In the following article, guest author and Take Back Your Temple member Barbara Blair shares her testimony about how the Lord freed her from the bondage of depression.
Learn more Barbara's deliverance in her book, Out of the Pit, which is available on Amazon. The following is an excerpt from the book.
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You usually can’t tell what a person is struggling with by just looking at them. Sure, you may see a sad look, a physical disability or extra weight but these are only outward appearances.
What’s really going on underneath is often covered over when we step out into the world and try to put on our confident faces to project a certain image to others.
But in the stillness of our alone time, we know our personal pain and the patterns that keep us stuck in a cycle that we hate but can’t seem to break free from.
Early Bondage
I spent 25 years of my life locked in a prison of major clinical depression and managed to cover it up to most of the people around me. In fact, they were shocked when God finally freed me (that’s a whole other story!) and I started coming out about what I’d been through to my family and friends.
On the outside, I appeared to have everything going for me – a promising career, a talented husband, spirited daughter and gorgeous home. But inside I was tormented with self-hatred which had grown into a deep, dark depression.
It started in early childhood and became full-blown in my teenage years and, of course, was tied to how I saw myself and my body:
… as an adolescent girl who had a deep sense of shame, I had no self-respect and started to become plagued by the negative self-talk in my mind: “I’m so ugly”, “nobody likes me”, “I don’t belong here.”
I became acutely self-conscious of what I looked like to others and of my actions, always examining myself and passing harsh judgement.
Because of this, I could never relax or be myself around people. In fact, I didn’t have a sense of who I even was, what I liked or what I wanted. It was exhausting and draining. I sought to be alone just to have a moment to rest from it all.
I wanted boys to like me and wanted to do anything for them to like me. This led me to go on a self-imposed weight-reduction regimen when I hit the 8th grade. I knew I was about to enter a whole new social realm when I left the Catholic school, which only went up to 8th grade, and entered the public high school. This was a scary transition that I was facing and I wanted to made a good start.
I put myself on a restricted diet with no desserts and did calisthenics on the cold, uncarpeted bedroom floor every night before bed. I rode my bike up and down our dead-end street a thousand times a day and was completely focused on my mission of weight loss. This could’ve been a good thing, however my motivation was self-hatred.
Every time I denied myself food, I did it because I hated myself. I had to make myself suffer and thought I deserved it because I was so fat and ugly.
In one year, I lost 6 inches in my waist, many more from my hips and thighs and about 30 pounds. I got a few new clothes and a new haircut and hoped that I’d be accepted by some of my new peers who hadn’t known me at the Catholic school. I hoped that I could create a new outer image for myself. And I hoped that was all that mattered. *
Sadly, that wasn’t all that mattered and it took me many years and going to hell and back before I finally cried out to God from the pit of despair and then found the Truth (But He did ultimately show me the Truth because He promises that when we seek Him with all our hearts, we will find Him! THANK GOD for His promises in Jeremiah 29:13 and Matthew 7:7).
And the Truth is:
there’s a battle going on,
my mind is the battlefield,
the battle is Truth vs. lies and,
it takes place in our thoughts.
God led me to a Bible study full of loving, gentle women, where the Truth started to unfold as I learned the Word and realized that it’s more than just a book – it is actually the Word of God and Truth is a person Whose name is Jesus (John 14:6)!
Over the course of the next year, the Holy Spirit walked me through a process of renewing my mind with the Truth and I was completely transformed (see Rom. 12:2). This involved learning what the Truth was, then comparing my thoughts to it and deciding to reject every thought that didn’t line up, replacing lies with Truth.
After a while of being persistent and fighting the battle, the cloud that had been hanging over my head for so long began to dissipate and I knew I was coming into my right mind (which is the mind of Christ)! What an exciting thing that I had been told was impossible!
Dear friends, there’s so much more but please just let me say here that the renewing of the mind is a real thing and it has spiritual and physical results. I believe that, as my thoughts were straightened out, my physical brain and its chemistry were restored to how God originally intended them to be – no drugs, no shock treatments or any other medical interventions.
I was transformed from the inside out by the renewing of my mind. This resulted in freedom from the bondage of depression and finally PEACE in my soul. And let’s not forget to mention; reconciliation with God my Father and the promise of eternal life in Him!
The Next Battle
So after more years as an adult and yo-yoing up and down with the same 10 pounds countless times (I’ve probably lost 100 pounds from losing it 10 times) just to maintain my still-overweight body, I recently decided that I was either going to give up and just let myself get all-out fat or fight this battle in a new way.
Since I can’t give up, I went looking for a Biblical approach to healthy weight loss and came across Take Back Your Temple in a Google search.
Aha, this is it! What drew me to this program was Kimberly’s understanding that every bondage has, at its root, lies that we have bought into and the way to freedom is to replace the lies with Truth. This inner correction of our beliefs then naturally and necessarily flows outward to our physical selves (and to affect those around us also). Why haven’t I thought of this before? I guess I’m still not perfected and need my brothers and sisters in Christ to help me see things I can’t see for myself!
So I’ve come full circle and now that I’ve overcome depression, I know that the next thing is to take authority over my flesh and not allow myself to be a slave to it or to eating. God wants to bring me up higher and closer to Him and it’s a process of eliminating every thing that stands in the way of that.
Even though you can’t tell from looking at me that I struggle with my weight and eating, I can tell you that I spend way too much time thinking about food, rewarding myself with food after a stressful day and comforting myself with food when I’m overwhelmed.
But those are all based on lies – food is not a productive thing to set my mind on, it’s not a beneficial reward and it can certainly not comfort me.
What’s the Truth?
- God wants me to set my mind on Him,
- God rewards me with righteousness, peace and joy through Christ
- God alone is my Comforter.
This is the way out and I’m going to be leaning on all of you for support. I’m grateful that you’re here because I need you.
The battle continues and I will overcome this too.
Father, thank You for surrounding me with this community of loving brothers and sisters. Thank You that You lead us into all Truth and You don’t leave us in darkness. Please give me the strength to stop and turn to You in the next moment of decision, when I come to that crossroads again. Help me to reach higher and let go of the lower things.
And in the end, to be a blessing and produce fruit that will remain. I know that’s what You want for me and I want it too.
Amen, Come Holy Spirit
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If you want to learn more Barbara's deliverance from depression, you can find all the details in her book, Out of the Pit, available on Amazon.