Testimony of Healing August 8, 2005 Issue

SUICIDAL DEPRESSION HEALED THROUGH PRAYER

NAME WITHHELD

For years I dealt with an on-and-off struggle with suicidal depression. It plagued me from middle school to my first year of college. Christian Science treatment brought me through this time and effected a complete healing. My parents were aware of the situation and supported me through their prayer along the way.

It seemed to start with simple, childish threats and wishes, similar to the fantasy that the character Tom Sawyer would have in Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, imagining how sad everyone would be if he were suddenly gone. However, as the years progressed, the depression became so intense that I began to reach a point of intentionally harming myself. And I would foolishly ask God to let me die.

I remember that whenever I would do such a thing, the thought of Elijah in the Bible came to me because he had made the same request (see I Kings 19:4). I found it reassuring that Elijah was brought to a mountaintop—what one might call the height of a healing thought—and shown that destruction and fury are not where God is to be found. God was heard in "a still small voice" (I Kings 19:12). I would turn at those moments to listen for this voice of God, and it would always reassure me that I was loved and needed.

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GOD'S PROTECTION AND PROVISION