Without You

LaRue has been one of my favorite groups for about over five years now. I love the sheer simplicity with which they write their music. I just got their third CD and this song resonated with me strongly. Many people, including myself can say that we have been where this song is from. In some of the most painful times in our lives is where we find some of the most beautiful moments with God. It is where we realize that our strength comes from Him alone.

Without You
By: LaRue

I've seen better days of when You
were my everything
You've heard better ways of
someone express their faith
Yet here I am singing this song
Crying out loud that I can't go on
Here without You, here without You
I can see Your face
Sweet Jesus, restore again Your grace
I know I walked away
Oh, but here I am singing this song
Crying out loud that I can't go on
Here without you, here without You
I can see Your face
Sweet Jesus, restore again Your grace
I know I walked away
Oh, but here I am singing this song
Crying out loud that I can't go on
Here without You, here without you
Taking my hand and You're leading me though
There's no going back now that I am new
The grace that You had proved to be true
Accepting my soul with all that You knew
I'm lost without You
Can't live without You
I'm lost without You, oh my Lord
I'm lost without You
So here I am singing this song
Crying out loud that I can't go on
The grace that You had, it proved to be true
Accepting my soul with all that
You knew I'm lost without You
Can't live without You
I need Your love to rescue me
I need Your peace to set me free
Lost without You

I love the lines:

I know I walked away
Oh, but here I am singing this song
Crying out loud that I can't go on
Here without You, here without you

I did that. I consciously walked away from God for a period of time. What was strange is that I knew that I was not permanently walking away. Somehow I knew that God would not let me leave for long. I knew that He would come rescue me from my own stubbornness and He would call me back to Him. It was not an easy trip back to Him, but it happened.
This past December I realized that I was depressed. It was seven months before then that I made my conscious decision to walk away from God and those seven months leading up to my realization of depression were the darkest in my life. I have never been as numb to anything as I was in that time. I became reclusive with my life. I hated any kind of accountability from my friends and the people who cared about me. I was annoyed even when my roommates would ask me where I was off to. Now most people reading this know that I didn't go off the deep end. In fact most people didn't even know that something was wrong. That is one of the scariest things about depression. It can be so subtle that neither yourself nor the people closest to you know that anything is wrong.
The past eight months that I have spent working to come out of depression have been some of the most beautiful in my life. They have not been easy but they have challenged me and forced me to grow into the woman that God is intending for me to be. I think that I can say with surety that after eight months of moving forward I am no longer depressed. Sleep is no longer an escape for the stress that looms over my life. It is a peaceful reward to the end of a productive day. I am no longer longing to escape the accountability of friends and family. I am instead longing to pour into other people and show love and care to them. I no longer run from my responsibilities in hopes that they will just go away. I can focus and tackle my duties with confidence and energy. I don't want to go into all of the details of why I went into depression, because most of my readers know why already but I do want to say that for the first time in many months, it feels so good to feel like myself again.