One of the few good things about being in a deep, dark clinical depression is that it opens your mind. Wide open. Desperation and hopelessness will do that. It did for me. I found a God I could trust. 

I was raised an Irish-Catholic – no meat on Fridays, no chocolate during Lent and trading holy cards like baseball cards. Soon as I was old enough I fell away from the church. For decades I bounced back and forth – being an atheist, then an agnostic. It just seemed God never answered my fox hole prayers. Go figure.

When you are in enough pain, you will try anything. The medicine didn’t seem to be working. My therapy was at a standstill. Even exercise failed me. What the hell? Why not try God again? What seemed like more unanswered fox hole prayers turned into anger at God, pleading and bargaining with God. Without realizing it I was developing a relationship with a God I had never known. 

It finally came down to faith – faith that the medicine would work, faith that I would eventually come out of my black hole, faith that I could handle this, faith that something greater than myself could restore me to sanity. The choice was mine: take off my cape and surrender to faith or go back to wondering if my Prius could produce enough carbon monoxide to kill me. I surrendered to faith. 

My fox hole prayers were finally answered. I have a God in my life. She has a wicked sense of humor. He lets me rant at him. It shows itself in the corals and fish I see when I go diving to the bottom of the ocean. We have a pretty good time.

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    Last reviewed: 25 Mar 2009