Depression, Doubt, Trust, Who Am I Now, Words of Endurance

Who Am I When It Seems God Has Forgotten Me?

For more than a decade he was Tom the fireman. Then his wife got a new job that required their family to move more than a thousand miles away. Tom had no doubt that it was God’s plan for his wife to take the new job, so he trusted God to work out the details of his job.



But firemen don’t transfer, so it wasn’t easy to get a new job. Openings were few and far between. Even experienced applicants had to test for every job. Weeks, months, then years passed. Tom the fireman became Tom the waiting man, then Tom the mechanic, then Tom the construction man, then Tom the depressed man.



Tome knew God had a plan for his life, fireman or not. But not seeing that plan work out as he welded steel in the snow day after day took its toll. Although he knew better, Tom felt as if God had forgotten him.



Urged on by his wife and close friends, Tom began to explore his troubling feelings. He knew intellectually that he was God’s child, but he felt abandoned and lost. As he honestly expressed painful feelings to his wife and friends, their loving and supportive responses reminded Tom that God hadn’t forgotten him. He began to see that the love of his wife and friends was an expression of God’s love for him. He realized that although he had lost God in the fog or depression, God hadn’t lost him. He was an always would be God’s child.