Depression and JOY

What do you do when you hear the word depression?  Do you cringe?  Roll your eyes?  Sympathize?  I would have to honestly say that until before this winter, I did not think depression could exist if you were a Christian.  Often I would think that if you truly believe in the Lord and have His hope you cannot be depressed.  Then last October hit and God taught me differently.  While I do not have any official diagnosis or on meds, I truly believe that I have struggled with depression.  There are many factors to this including medicine I was taking and well... LIFE.

Often I thought that if I could just turn to God and trust Him with the things I was struggling with, everything would get better.  Well here comes confession #2: I was too angry at God with where my life was at to even want to do that.  It has been a long winter full of tears and anger but things are getting better.  A dear friend reminded me of Psalm 121 and often I would just sing the song or read it when things felt tough.

 ⁷ The LORD will keep you from all harm—
   he will watch over your life;
⁸ the LORD will watch over your coming and going
   both now and forevermore.

So where does that leave me now?  I am rediscovering my JOY in the Lord and trusting again in His plan for my life.  I have moments of random crying and no motivation but I praise God that He doesn't abandon me as easily as I abandoned Him.