The happiest days of my life occurred shortly after I was diagnosed with severe depression. Arriving home from the hospital treatment center, I found my mother (a doctor) finally understanding my pain. I was not just a foul-tempered young girl—I was sick!

The two of us began to spend time together. We went to the grocery store together; we cooked together. Mother talked to me with gentleness in her voice—a tone she hadn't used with me in years.

Our relationship was sweet. But it ended suddenly with my mother's death.

Winters in the tropical town where we lived were never cold. But this winter was cold and will forever remain in my memory as filled with tears and endless pain!

My mother died in a fight with my father—in short, he killed her! Today, my father is incarcerated with a life sentence.

One Dark Night

Twenty-seven years ago, I was born in a small town in southern China where the water is always clear, the mountains green, and the weather as mild as spring in Texas. Before I was six, I had a stable and happy childhood. My father and mother were loving parents who didn't make a lot of money, but they provided well enough for our family.

When I was six, my mother left home to work in another city for a year. Parenting may have been too difficult for my father alone during the year Mom was gone. He would leave me at home at night by myself until the dawn broke. One evening—which I remember as one of the darkest nights in my life—I could not stand being alone and the quietness of our house. I ran into the street and stood crying under the dim street light. A neighbor heard me and took me to his house and let me sleep in his daughters' bed.

When Mother returned, she could tell that something had changed in her daughter while she was gone. I was not the easy child she once knew. I was ill-tempered and hard to manage. There was no way she could get close to me.

Alone and Depressed

After some time, we moved to a bigger town where my father got a job teaching in a college. Mom worked for a while at a big regional hospital before opening her own clinic. Finally, my mother's career was a success. Unfortunately for me, at the new school I was attending, my Chinese teacher, the dean of the school, thought I was too much of a village girl to be respected. With her leading, bullying attacks went on for the next two years. The attacks came from the teacher's physical punishment of me for no reason to students hitting me with a two-foot-long wooden rod—which my teacher encouraged.

Although my parents didn't see the bullying at school as a problem, at my insistence, they allowed me to transfer to a boarding school 800 miles away from our home. I was only ten years old, and people praised this “spirit of independence” in me. Yet, at the new school, I was locked in the confines of the campus, remote from the city, while wildflowers bloomed in the vast open areas outside and a lonely lake remained unattended. I stayed at the boarding school for only three semesters because I was so lonely. I was drained of any love of life.

Until this time, I had had a seemingly intact family—a mother who was a doctor and a father who was a college professor. We had a villa, a car of royal-blue, a dog and two cats, and several pricey tropical plants in the garden. But all was not well on the home front. Even though I made good grades in school, I was never able to please my father. His merciless faulting of me and his abusive words told me again and again that I was not worthy of living. I felt as if I were sinking into an enormous swamp.

My mother described our home at this point as a “loveless, hollow place.” She sought joy, affection, and boyfriends who admired her beauty on the dance floor, because she received no appreciation from my father. I sometimes would not see my mother for days. When I got up to go to school, she was still asleep. And when she came home at night, I was already in bed.

Desperate for Meaning

When I was officially diagnosed as deeply depressed, with incessant suicidal thoughts, my mother began to research the subject. She recognized and acknowledged my condition. And our relationship began to flourish. (For many years after my mother's death, this precious time I had with her was like a bright light in darkness. This light sustained my life and kept me from killing myself.)

But now, death's destiny had separated me from the one person who I knew loved me. I was alone—completely alone! Living by myself in a small apartment was not difficult, because I had been taking care of myself for many years, even with my parents’ presence. I desperately wanted to know the meaning of life. Could life have meaning without love? When I still had my parents—when I felt love existed—I could grasp a little joy and happiness in life. Living made sense. But now, with nothing left but depression, loneliness, darkness, and no hope, I wondered if life was worth living.

A Spirit-world Invasion

Through reading, a fondness for the Christian religion had grown in me. One day at a fast food place filled with people, a middle-aged woman sat in front of me and bowed her head to pray. This caught my attention, so I began chatting with her. She told me about the underground church she attended and invited me to visit.

I went with her and got to know Christians in the church. Soon, I moved into a bigger apartment with four girls who were Christians. I was no longer alone physically, but my programmed atheistic mind struggled to accept a change of world view. Schools I had attended all told me that God was just an illusion of the weak mind—an anesthetic to stupefy the human will. I continued attending church, but my brain was fortified against belief. Plus, many of my questions remained unanswered. I was deeply confused by the possibility of the existence of the spiritual world.

Then God allowed a ruthless unveiling of the reality of the spirit world. In my daily life I started to see things—things I knew were “demons.” I saw a face flashing through the wall in my bedroom. Another time I saw a person standing under a tree who would suddenly disappear when I walked close. I became so frightened of seeing these apparitions that I would not turn off the light at night when I slept. When I washed my face, I would not close my eyes. Even though I was still an atheist, the things I saw confirmed for me that the world of spirits was real. I became tormented by fear. Life was unbearable, and I thought I was about to die.

After a month of panic attacks, I became convinced that no one could save me except God. I knew what I was experiencing was not just a worldly battle but one that involved the world of the invisible. If anyone could save me from the endless agony I was in, that would be God—the One Christians call Omnipotent.

Breaking the Bondage

For the first time in my life I prayed and felt power. I had prayed before, but it was like talking to the air—my voice just disappearing into the vastness, the emptiness. This time it was different. I began to read the Psalms. I read how David prayed that God would cast out evil and lift up the righteous. A voice in my mind told me that God was going to protect me.

Miracles started to happen. Every time images in the air came to startle me, I told them to go away in the name of Jesus—and they left! After a week, I stopped seeing things altogether. I began to be filled with hope and joy— things I thought I would never have again after the death of my mother. God removed the obstacles to faith in my life, and I knew there was nothing that He could not do. I wanted to give my life to Him, willingly and happily.

Things were not perfect, even after I became a Christian. Despite the miraculous experiences in the beginning of my faith, I did not learn the full grace of Christ or deal with the pain inside me until four years after I became a Christian, when life became heavier than I could carry again. At that point, I sought Christian counseling. My counselor taught me about freedom in Christ, about breaking the bondage of hidden hate, an unforgiving spirit, feelings of worthlessness and self-detrimental thoughts. My past relationship with my father had always been an obstacle between me and God. My counselor helped me understand that God is a loving, patient, and always forgiving Father, unlike the father I had known. I allowed God’s grace to penetrate every corner of my life.

Now, as I write my life story, it is late in the afternoon. I'm sitting at Starbucks, sipping a cup of hot, unsugared coffee. I am relatively healthy now. I have established reliable relationships with friends in and out of church. I work out regularly and enjoy reading. I still take anti-depressant medication every day, and I would never say that my life is perfect. I am still living in a fallen world and sometimes feel confused and need to struggle through a situation. When I think back to the darkest moments in my life, I believe God had to break my stubbornness with pain, since I was so hardheaded and prideful. He had to break me down before He could restructure me.

I know Jesus is here with me—in my reading, in my writing, in my listening, in my everything. And I also know that I am only a traveler in this life. I am willing for Jesus to use my pain and suffering to build His Kingdom. Because I have Him, I also have joy, growth, and a meaningful life.

(Kelly Keyi Zhou, originally from China, is a Christian writer who understands pain and suffering. She is dedicated to building God's Kingdom through writing and mentoring.)