What Life Looks Like After Depression: Part Four

Part Four of a Five-Part Series:Read Part OneRead Part TwoRead Part ThreeLife after depression is beautiful. And it's beautiful because you can look back and see that it was beautiful all along.The darkness cannot hide the beauty. The darkness cannot overcome The Light.

 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5 (NIV)

After a year of what felt like hell, I actually forced myself to make a list of all the fun things I did, saw, accomplished, experience, felt -- and it blew me away.

It made me weep to see that while all I could see was gray, there was so much color all around.

Sometimes it takes walking out of the wilderness to look back and see it wasn't so scary after all.

Even on our worst days, and sometimes years, we can find reasons to praise our God. Even in the dark, He is good.

Reflection is not something that comes naturally or easily for me. Counseling has really helped me with that -- stretching me and helping me look back one, five, ten, and fifteen years to understand why I am who I am.

When we walk through trauma of any kind, it's never ideal to relive it. We want to pretend it never happened, but reflecting on hard seasons is part of healing.

Life after depression is full of healing, and healing is hard, but healing is beautiful.

Scars look different on all of us. It's natural to want to hide them, but when we expose them and see them as experience, growth, and redemption, they become beautiful.

Whatever you have walked through, please know that you are strong because you overcame it, and you overcame it because of The Light that lives inside you.