God Worked In My Son’s Heart

by Mary | Aug 23, 2024 | Testimonies

God Worked In My Son's Heart

We work overseas in Asia, and our son grew up in Asia. After transitioning back to the U.S. for high school, he developed rather severe depression during his last two years of high school. Signs of depression were there earlier, but we didn’t catch it, even though depression and debilitating anxiety run in the family.

We began taking him to a Christian counsellor during his junior year in high school. The counsellor helped us to understand some of what our son was going through but didn’t seem to help our son. After high school, our son began college, but in the first semester, he went into such a deep depression that he had to quit. He then lived with us; it was a tough time for all of us. He would try to work, then depression would take over, and he would stop. He had no motivation to move forward or do anything at all. We couldn’t tell if it was just depression, rebellion, or a mix.

This went on for over a year. We were at our wit’s end, not knowing what to do or how to help our son. We didn’t want him to just be at home with us and languish, but he didn’t seem to have the ability to do things on his own. We talked with a different Christian counsellor about intervention, having Joseph leave home and be at a shelter if that’s what it took.

My wife and I knew that we needed to move forward with the plans God had for our lives (to move back to work in Asia) so we gave Joseph a deadline to decide what he was going to do. We were thrilled that he made this decision. He was 20 years old at the time. It was a big step into the unknown for him and us. In January 2015 my wife and I flew with our son from NJ to CA and entrusted him into God’s hands. We prayed a lot about whether this was something God wanted us to do to help our son, and we were assured that it was.

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My wife and I are Christians, desiring to serve God, so our son grew up learning about God through scripture, prayer, love, and a life of service to God. However, he had not yet come to the point of accepting God’s grace and Christ’s Lordship.

It was difficult at first. He said he was withdrawn and angry a lot of the time. But God worked in his heart over the months, and our son truly accepted Christ.

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