I will never forget telling my wife this.
I had no desire to be alive anymore. I didn’t want to hurt myself, but I sure didn’t want to be alive anymore. As much as I wanted to be there for my family, I was depressed and couldn’t handle the pain and anxiousness I was experiencing.
“God, please just kill me. Do whatever it takes. Hit me with a bus! I can’t take this anymore!”
As I write these words today, it’s hard to think that I was ever in such a dark place.
How did I get there?
It wasn’t like there was a specific event that had happened recently. I hadn’t lost a loved one, a job, or been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. In fact, if anything, life was going pretty good.
My marriage was great. My wife, Natalie, was (and still is!) amazing. I had twin daughters and a son who were healthy and happy. I was in great health as well. We had just purchased a house a few years prior and my chiropractic business was growing.
From the outside, most people would have thought, “man that guys has a lot going for him.”
So why did I feel so depressed?!
I became anxious about work on Monday
It seemed to start out that on Sunday afternoons I would start to get some anxiety about having to go into work the next day. This didn’t make sense to me as I really loved what I did for work. Of course, work wasn’t perfect, but not terrible by any means.
That anxiety started to grow. Sunday morning I would wake up feeling pretty good but then as the day went on, it grew.
It grew to the point where I would start to dread Sunday afternoons.
Soon it carried into Monday morning. I woke up anxious. I would get ready for work just dreading going in. When I got there and started working, the feeling would go away, whew!
I knew I couldn’t work feeling that way!
But then the feeling stopped going away. I was now anxious all day. This can’t go on.
Tuesday would come and I felt better. I’d think, “Well at least it’s only Sunday afternoons and Mondays that I feel this way.”
… that didn’t last long.
Tuesdays became like Mondays and now it was creeping into Wednesday.
“Forget this… I can’t take this anymore,” I thought. This depression and anxiety was draining, and now it was hurting.
Wednesday morning would come and I decided that I am not going to work.
Natalie knew a little bit of what was going on, but I really tried to keep it from her. What kind of husband can’t control his emotions? I needed to be strong for my family.
It Kept Getting Worse
My wife would literally have to dress me
When she saw that I didn’t want to go to work, she knew it was bad. She was amazing through this time. She was such an encourager, but I am sure it was draining her and for sure it was scaring her.
She would literally have to push me out of bed and get me dressed in the morning.
What kind of man needs to be dressed by his wife. I couldn’t take this anymore. “God just kill me. What a burden I am on my family! God just hit me by a bus!”
Natalie was encouraging me to get help. She told me that she couldn’t stand the thought of her coming home and finding that I had hurt myself.
You would think as a healthcare provider that my first thought would be to go get help. It was not!
I didn’t want to go to a therapist and share my emotions, all the bad things that happened to me, relive my past, etc.
At the time, I was in a business networking group. In the group, there was a lady who was a licensed therapist, but she also did something called healing prayer. I didn’t know what this was, but I needed help.
I scheduled an appointment with her.
Healing Prayer
When we first met, I told her how I had been feeling but also made it clear to her that I didn’t want to spend a bunch of time going over the bad things that had happened to me.
Her response surprised me: “Good, me neither.”
She told me that we will spend some time on this but more than anything she wanted to spend time on what lies I was believing due to my past experiences.
Interesting… to my knowledge, I wasn’t believing any lies!
Right away, one that came up was how I viewed work. Growing up a lot of the worth I put on myself was how hard of a worker I was.
After high school I worked on oil rigs which required hard work and long hours. There were many days that it was tough to go to work due to the fatigue. I would tell myself – “You are a machine. Just get out of bed and get to work.” This seemed to work.
The therapist asked me who God says I am. “Does He see you as a machine?”
This was a lie I was believing. We prayed for God to speak His truth of who He says I am to me. It was good.
But I still wanted to be hit by a bus.
I met with her for a few more sessions. The sessions were going well but I was still depressed.
She decided to ask me about my relationships with my wife, children and family members. They were good.
She specifically asked me about my mom. I had a great relationship with her, and she has always been a great support.
How about your dad? I said not great. There was a lot of hurt and pain there, but I told her that I had forgiven him of the things I felt hurt by.
She asked me how often we talk. I told her that I hadn’t spoken with him in about 5 years. She challenged me on whether I thought that I had really forgiven him.
“Of course,” I responded. She didn’t argue. She said let’s pray about this and let God’s truth be revealed to you. Sounds good. We prayed.
Nothing happened. I didn’t feel different. I didn’t feel convicted.
I was growing impatient and my depression was getting worse.
Around two weeks later, I received a letter. I will never forget this day as long as I live. My dad had sent me a letter. It had been 5 years and no communication and just a few weeks after we had been talking about him, I get a letter from him.
This was no coincidence.
Opening the letter brought about a lot of emotions. Will this letter make me mad? Does he need something from me? Why is he writing me now after so many years of not talking?
The letter said that he would be traveling through town on a specific date. He said that he knew I wanted nothing to do with him but he was hoping to just spend an afternoon with his grandkids.
I immediately felt convicted. I didn’t want my kids to be caught in the middle of an issue that I had with my dad.
I realized that I was harboring unforgiveness to my dad.
I also felt convicted to phone him right then, so I did. The last time I had spoken with him, I lit into him. Telling him how bad of a dad he was, as well as many other mean things. On this phone call, I told him that I forgive you. Of all the things I was so mad about, I forgive you. It felt so good to do so.
In fact, I felt my depression go away, instantly!
How crazy is that? If you had asked me why I was depressed, I could have come up with a few different reasons but I would have never come up with unforgiveness.
By no means am I saying that if a person is depressed, it is due to unforgiveness — but for me it was.
It was the first time that I realized that something emotional/spiritual could manifest itself as a physiological problem.
God spoke truth to me that day and I have never been the same since.
Healing Prayer Resources
If you are in need of healing prayer, please check out our resource recommendations here.
