Under Pressure

Today at church, there was a guest speaker; Dr. Mark Rutland, and in the beginning of his message, he talked about the depression that success has the potential to bring. This was very relevant to me. This is because pressure and stress over the need to have success or continue success has brought on some depression for me. I am clinically depressed, and when I am not on my medicine due to forgetfulness or just not having them at all, I am under pressure to put on a happy smile and be successful at keeping high spirits. Also, at my old school, I was in all advanced classes, this made the pressure of success very visible to me. This has brought on some major problems personally. I remember one instance where I did not have my medicine for personal reasons, and it was close to finals for my advanced classes. These two things were and are major sources of stress, and when they were combined, I made a horrible decision to overdose. I did this because I felt so much pressure to be perfect. I had to keep up the grades, stay happy, be calm, and focus among other things. But I cannot be perfect under any circumstances. But the great thing about God is that he doesn't care that I am not perfect, He loves me anyway. Of course He doesn't like when I sin against Him, but because I am covered in Jesus' blood, I am righteous before God's eyes. Romans 5:9 says, "And since we have been made right in God's sight by the blood of Christ, he will certainly save us from God's condemnation." This is saying (to me) that through my mistakes, God still loves me and won' t condemn me all because of Jesus' perfect sacrifice on the cross for me; a sinner, someone who deserves nothing from a perfect God. This does not mean that I am still allowed to sin though. I am new, so I turn my life and decisions around to glorify Him. I thank Him for His amazing grace every day. I feel closer to God when I am in a spirit of thanksgiving towards Him, I thank God for my trials because I know that He is trying to refine me and make me better and more like Him. I am a stressed out sinner saved by grace and am proud to say that I am changed and new. I am going to leave this blog with this verse: 2 Corinthians 5:17 "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!"