If I were to flip back the pages of my journal to 3 years ago, I would see a specific sentence repeated on nearly every page. My heart poured this sentence out to my Lord….to my husband…on the heavy pages of my journal. I felt it so deep. “I’m just so utterly alone in the midst of a crowd of people.” Even the Lord felt distant.

It was a difficult time. Depression is an ugly beast. Isn’t it interesting how when we’re really just in the “thick of it” in life, we can often fail to see the mercies, the lessons, the loving guidance and companionship that He offers? It was a long twelve…maybe even eighteen months. As I reflect on that time now, I can see so much I couldn’t see before. I can see the lessons He had for me. I can see the way he was growing me…preparing me…calling me closer…beckoning…

A few days ago I read the account of the woman with the issue of blood in Luke 8. Remember the story? Jesus was on assignment. He was heading to heal a very sick young girl. But in the crowd, there was a woman. Twelve years. Twelve years she had been an outcast, alone…literally…. Unclean. Anyone she would have touched would have been also considered unclean…but not Jesus. She touched him, and he cleansed her!

He said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well.”

I LOVE that! “Daughter…,”

He claimed her! Right in the midst of the crowd of people, the woman who wasn’t noticed…he CLAIMED her! No longer unclean. No longer an outcast. No longer alone.

Friends, this is what Jesus does. He sees the unseen. He values and claims the outcast. He sees and values YOU!

That depression-monster could creep back in at any moment, and I’m well aware of the fact that I may not always be able to stop it in its tracks. But I also know that when I, as a child of God, walk in the realization that he has claimed me and not a moment of my broken life…the ugly parts…the unclean parts…not one bit of it is unseen or unredeemed. When I embrace that?… I can walk a bit lighter and joy comes a bit easier.