{"id":15538,"date":"2025-04-29T17:51:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T00:51:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/?p=15538"},"modified":"2025-04-29T17:51:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T00:51:56","slug":"until-gods-grace-gave-me-new-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/blog\/until-gods-grace-gave-me-new-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Agony of the Mind Once Drove Me to Seek Death Until God\u2019s Grace Gave Me New Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Vincent Liu<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ChatGPT-Image-Apr-29-2025-05_50_10-PM.jpg\" rel=\"lightbox[15538]\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-large wp-image-15539\" src=\"http:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ChatGPT-Image-Apr-29-2025-05_50_10-PM-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"683\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ChatGPT-Image-Apr-29-2025-05_50_10-PM-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ChatGPT-Image-Apr-29-2025-05_50_10-PM-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ChatGPT-Image-Apr-29-2025-05_50_10-PM-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/ChatGPT-Image-Apr-29-2025-05_50_10-PM.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I hope people can correct their preconceived notions about depression. Depression is a chronic illness, not simply a matter of someone feeling down or being unable to &#8220;think positively.&#8221; No one would say to a terminally ill patient, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you just get better?\u201d or \u201cWhy are you in such pain? Cheer up, don\u2019t be miserable.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Depression is a real illness<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">. Accompanying and caring for someone with depression, just as you would care for someone who is physically ill, is the greatest comfort you can offer to a patient.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Please don\u2019t say things like \u201cJust feel better\u201d or \u201cDon\u2019t overthink.\u201d A person with depression wishes every moment to be able to feel joy like a normal person, but no matter how hard they try, they can\u2019t. When others say such things to me, it actually deepens my pain. It&#8217;s like telling a paralyzed person, \u201cStand up, why are you lying down?\u201d \u2014 this is a limitation caused by illness, not ordinary emotional lows that everyone experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A lack of understanding from others and a sense of helplessness within are the reasons why many people with depression ultimately seek death. I once explained depression this way: \u201cA terminally ill patient is waiting for death, while I, a person with depression, am seeking it.\u201d Every day, I endured mental pain and torment. Unlike physical pain, mental suffering has no painkillers, no end. That\u2019s why I often wished there was a button I could press to end all this pain.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">To be honest, no human healed me, and I didn\u2019t actively seek help from God \u2014 but God <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">spontaneously showed<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> His grace and power in my life and took away this illness. As 1 John 4:10 says, \u201cThis is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">God is a supernatural God. His love and power go beyond our understanding. While we were still rebellious sinners against Him, He already loved us. It wasn\u2019t anything I did that moved Him. True love \u2014 love from God \u2014 is unconditional and not based on merit. God&#8217;s love and grace cannot be exchanged with material things or good deeds. \u201cAnd the Lord said, \u2018I will cause all My goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim My name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.\u2019\u201d (Exodus 33:19)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I only truly began seeking God after He pulled me back from the edge of death and healed my illness. It was through experiencing His grace and love that I gained faith. Everything is God\u2019s grace, and all glory belongs to Him!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Each person experiences God at a different time and in different ways. I\u2019m not sharing this so that others can copy my experience to be healed \u2014 in fact, I didn\u2019t do anything. It was God who did all the work. The only thing I can share with those still suffering is: **do not lose hope.** Even if you feel that no one understands you and each day is filled with endless pain and torment, I want you to know \u2014 **God loves you.** He understands your pain, and He longs to bear it for you.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The love and peace of soul that you have been searching and longing for &#8211; is found with God.\u00a0 That deep emptiness within you &#8211; only God can fill. Come and receive this love. God has always been there, waiting for you, waiting to give you this love. You only need to believe in Him \u2014 believe that He is all-powerful and awe-inspiring. Give Him the chance to love you.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAsk, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.\u00a0 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.\u201d (Matthew 7:7-8)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can testify from my own experience: when you receive God\u2019s love, the peace and joy that surpass all understanding will be with you continually.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cHeal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.\u201d (Matthew 10:8)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">God\u2019s love healed me. He gave it freely to me, and I also want to share it freely with those in need. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">My only hope for this article is that God may use these words to bring you closer to him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<pre><span data-ccp-props=\"{&quot;201341983&quot;:0,&quot;335559739&quot;:160,&quot;335559740&quot;:259}\">\u8b80\u5b8c\u6709\u611f\u60f3\uff1f\u8acb\u53cd\u994b\u7d66<a href=\"mailto:heavenlygarden@cbcwla.org\">heavenlygarden@cbcwla.org<\/a>\uff01<\/span><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vincent Liu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":15539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[358,430],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heavenly-cloud","category-testimonies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15538"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15541,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15538\/revisions\/15541"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cbcwla.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}