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Hard to remember

I have to tell you, I've been thinking back about my time with depression and it's been really difficult to figure out the time line.  I know that certain events occurred, but inside me it feels like they all happened at a much different rate.  That's something that I never really knew about depression before I experienced it.  Your mind doesn't just work differently in regards how you function with the world, but it also changes the way that it remembers things. 
The worst part for me is that I know that I used to be able to pull the information from my brain with greater ease.  Now I actually have to work at pulling some things out of the depths of my mind.  You might think that is not much, just the signs of aging.  But for someone that used to identify themselves by how smart they are, that's a huge blow. 
But it did lead to one of my great discovers during depression.  I am much greater than what I think I am.  Even if everything I know to be true about myself were to be removed from me, I am still loved by God and he has great plans for me.  But that took a long time for me to realize.
I do remember one day sitting there realizing that I may never again be able to serve as I once did, I might never be who I once knew myself to be.  And that I might suffer from the pain of depression for the rest of my life.  And then the question came to me.  Will you serve me as you are?  I realized that even though I was no longer who I had been I still had the opportunity to serve God in the state that I was in.  God was not requiring me to be who I had been, he was requiring me to allow myself to be used regardless. 
It is probably the single greatest lesson that I learned during my depression.
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