Ten years ago, I was depressed.

I mean deeply depressed.

My nighttimes were crawling with nightmares.

My waking hours were soaked in anxiety and a desire to not be awake.

I was jumpy.

My heart was always on the precipice of racing.

I never knew how I would survive each day.

In case you’re wondering, yes, I was a Believer, then.

In fact, I had been a Believer for decades. Not a newbie, is my point.

But life’s valleys don’t ask who you believe in, they just crash into you and press you down until you’re smothered, hemorrhaging on the ground, unable to breathe, yet expected to keep going.

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The valley, for us, had started five years earlier. So, if you’re keeping track, that was fifteen years before present day 2026.

The irony of the beginning of our valley season is that we thought  it was going to be a mountaintop season.

I think that’s what made the valley feel even more depressing.

Unmet expectations are like that. 

With no expectation, I suppose the valley could have been more bearable.

But the fact that we expected joy and instead received a grinding helplessness made the valley feel even more shocking and inescapable.

Thus, the depression.

My prayers weren’t very complicated back then.

They typically consisted of two consistent words: “Help” and “Why?” 

If I was really feeling fancy, and had a shred more energy in me that day, they would consist of three entire words: “Where are You?”

I felt abandoned. Alone. 

Why would God allow such a deeply hopeless situation to engulf us?

The answer to that wouldn’t come until years later. 

I’ll get to that.

But at the time I was stuck in “I don’t know why you’re allowing this.” 

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There were two verses in the Bible that I clung to in that season and they are as follows: 

1. “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion;  therefore I will wait for Him.’” {Lamentations 3:22-24}
2. “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” {Joel 2:25a}

Let’s start with the first. 

The first verse came to me at a time when I had questioned God: “Where are You?” 

His response came in the form of this verse. 

After a particularly hard week, a friend emailed me out of the blue and said: 

“I’m sitting here praying for you guys and that God would work out all the details you have going on and he put this verse in my mind. 

Lamentations 3: 22-24 ‘Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’  

I’m not sure if it means anything to you but I’m pretty sure he wanted me to send it to you.”

I wrote back, through uncontrollable sobs, 

“Thank you so much for your faithfulness… It is extremely encouraging to me to know that God sees me even though there is so much else going on in the world.

 [This situation is set to get worse] in one week unless God moves in a mighty way.  

I keep reading this verse over and over.  

I will not be consumed. 

He is faithful.  

I will wait on Him.  

And I will keep on praying as my anxiety over this situation tries to get the best of me.

Thank you.  I needed this especially tonight. Feeling so overwhelmed.” 

Now, this email alone was significant.

However, the very next day, the “verse of the day” on the Bible app just so happened to be this exact verse.

My heart pounded as I read it.  

A few more days passed. Then, a completely different friend texted me: “I just wanted you to know I’m thinking about you. God asked me to share [this verse] with you.”

That’s right. 

We received the exact same verse three times in one week. 

For context, there are over thirty thousand verses in the Bible, so the probability of this being happenstance is nil to none!!

Yet God–in His incomparable kindness–had sent His Word to wash over me three times in one week.

I clung with clenched fists to that verse for the next several years.

It was the one tangible thing to which I could hold when everything else was disintegrating.

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Which leads me to the second verse to which I clung: “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” {Joel 2:25a}

This verse, in its original context, refers to a futuristic restoration to Judah who had experienced ongoing, excruciating destruction and pain. 

I cannot say that my situation was as bad as theirs, because it certainly was not. 

And yet this verse was just as useful to me as it likely was to them. 

It reminded me that God is a God of restoration.

God is a God of endless hope.

God is a God who sees His people and restores what the “locusts” stole from us; the years of endless pain, hopelessness, and depression would lift. 

I clung to this verse.

I cried out this verse.

I asked Him to restore over and over and over and over again.

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Now, not to be a killjoy, but for a long time, I saw nothing.

Years, in fact.

But then, bit by bit… something started to shift.

It was so gradual that I didn’t even notice.

But I suppose the planting of a field goes like that, doesn’t it?

First, the ground has to be plowed.

The hard places have to be broken up—the places you’ve allowed to become bitter.

Then the seeds are sown.

At first, they do nothing. They simply lie there, buried in the dark soil, unable to see what is coming next.

No light can penetrate.

Then one day, a root breaks forth.

It’s painful, because the seed must first shatter its own shell before it can grow downward into the soil.

But something is finally happening.

One root isn’t enough, of course. Others have to break through too. More breaking. More stretching. More pain.

Then, over time, a tiny green shoot finally pushes up through the soil.

A shred of hope.

Tender. Delicate. Vulnerable to every element.

Yet it keeps straining toward the warmth of the sun—a beautiful burst of hope after such a long season beneath the earth.

From that point on, growth happens every day, though it is almost imperceptibly slow.

Day after day, the Sun shines down, strengthening it until the fragile shoot becomes hardy. Mature. Able to withstand the elements that once would have destroyed it.

Then one day, a bud appears.

In time, the bud becomes fruit.

And when the fruit is finally ripe, the plant looks around and realizes it has been living inside a miracle all along.

The Lord has done exactly what He promised.

He has restored the years the locusts have stolen.

Where the fields were once stripped bare by those ravaging beasts, now they are healthy, flourishing, and full of life.

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I woke up last week and had a revelation: He did it. He did it, y’all.

He did it so slowly I didn’t even realize what He was doing.

But He restored the stolen years.

All those tear-soaked prayers were heard by my Father. 

He not only protected me from being completely consumed. 

But he has restored my mind.

My heart.

My soul.

And produced innumerable amounts of fruit from that season that I thought would decimate me.

You remember how I started this post, right?

I was in such a deeply dark depression that I didn’t want to wake up every morning.

Yet now, ten years later, I can see clearly that the Lord used that season to shape me. 

Change me.

Burn out old sin patterns.

Create some new fruit where before there was only mangled portions of my heart.

He has taken that brutal valley and used it as encouragement for others.

Not only did He mature my own plant, he allowed me to produce fruit that others can consume. 

Every article I write, book I publish, message I deliver from stages is proof of a living, active, God of restoration.

Oh the faithfulness of our Father!

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Now, perhaps His restoration didn’t come on my timeline.

Often it wont.

Perhaps my freedom didn’t happen when I would’ve like it.

It never does.

But God’s Word NEVER fails.

Never.

And if He said it, He will do it.

I am living proof!

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So my encouragement to you is this: Keep clinging to the Lord, friend.

In the hard seasons.

In the great seasons.

On the mountaintop.

In the valley.

Don’t stop. 

Keep fighting the good fight of faith.

Because one day you will wake up and see a restoration so glorious, you’ll realize He was at work all along.

And you’ll whisper, Wow… is this what You’ve been doing beneath the soil this whole time?

Til Next Time,

Liz

P.S. 

Want to memorize Lamentations 3:22-24 with me in 5 minutes? (Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed for His compassions never fail they are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion therefore I will wait for Him.’”) Go here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4perEMAspSK9zkPanI32KV?si=xw8qgrdCR5G2hwgUbdFrLg

OR

Want to memorize Joel 2:25a,26a with me in 5 minutes?  (“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten; and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you.”) Go here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5hb7XiVCEAAYfXXsPyBMaO?si=m8L1M2LDRIi9iOIB3KEAjg

P.S.S. If you want to connect with  me more regularly beyond our monthly newsletters, come find me on social media!  I post most regularly on Instagram, but I post more personally on Facebook. Just click here: www.facebook.com/authorlizhouse and www.instagram.com/authorlizhouse 

P.S.S.S. If you are in a season of great depression right now, please feel free to message me.  I would love to take a moment to pray for you. More than that, please don’t be ashamed to reach out to a trained Christian therapist for help. There is NO shame in getting good, godly counsel and help in a dark season. You are loved, friend.