I’ve been writing here since 2017.

When I read those early posts, I don’t feel embarrassed. I remember. I remember the fog. The panic attacks. The relentless thoughts that felt louder than anything else. I remember trying to manage two jobs, family chaos, and a mind that would not slow down. I remember writing because it was the only way to stay honest.

Back then, survival was literally the goal.

I wrote about sanctification. I wrote about strength. I told myself not to fear depression. I told myself that God was working, that He wouldn’t leave me where I was. I claimed truths I barely understood. At the time, those words felt aspirational — almost like I was trying to convince myself they were real.

And yet, they were.

What I didn’t understand then was what victory would actually look like.

Victory wasn’t relief. It was staying. Staying in the chair. Staying in the conversation. Staying when the thought of an “out” felt easier than another day of trying. It was finally admitting how broken I felt. It was loosening my grip on control. It was choosing truth over performance. It was showing up again the next week – and the week after that. Even though at times, a week was so far out of my grasp that holding on for another day was barely even imaginable. It was choosing honesty over image. It was consistency. It was obedience in small, unremarkable ways. A long obedience in the same direction.

I once thought God’s good for me would be found in the sunny days — in relief, in clarity, in the absence of the overwhelming storms.

But the good was never the weather.

The good was His faithfulness.

The good was that He did not leave me in the fog. The good was that He did not abandon me once the skies cleared. The good was that through both storm and sunlight, He was forming something steadier in me. Not comfort. Not ease. Faith.

Depression did not defeat my faith. But it did reshape it.

Sanctification did not arrive like a lightning bolt. It came slowly, quietly — through surrender that felt more like loss than triumph. Through learning that God’s desire for my good was not to rescue me from every storm, but to grow my trust in Him within it.

When I read my old posts now, I see a woman fighting for breath and clinging to truth she hoped would carry her. I want to reach back, give her a HUGE hug, and tell her she was right — not about how it would look, but about who God would be.

He would stay.

And now?

Now I stand in a different place. Not stormless. Not immune. But steadier. I no longer measure God’s goodness by my circumstances. I measure it by His constancy. I see that becoming who I was meant to be is not about discovering some hidden, stronger version of myself. It is about surrendering more fully to the One who has been faithful all along.

As for the future, I no longer pray for easy seasons. I ask for rooted faith — trust that holds whether the days are bright or bruised. Storms will come again. They always do. But like the weather in Wyoming, they move through. They are loud, but not permanent. And when they pass, God has not changed. He is still faithful.

The work He began in me was never just about survival. It was about formation.

And He is not finished yet . . .