"When Skies Are Grey"

The Three-Step Solution

I had woke up fairly early as usual and had my morning coffee before heading out to the two story building where the steel erectors were putting up the frame of the building. I was the superintendent of this project and really enjoyed my job. There were allot of things to keep up with but it was exciting and I had always enjoyed a challenge.

Lately though, I had been a little overloaded with work at home in addition to the job. I had been remodeling our home and my wife had taken a job in the evening which kept her occupied pretty much from the time I got home until the kids and I had gone to bed. I was beginning to wonder how we could keep living like this. I made enough to pay our bills anyways but it seemed no matter what I said, she wanted to keep her night job that gave her money to buy other things, as she always told me.

I had been at the job for about an hour when I called the steel foreman into the office trailer to look at some changes on the drawings. When he arrived at the door of the office he stepped into the office and just stood there staring at the floor as if in a state of confusion. I spoke to him and he didn't say much so I asked if he was ok. He began to tell me how he had went home yesterday to find his wife packing her things and left with a man he had never seen before. I didn't know quite how to react to this, so I just said, "I'm sorry to hear that." He just stood there, so I asked him to look at the changes with me on the drawings. He walked across my office dragging his feet with each step and I knew this man was in bad shape. He had always had a spring in his step and had even bragged to the other guys on break just a week before about how he took care of his wife and the ways he showed her how special she was to him.

I don't know why all of that had to happen but it wasn't something I could relate to, so I went on with business as usual hoping he would bounce back to normal in a few hours. Well, the hours passed and then days and he hadn't bounced back at all. I knew that he was really depressed and I couldn't say anything to help him. I tried all the positive thinking quotes I could think of and tried befriending him but he was just miserable. Little did I know that it wouldn't be to long before I would have to go through this valley as well.

It was about two weeks later when I arrived home to find that my wife had moved out and taken allot of the things that were precious to me. I watched her backing out of the driveway like a total stranger leaving me standing there with my two girls holding onto me and crying hysterically. It was the day I found out what depression was really all about. My life came crashing in on me although everything was still the same outside of my marriage, it seemed so different and gloomy. I know many of the single parents can relate to this feeling and those of you who have experienced abuse and losing a spouse as well. I had to go through it. I couldn't just go around it or shake it off in a few hours or days. After eighteen years of life with someone, you have to go through a slow period of recovery and healing. I didn't understand this just a couple of weeks before when Fred walked into my office dragging his feet, but now I was beginning to understand. Now I could relate to the feelings Fred was dealing with and somehow at the time it helped a little to know someone who understood.

About a year and a half later I found someone else who understood and was able to give me allot of help in finding the solutions with this state of depression in which I had found myself trapped. I had decided to reach out to help others in need to get my mind off my troubles and get some real purpose in my life. There had been an ice storm and everyone was trapped in their homes, mostly without electricity so I called the mission to see of anyone needed help. They told me about a Korean couple who hadn't been in to see them for a few days and the wife had experienced a stroke which kept her from cooking. I went to Sam's which was the only store open and bought some oriental easy to cook meals and carried them over to their apartment building downtown in my all wheel drive Ford Explorer. I didn't even as much as slide a little. It was amazing and I felt so good to be able to help someone who really need it. They were so surprised and wanted to do something for me in return but I insisted not.

The man kept calling me asking if he could do something for me and finally he said that he needed a little money to pay his phone and rent each week. I decided to let him come and clean my house once a week to provide the fifty dollars he needed and help keep my home a little more organized. As he came and brought his wife each week, I noticed that they had seemed to bring new life into my home. Sometimes they would bring meals and they would stay all day sometimes as my girls hung around them and curiously watched them transform our house into a home again. The thing that I appreciated more than anything was that this man, in his seventy's, saw the broken heart I carried and the depression through my greeting smile I always used to make everyone feel welcomed as they arrived. This man began to leave me a list of verses to read each week and then he began to ask me if I understood them. Sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't but it was like putting a puzzle together that would eventually tell me what I needed to know. Finally one day as I arose to drink my morning coffee on the back porch, for the first time in a long long time, I heard the birds and enjoyed the huge oaks that towered above my back yard. I sat there breathing in the fresh spring air and enjoying the blooms of the dogwoods at the back of the lawn. It was then that I realized that the one who knows my feelings and my hurt had done something in me that had changed my life. It wasn't I who would go and help an elderly Korean couple on an icy cold day but it was they who God had sent to help me.
The words from John 10:10 had buried themselves deep into my heart and I knew for the first time what Jesus meant when he said, "The thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. "

I had found a three step solution that had changed my life! To know the truth, to reject the enemy and to thank God.

I had prayed and claimed this truth, "Jesus, you are the perfect Lord of my life. I know you love me and want my life to be abundant. This depression cannot be your choice for me, and I reject it here and now. Thank You for freeing me. I let go of despair and open myself up to joy."

Read this passage and claim it for yourself because Jesus does know how you feel when you are down and hurting and He wants to give you His abundant healing!

John 10:9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
10 The thief comes not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.
11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.