Will's Story

My story begins in 2004 when I was into my third year of being a member of the Barneys community as well as my third year at university. That year I found it increasingly difficult to attend classes, complete assignments or maintain many of my other commitments. This got to the point where I decided it was necessary to suspend my studies and move back in with my parents on our family farm in rural NSW. I would later learn that I was suffering from depression, but it would take a brutally dry winter on the farm before that was recognised.

Those months were the hardest of my life. I was very sick but not aware of it. I felt isolated from all relationships including with God. There seemed to be no hope.

So where was God? It is true that throughout this period of time he provided me with loving and caring family as well as numerous letters and visits from friends from the Barneys community. He also blessed me with the right doctor who eventually recognised my depression and began to successfully treat me for it. As powerful as each of these blessings were, the one that amazes me most was the work and ministering that God did to and within me in the times when I felt I was most alone and most far from God and any hope.

From my present day position of good health where I am once again in Sydney and an active member of the Barneys community I find myself returning in my mind to those darkest moments of that winter in 2004 and I can see the powerful work that God did in my life through the very times when he appeared to have removed himself entirely.