You know during these 8 years things just got worse especially me trying to fix myself. One thing I learnt in this process is that when we lean on our own strength and understanding we WILL fail. We are not strong enough. If we were we wouldn’t need JESUS. But thank God we do and He came.

So in the 7^th year of my anxiety you could sum me up as the angriest, hateful and saddest person. With a string of failed relationships, and pretty much in the same place I was before the 7 years. NOWHERE. I was so unhappy and had the coldest heart. People told me I was unapproachable and my friends just didn’t have time for me nor wanted to include me or even try to understand what I was going through. My daughter of cause is the one that suffered the most. I can honestly say I was not a mother that was available. Even though I was there every day raising her I was never a good mother as I was so obsessed with myself. I was trying to survive every day. Because that’s what it was, trying to make it through the day without giving up.

I was so insecure about myself so hid behind Facebook and other social networks. My anxiety turned to social phobia where I couldn’t be around people. I had a fear in me so great that it consumed me. I was always thinking people were looking at me and speaking about me and whatever the case. Social media I could hide myself and be safe. Well in this process of hiding one day a friend from primary school days just appeared. He had sent me a friend request.

Back in the day he was a cute boy and I absolutely adored him. There was something about him. He had this mop of red hair and scrawny legs. There was something special about him but I never did find out what it was back then. Anyway he added me and I was of cause curious to hear what had happened in his life. He had become very good looking and being the person that I was then, I remembered I had started to flirt with him and saying some inappropriate things. I remember this one day though we were talking and he had told me about his life and how God had called him to be an Evangelist. It’s like God wrapped me over the knuckles that day. I immediately stopped. This level of respect just built up in me, if I can say that. I had seen him completely different. He was no longer this little boy from school he was now a mighty man of God. I had no idea how he was going to change my life. I didn’t realise until later that God had specifically sent him to show me the way.

For the next year I listened daily to him ministering to me about JESUS. Our time together was purely him introducing JESUS to me and all JESUS did for me and just who JESUS was. He would tell me stories from the BIBLE and He was so full of life and energy that it was impossible to not be moved by the stories. JESUS was so alive in him and there was no denying it. I was not yet saved but this was quite apparent to me. You just cannot hide JESUS. He is the LIGHT that shines so bright in everyone.

It was after a year of him ministering to me almost on a daily basis that I finally took that leap of faith and went before God and asked for forgiveness and I asked JESUS the same JESUS in this friend of mine to come into my life and SHINE in me too. I made JESUS the Lord over my life that day 4 years ago

19 February 2011. That day I received my forgiveness and I had a Lord I was ready to serve out of LOVE and I was ready to receive all HE had for me. I was ready to live the life HE had initially planned for me.

If you are struggling from anxiety and depression let me just tell you this. JESUS delivered me immediately from it. I didn’t ask to be delivered of it but that last year up until I got saved was so consumed by Jesus and every word the BIBLE says that I wasn’t focused on what I needed. But God knew I needed it and because I made Him priority He delivered me from the anxiety and depression. Even though I wasn’t saved yet that word that I was feeding on and that was being sown into my life through my friend when I got born again reaped a harvest so big. JESUS took away my anxiety and depression. I never ever had to live like that again. I had no reason to live that way again. I learned that God who created our heaven and earth LOVED me.

I want to tell you all today. GOD LOVES YOU TOO. He wants you well. He wants you to know JESUS and He wants you to know what JESUS did for you. And what He did was go to the cross for us, to cleanse us of our sins. He gave us His robe of righteousness to put on and He took our robe of unrighteousness. He forgave us of all our wrong doings and set us free. We need to know that when Jesus died on the cross He also went to the deepest pits of Hell for us and He walked out there alive. God resurrected Him from the pits of hell. He defeated Satan and all that Satan stands for which is the curse. Know that the curse consists of everything evil. All sickness and disease, all poverty and all lack. So when you realise and understand that sickness and disease have no hold on you then you can very much be delivered and healed of anything and everything. JESUS destroyed it so that we could be set free. It has no hold on us. It never will. Only you can disbelieve God and allow Satan to deceive you into thinking they do have a hold on you.

1 Peter 2:24 “he himself (talking about JESUS) bore our sins in His body on the tree (the Cross), so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; by His wounds you have been healed.” Other translations say “by His stripes” talking about the lashings He received as part of His punishment before He went to the Cross. It’s all part of what He endured for us to be set free. It quite plainly states that you have been healed. Not you will be healed, but that you have already been healed. It’s just a case of believing it and receiving that healing. And how we receive it is by Faith and acknowledging it’s ours already and speaking healing words. For instance you have anxiety attacks you can declare daily I HAVE BEEN DELIVERED OF MY ANXIETY IN THE NAME OF JESUS, JESUS set me free and I will never have an anxiety attack again. Remember the devil is a master of deception and even though you are free from the anxiety he will deceive you into thinking you aren’t by throwing symptoms at you. All you do is say I AM DELIVERED it’s a promise from GOD and I believe it. I am not moved by these symptoms because it is written “By His wounds I have been healed”1 Peter 2:24 and If I have been healed then I am healed. PRAISE GOD. Then always make sure on a daily basis that you thank JESUS for your healing or delivering you. You see the devil doesn’t want you to know the truth because as JESUS says in John 8:32 “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free” the devil knows you will be free and that’s the last thing he wants. He needs you in bondage. He needs you under his thumb doing his dirty work for him.

We don’t realise how easy we actually make it for satan to penetrate our lives and thoughts. One wrong move from us, one word can open that door. I promise you if you give him a way in he will come in and with a force. You see he isn’t like JESUS. JESUS is a gentleman, He doesn’t force His way in anywhere. He will knock and it’s up to you to open and ask Him in. He won’t force Himself on you either. He gave us free will and He doesn’t change. He is the same yesterday today and forever. Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” and then also Malachi 3:6 “I the Lord do not change”.

God never forces us to do anything. The word force isn’t even in His vocabulary. God leads us. He never pushes. He is gentle, meek, loving, caring and patient. These are not traits of satan. Satan is impatient and hateful, deceitful, forceful, vengeful and the list goes on.

Satan loves to instil fear into people and that’s the foundation that people with anxiety and depression have. It’s all FEAR based. In my case it was fear of not being good enough, fear of never amounting to anything, fear of being a bad mother, fear of believing that I deserved being abused as so many had told me. Fear of being alone, fear of dying, fear of people and so we can go on forever. Whatever the fear, I had it.

BUT as I said JESUS delivered me PRAISE GOD. He took away my anxiety and depression and He gave me a new life. He changed me into a better person. Someone I like and others like. He filled my heart with Joy and excitement and with one thing on my mind and that’s to live the life He had planned for me before the creation of the world.

There is one thing that I have learnt on my four year journey so far and it should be what our lives are built on. It’s the LOVE of GOD. When you know God and know how much He loves you, you are then able to receive all that He has for you. In the case of anxiety and depression, everything you feared before is now flushed out by the pure knowledge of God’s love for you. God’s love is perfect and perfect love casts out fear,

1 John 4:16 “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is Love.”So if you want to get healed or delivered of your anxiety and depression all you need to do is spend time studying out Gods love and believing it. Dare to believe the Love of God and see what happens.

BE BLESSED