photo courtesy of Ophelia Cherry

I was excited. Through the EQUIP program of the Advanced Training Institute (ATI), I was going to be used by God to reach one of the juvenile delinquent young women for Christ and help her improve her life.

It would be someone who did not have the benefit of godly parents, as I did. Someone who,  I knew, would be a challenge. She might not want to know my God. But I would have to try! These girls were there because someone wanted their lives to change for the better. That is what the brochure led me to believe. With my leadership over me, my task before me, and my God beside me, I stepped on the red carpet, eager to start my time at the Indianapolis Training Center (ITC) with the EQUIP program.

This illusion dissipated quickly. Along with my class work, I was given work assignments with the housekeeping and kitchen staff.  I thought this was odd, as such assignments weren’t mentioned in the EQUIP brochure, but I took it on because I knew that it would not be long before I was assigned to the young person God had for me. What I did not realize was that it was going to feel more like the playing out of the story of Daniel in the lion’s den.

I quickly found that, in quite a few areas, I was not doing what I had been told I would be doing. I was not working with the leadership; instead, they were my constant judges.

After just a few months of the internship segment of my time at ITC, I could no longer handle the physical and emotional stress. Through all of my classes for the first nine weeks, I was getting very little sleep. While I was  following a tight schedule, every moment was used in some way —  very little time was afforded to regroup. If I wasn’t working with housekeeping, I was helping the kitchen staff. If not that, I was on laundry duty.

I wanted to go home, and I called my parents to say so.

My parents did not think that this was a good idea. My Dad explained that he did not think that I should come home yet. He reminded me of the story of the men given the talents (Matthew 25:13 — 30) and how they had to faithfully make good use of what God had given them. Dad could not bring me home when God wanted me at ITC. So I stayed.

Depression had already started to settle in — one reason I had asked to go home. But I believed that it would go away if I was just faithful enough, if I tried hard enough to stay under authority and do what they asked. It was a daily battle to push it to the back of my mind. I tried to apply what I had learned about breaking strongholds. I broke every soul tie I could think of.  I went to my leadership, who asked me to confess Christ using the truth in I John 4:15. This way, we could be sure of my salvation and certain that I wasn’t being oppressed by a demonic spirit. I was sure, and I was not oppressed.

While I was dealing with these things, I was moved to a room with my “leader in training” (LIT — the name given to those who were sent to ITC by the courts for rehabilitation) and a leader from a previous EQUIP class. The first  few nights I was with them, I slept on the floor in our main room. I was afraid. I lay awake for hours, unable to fall asleep. I confessed anything and everything I could think of. Why was I such a mess?

Instead of asking me why I was doing this, the other leader, who was supposed to be my partner in working with our LIT, told our leadership about it.  I was scolded. I didn’t know how to explain why I was in such a state. I just was.

Knowing that I wasn’t allowed to go home and that my leadership had asked my co-workers to be tattletales caused emotional stress that took a serious physical toll. I needed relief. When God would not lift his judgment of depression from me, I gained relief by allowing myself to be sick to my stomach. I started looking forward to that relief. I would eat and then make myself sick. But, like everything else that is temporary, this habit provided little relief and did not fix the problem.

I had never felt God’s judgment on me in such a hard way before. I could not imagine why He was allowing me to be brought so low. Why He was not stepping in to rescue me. Not once did anyone tell me that God loved me and that depression does not always result from some horrible sin.

At one point, I had been sick and I was in my room for almost two weeks. Since my LIT and the other leader still had a routine to follow, I spent most of that time alone. This isolation brought me to my lowest point.

(Click here for Part 2)