From Chronic Despair to Continuous Joy - Truth and Song

This is my story of how God used seven different areas of my life and pieced them together like a puzzle to bring me to peace after darkness.

PIECE ONE

BROKEN

 I have always been a relatively happy person.  I tend to have perfectionist standards for myself as far as what I believe the Bible counts as important. Still, I am able most days to have a joyful disposition. I have borne three children and outside of exhaustion I have not struggled with a prolonged state of sadness, nor even post-partum blues.
 
Imagine my confusion and discouragement when suddenly it seemed that every day I awoke with a feeling of hopelessness. I felt that the day was lost before it was even begun. I struggled with thoughts like, “What is wrong with me?” “What’s the use?” “Why should I even try to accomplish anything?” “Everything is just too much.” “OH NO! The children are awake. I can’t handle being responsible right now when I can’t even think.”
 
I remember praying and saying, “LORD, I LOVE YOU. I know that there is no viable sin that I am harboring in my heart. I am thankful for my home, my children, and my husband. I would rather be a stay at home mom than anything in the world. I am not discontent. WHY AM I SO SAD?!!!!”
 
I would sing songs, play music and quote, “Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established.” That verse was MY PROMISE that if I just kept pressing toward the mark that eventually I would regain joy.
 
This same struggle went EVERY MORNING AND ALL DAY for four months. I would tell my husband that I didn’t feel DEPRESSED, I felt OPPRESSED. It was something from which I could not get away no matter what I did.
 
Worse yet I had feelings of internal rage that I had never before experienced. While thankfully I was able to keep that rage within; I was ill tempered, impatient and had no grace in my heart for anyone. The words “I HATE, I HATE, I HATE…” would echo in my head over and over, Oh, I sorrow just now thinking about the pain that my heart held because I truly did not hate anything. I could not think of one single thing that I hated. SO WHY DID I HAVE HATE INSIDE?
 
There would be a day where I would learn something new and I would think, “YES! THIS IS IT. I HAVE FOUND THE SECRET TO JOY.” Then within a day or two I would be back with the same hopeless, discouraged feelings that haunted me.
 
I was reading a book called “Hudson Taylor’s Spiritual Secret” and at the end of the chapter called “Days of Darkness” there was a letter recorded to Hudson’s mother which said,
 
“My position becomes continually more and more responsible, and my need greater of special grace to fill it. But I have continually to mourn that I follow at such a distance and learn so slowly to imitate my precious Master.
 
I cannot tell you how I am buffeted sometimes by temptation. I never knew how bad a heart I have. Yet I do know that I love God and love His work, and desire to serve Him only and in all things.”
 
That was me. I found hope in that a renowned missionary who started a tremendous work for God struggled just as I was struggling.
 
Then later in the chapter “Exchanged Life” he was writing his sister and he said,
 
“… my mind has been greatly exercised for six or eight months past, feeling the need personally … of more holiness, life, power in our souls. But personal need stood first and was the greatest. I felt the ingratitude, the danger, the sin of not living nearer to God. I prayed, agonized, fasted, strove, made resolutions, read the Word more diligently, sought more time for meditation – but all without avail. Every day, almost every hour, the consciousness of sin oppressed me.
 
I knew that if only I could abide in Christ all would be well, but I could not. I would begin the day with prayer, determined not to take my eye off Him for a moment, but pressure of duties, sometimes very trying, and constant interruptions apt to be so wearing, caused me to forget Him. Then one’s nerves get so fretted in this climate that temptations to irritability, hard thoughts and sometimes unkind words are all the more difficult to control. Each day brought its register of sin and failure, of lack of power. To will was indeed “present with me,” but how to perform I found not.
 
Then came the question, is there no rescue? Must it be thus to the end – constant conflict, and too often defeat? How could I preach with sincerity that, to those who receive Jesus, “to them gave he power to become the sons of God” (i.e., Godlike) when it was not so in my own experience? … my heart would cry, in spite of all, ‘Abba, Father.’ But to rise to my privileges as a child, I was utterly powerless.
 
… And sometimes there were seasons not only of peace but of joy in the Lord; but they were transitory, and at best there was a sad lack of power. Oh, how good the Lord has been in bringing this conflict to an end!”
 
MY SOUL LONGED FOR WHAT HE HAD. HOW HAD HIS MISERY COME TO AN END?!!!
 
 

PIECE TWO

IT IS NOT OUR FAITH THAT RESULTS IN ANSWERED PRAYERS, BUT OUR STANDING IN CHRIST

Hudson Taylor spoke of coming to the greater understanding of John 15.

 
V4. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
V5. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
V6. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
V7. If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
V8. Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
V9. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
V10. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
V11. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
 
He said,
 
“When my agony of soul was at its height… God revealed to me the truth of our ONENESS WITH JESUS as I had never known it before…
 
…But how to get faith strengthened? Not by striving after faith, but by resting on the Faithful One.”
 
He spoke of II Timothy 2:13, If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.
 
He integrated this verse with I John 5:14 – 15, And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
 
Further in the book, Hudson wrote this,
 
“… it is a wonderful thing to be really one with a risen and exalted Saviour, to be a member of Christ! Think what it involves. Can Christ be rich and I poor? Can your right hand be rich and your left poor? Or your head be well fed while your body starves? Again, think of its bearing on prayer. Could a bank clerk say to a customer, ‘It was only your hand, not you that wrote that check’; or ‘I cannot pay this sum to your hand, but only to yourself’? No more can your prayers or mine be discredited if offered in the name of Jesus (i.e., not for the sake of Jesus merely, but on the ground that we are His, His members) SO LONG AS WE KEEP WITHIN THE LIMITS OF CHRIST’S CREDIT – A TOLERABLY WIDE LIMIT! If we ask for anything unscriptural, or not in accordance with the will of God, CHRIST HIMSELF COULD NOT DO THAT. But ‘if we ask anything according to his will … we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.”
 
THIS WAS THE KEY, but I still did not grasp what it really meant or how to apply it to my life.
 
I prayed and cried and asked God to help me understood why these verses which answered all Hudson Taylors answers to peace and joy just did not make sense to me at all. I prayed for wisdom and understanding. I prayed even more for freedom from this oppressive despair.
 
GOD GRANTED ME MY PRAYER.
 
 

PIECE THREE

IF I PRAY IN THE NAME OF JESUS FOR GOD’S WILL IN MY LIFE, GOD IS BOUND BY HIS PROMISE THAT IT WILL BE GRANTED.

 
God always keeps His word.
 

I just couldn’t believe that John 15:7 (which says, “If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”) was actually true.

 
Now, I am a dispensationalist and any time a verse that makes such blatant promises in regard to prayer are given, I tend to say, “Yes. That was true for the disciples, but not for me.” That may be true for some aspects of Scripture, but God says that this is true for all those who abide in Him. I am saved. I harbor no iniquity in my heart. THEREFORE THIS MEANS ME, NOT JUST THE DISCIPLES.
 
So, my natural question was this: “If I pray in Jesus’ name and ask anything in your will, you have obligated Yourself that it shall be done unto me? Is that true?” His reply was this, “I CANNOT DENY MYSELF.”
 
Now before you stop reading this article or cry heresy, it took a little bit more information for me to understand how this REALLY APPLIED TO ME.
 
 

PIECE FOUR

 

GIVING UP “MY HAPPINESS” TO ACCEPT GOD’S WILL

 
It was later by chance that I was perusing through a friend’s bookshelf and I borrowed a pile of books. One such book was, “The Power of a Praying Wife” by Stormie OMartian.”
 
I have a wonderful husband, but as is true in most marriages, he is my opposite. The way I would do things is not the way that he does them. The way I search for God’s direction is not the way that he does. The way he communicates God’s dealings in his heart is not the way that I would. The things that I think are important may not even make a speck on his priority radar. Still, he is my best friend, and I would rather have him than anyone. He is just different.
 
The odd thing about marriage is this: when we marry, we become one. His direction in life becomes my direction in life. My stewardship can never overcome or rise above his stewardship. My ministry can never go further than his. Our identities are intertwined to where his success is mine and mine is his. Where I am lacking, he feels it. Where he is lacking, I feel it.
 
When I started reading “The Power of a Praying Wife”, I knew that I already had a good marriage but I didn’t realize that those things in my life that I hoped WOULD SOMEDAY CHANGE had such a grasp upon me.
 
There is a sample prayer at the end of each chapter in praying for your husband and the first chapter is to pray for “his wife.” One section that especially spoke to my heart was this,
 
“I lay all my expectations at Your cross. I release my husband from the burden of fulfilling me in areas where I should be looking to You. Help me to accept him the way he is and not try to change him. I REALIZE THAT IN SOME WAYS HE MAY NEVER CHANGE, but at the same time, I release him to change in ways I never thought he could. I leave any changing that needs to be done in Your hands, fully accepting that neither of us is perfect and never will be.”
 
When I got to the part that said, “HE MAY NEVER CHANGE” I broke down. You see, my hopes and dreams are intertwined into my life with him and to me this meant that if he never changed THAN MY DREAMS WOULD NEVER BE REALIZED. I would never be truly happy. I would never have the life that I always wanted. I would have to settle.
 
Oh, how horrible I felt when I brought my wonderful husband so low in my heart. How horrible, how selfish, how ugly my flesh revealed itself to be. I was content with my life for the moment, but not content for it to be that way always. Certainly, I thought, “God would give me the desires of my heart.” Yet, how could I have the desires of my heart if HE MAY NEVER CHANGE?”
 
I had to surrender to never getting what I wanted and to trust that God could make me happy in spite of it: surrendering to self denial.
 
 

PIECE FIVE

 

TRUSTING GOD TO FULFILL MY DESIRES THROUGH HIS LEADING OF MY HUSBAND, NOT THROUGH MY CONVERSATIONS WITH MY HUSBAND.

 Throughout this process, and I didn’t realize it at the time, God was working on this puzzle in my life. He had given me what seemed like disjointed pieces of things that I recognized as little nuggets, but I couldn’t even recognize them as pieces to the same puzzle.

 
Out of nowhere one evening as I was struggling with the idea of surrendering my ideals of what it would take for me to be happy, I was reading I Peter 3:4 – 6:
 
V4. But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
V5. For after this manner in the old time the holy women also, who trusted in God, adorned themselves, being in subjection unto their own husbands:
V6. Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement.
 
For some reason in my broken state when I hit the words “which is in the sight of God of great price” I stopped and just started crying. Didn’t God understand that that was all I wanted? I wanted God to be happy with me. I wanted to be worth something to God. Why was my spirit in such distress?
 
I read further about “the holy women also, WHO TRUSTED IN GOD,” and just stopped.
 
‘WHO TRUSTED IN GOD!” I did not trust in God. I kind of trusted God.
 
 
A story that illustrates real trust:
 
My two heroes are Hudson Taylor and George Mueller. I did not know it, but George Mueller greatly influenced Hudson Taylor’s life. George Mueller started as a pastor of a small church and was paid from the money the church received through “pew renting.” He told the church that he would no longer allow pew renting because it made it impossible for the poor people to get close to the front to hear the gospel. He wanted the church to be no respecter of persons. By getting rid of pew renting, he also got rid of his income. From that point on he asked no one but God for any want or need. God brought him very low to try his faith, but by the end of George Mueller’s life he had established and was running orphanages that held thousands of children AND he was giving thousands of pounds monthly to missionaries, including Hudson Taylor.
 
Hudson Taylor was younger than George Mueller but through coming to understand God’s view of debt, he stepped away from the mission agency that was going into debt to support him and their other missionaries. He trusted that it was God’s will for his life to be a missionary and that God would support him in a way that lined up with Scriptures. He brought his wants and his needs to God alone in prayer. By the end of his life the China Inland Mission had asked God for thousands of missionaries to volunteer to China, and God granted them their prayer. They also financially supported those missionaries with hundreds of thousands of dollars a month from donors without EVER ASKING ANYONE FOR ANYTHING, and they NEVER went into debt.
 
Hudson told one of the young missionary helpers, “NEVER TELL ANYONE YOUR WANTS BUT GOD.”
  
When I read about those holy women “who trusted God” the doors opened up and I saw truth clearly for the first time. I had to TRUST GOD to grant me my desires THROUGH MY HUSBAND’S DIRECTION IN LIFE, because my husband leads our life’s direction.
 
This went back to Piece Four – Giving Up My Happiness to Accept God’s Will
 
You see, this just seemed hopeless. How in the world could God grant me my desires if it hinged upon my husband hearing my will in his devotions? Did you get that? He couldn’t hear MY WILL in his devotions at all. He would have to hear God’s will in God’s time. (I want to emphasize God’s time, because many men pray about many other matters that women don’t see as the most important things and therefore God’s leading seems to come too slowly.)
 
Ultimately, this meant that I had to start keeping my mouth shut and wait patiently while telling my wants only to God.

 
 
You may ask, “WHY?” Why shouldn’t I tell my husband my wants? What? Am I a doormat? Aren’t I his help meet for his needs? What if I see something that he doesn’t? Didn’t God put us together as opposites so that I could help balance out the areas in which he is lacking? If I don’t say something, WHO KNOWS WHAT COULD HAPPEN?!!!!!
 
My reply is this: I do give my opinion to my husband. What I am talking about here is the major areas of leading or disagreement in our home. I asked that God would lead my husband without my input and I trust that my husband will ask my input after he senses God’s leading. This is in contrast to many situations in which women “the neck” turn the husband “the head” in the direction in which they would like to go and then ask, convince, threaten or demand to the husband as to why this is “God’s will.”
 
This went back to Piece Three – IF I PRAY IN THE NAME OF JESUS FOR GOD’S WILL IN MY LIFE, GOD IS BOUND BY HIS PROMISE THAT IT WILL BE DONE UNTO ME.
 
 

PIECE SIX

 

PRAYER BRINGS HOPE

I knew:
 
  • That God was bound to His will being done in my life if I prayed for it in Jesus’ name.
  • God’s promise to grant me my desires if I delighted myself in Him.
  • That I could not truly pray for His will if I did not surrender what I wanted to accept what HE wanted.
  • That God could not get the glory and that I would bear a grave responsibility unless I brought my wants to God alone.
  • That in spite of it all, I was still afraid.
I started praying every day for different areas in my husband’s life; following the pattern in “The Power of the Praying Wife.” I prayed through the each chapter:
 
His Work – His Finances – His Sexuality – His Affection – His Temptations – His Mind – His Fears – His Purpose – His Choices – His Health – His Protection – His Trials – His Integrity – His Reputation – His Priorities – His Relationships – His Fatherhood – His Past – His Attitude – His Marriage – His Emotions – His Walk – His Talk – His Repentance – His Deliverance – His Obedience – His Self-Image – His Faith – His Future.
 
I realized that as I prayed for his finances, I was praying for mine. As I prayed for his purpose, I was praying for ours. As I prayed for his priorities, health, trials, integrity, and his future that God was bringing hope to my heart that He was hearing my desires and that He did indeed care. I started praying, “Lord, whatever ‘exceedingly abundantly above all I can ask or think’ means for our life, I LEAVE THAT IN YOUR HANDS. I pray that YOUR WILL BE DONE IN OUR LIVES.
 
I started making prayer a priority in my devotions and ordered our routine to include my “sweet hour of prayer” that I talk about in a different article. I began to feel like God was my friend and that He wanted to be with me. I was plagued with insecurity, but I began to see a light at the end of the tunnel.
 
 

PIECE SEVEN

 

SUBMIT YOURSELVES TO THE LORD, AND RESIST THE DEVIL

 
I recently heard an evangelist preaching and he asked us how a Christian can cause the devil to flee from their lives. We answered, “By resisting him.” He said that that was only part of it and made us read the whole verse.
 
He explained, “You see how it says, ‘Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” You must submit your lives first.
 
He gave this illustration:
 
Imagine you are in your home and someone comes and knocks on the back door. You open the door and it is the devil. He says to you, “I can give you riches, fun, fame and success. All you have to do is give your life over to me.” Now you know that along with all that he offers eventually comes heartache, broken homes, despair and hell, but if you tell him “No!” he will just keep knocking and eventually wear you down.
 
At the same time, you hear a knock on the front door. You open it and it is God. He says, “I can offer you peace, joy, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith and eternity with Me. All you have to do is give your life over to me.” Still, along with the fruit of the spirit you are promised tribulations, sufferings and persecution and a race to run.
 
You ponder and pray and you turn to God and say, “I give my life to you. It is yours to do as You will.”
 
At this point you hear the familiar knock on the back door and you open it. Satan makes you the same offer. This time you reply, “My life is no longer mine to give. Go ask God for it!”
 
THAT IS WHY SATAN FLEES.
 
What does this have to do with overcoming despair and gaining joy, you may ask?
 
It was when I got to the chapter in the book on “His Mind” that I had a break through. Now let me premise this by saying that I am not of the Charismatic persuasion that all ails are spiritual and that demons are the cause of all my problems. Many of my problems are self inflicted by my own flesh. Yet, a few months before when I told my husband that I felt like I wasn’t “depressed, but rather oppressed” I did a study on the armour of God. (Ephesians 6:13) I prayed and I really believed that I was operating as an armoured soldier yet I could gain no real victory.
 
So as I read this chapter on “His Mind” the author said that many men don’t always see the traps of an enemy who wants him to believe that what he faces is insurmountable. His mind fills with words like ‘hopeless,’ ‘no good,’ ‘failure,’ ‘impossible,’ ‘it’s over’ and ‘why try?’ A wife can pray that her husband will DISCERN THE LIES and hear words like ‘hope, purpose, prosperity…’
 
Then in the sample prayer she said “By that authority given to me in Jesus Christ, I command all lying spirits away.”
 
I don’t believe I have any real authority, but in desperation I thought, “Lord, if there is any truth to this, if there is any chance that there really could be spiritual oppression over me than let this work.” I CRIED OUT, “IF YOU ARE REALLY OUT THERE. IF YOU ARE A LYING SPIRIT, THAN I PLEAD THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST. I AM CLAIMING, James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. I HAVE SUBMITTED MY LIFE TO GOD EVEN IF IT MEANS I DENY MY WANTS. GO TAKE THIS UP WITH HIM!!!
 
 

PART TWO: PUTTING THE PIECES TOGETHER

 The next day I woke up and the cloud was gone. I felt like I could breathe. I wasn’t drowning in the thick darkness that came from within me. I wasn’t sure if it would be lasting or not, because it just seemed too free. Day after day and a few weeks passed and I still had joy. Even my husband noticed that something was different. I had won.
 
It was through my daily devotions that I put the pieces together.
 
I have my reasons as to why I believe there was spiritual oppression in my life. I can look back over this year and look at the things that my husband and I were studying in the Bible. I see the sacrifices that we had to choose. I see the questions we were asking God about ministry and the purpose for our lives. I see where we were and where we are today and how if we had believed lies instead of patiently waiting and searching out the truth no matter how hard God’s Word was to believe that we could have shipwrecked our future.
 
A scary truth that I also saw was that I COULD HAVE SHIPWRECKED OUR FUTURE by being a stumblingblock to my husband. I say this over and over again; a wife is a powerful thing. She can break a good man and she can build a weak man.
 
Just as Eve was deceived by Satan and then persuaded Adam to follow her direction, we to can do the same to our husbands. We know how we can wear them down. God put them as our head for a reason. We are easily deceived. I WAS THE EMOTIONAL WRECK. I WAS THE ONE BEING DECEIVED. If I had allowed my emotions to ride over into our home and marriage, my husband could have made bad decisions. Keep your attitude, tongue and spirit in check and TAKE IT TO THE LORD IN PRAYER.
 
  • I had to learn that even if I lacked faith, that through my position and prayer in Christ, God was faithful to bring His will in my life. (Although this did not mean that others in my life would be in His will, but that daily I could expect His will and my attitude could reflect that knowledge.) He would not ask anything of me that He would not give me the tools with which to accomplish them.
  • God’s promise gave me the confidence to start praying, and I made “quiet time” a part of my and my children’s morning routine.
  • If I had not had the confidence to start praying, than I would not have had to face my fears that “my wants” would never come to pass.
  • If I had not surrendered my wants, I could not have claimed “my desires” that God promised, by faith.
  • If I had not claimed “my desires” than I would not have trusted that God could bring them to pass any way He wanted… and He wanted to do it through my husband: trusting God like the holy women of old. (You may not have a husband, but if you are a woman; you probably have a male head or authority by whom you should seek counsel concerning your large life decisions. Yielding to their wisdom may come at a cost.)
  • If I had not trusted God and submitted to His order of leadership than I could not have found REST IN PRAYER. It is that rest that enables the meek and quiet spirit: no longer being at your wit’s end about matters.
  • If I had not submitted to God’s entire leadership and believed His will for my life was “exceedingly abundantly above all I could ask or think” and that He would bring it about through the leadership of my husband than I would have had no power in claiming James 4:7 and the oppression would still be upon me.
  • If the oppression was still upon me I would not have the joy in seeing God’s glory and truth in my life. I would instead be submitting to the fiery darts of lies. 

MY ENCOURAGEMENT TO YOU:

  
  1. Commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts shall be established.
  2. Commit to bringing everything to God in prayer.
  3. Bring your wants to God only.
  4. As you share with God your wants, start trading them for His will.
  5. Ask God’s will for you day each day and then as trials come, accept them as part of His will. Receive His grace knowing that He will not ask of you a task for which He will not supply you the resources to complete. That is true in every area; your marriage, child training, finances, homemaking skills or ministry.
  6. Remember that you can ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS TRUST GOD. Songs I listened to for encouragement were: If You Never Tell Me Why (Talley Trio), Yet Will I Trust Him (Mark Rogers), Trust His Heart (Mark Rogers), The Potter Knows the Clay (The Perrys), He Will Hide Me (The Perrys), I Surrender All, Holy Holy Holy, Great is Thy Faithfulness, Hold On (Dani and Matt Craig), and I Am Crucified With Christ (Dani and Matt Craig)

 

From Chronic Despair to Continuous Joy - Truth and Song

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