I’m thankful to the friend in my previous post for reminding me that I can rely on God. That I don’t have to immediately go to friends. That I shouldn’t rely on friends to make me feel better.

Today I think I need to go back and meditate on those verses from Psalm 37 again.

What I’ve gone through in recent years has been very different from the bipolar depression I’ve been writing about. This was more of an emotional pain – a deep hurting that came daily. I cried out to close friends when they were available, having a need to express what I was feeling. But, unlike earlier years, I isolated a lot.

What helped me most in those days was to remember that Jesus was close to me in my suffering and that I was close to him in his suffering. I came to understand more about what he went through, feeling in fellowship with him. This did not fix the pain, but I did not have to suffer alone. I’ve never been as close to Jesus as I was at that time.

Often I pictured myself as various biblical figures who Jesus healed and wrote about them, putting myself in their shoes. In that way I felt his love and his healing hand upon me. Those two years or so were my most intimate times with Jesus.

I pray that I will find such closeness with him again.