Speaker 1:
From Austin Stone worship, this is stories from the Austin Stone. In the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, believers around the world are striving to be faithful to Jesus and love their neighbors. Alone Together is a series of stories about how the people of the Austin Stone are living faithfully in uncertain times. Today, across Austin and around the world, doctors and nurses, restaurant owners and delivery drivers, singles and students, moms and dads, artists and accountants, and more are loving God, their church, their city, and the nations in the midst of this season. We might be spending our days apart, but in Jesus, the church will always be united. These are stories of God's people, alone together.

Speaker 2:
So my name is Sara Sonin and I am a mom to a seven year old boy and a five year old little girl and married. And I stay at home with my kids full-time. I quit working three weeks before my son was born. As a stay at home mom, I thought you'd have more time on your hands than you do. I mean, I felt like my time was spent in the car. I have two kids at two different schools, each have their own activities. My son's at a school that is a very volunteer focused school. So I would be up at the school in some capacity a couple of times a month for several hours. And then my husband and I are involved in an MC group and I do a women's Bible study. And then I would say I fell in the category of everyone else, meaning extremely full schedule.
I didn't feel like I took on too much, but we are always cognizant of at any moment, this can switch into being completely overloaded. Like everyone else that we're seeing around us. You just feel like it's the culture, it's the race. So I would say my depression started probably when I was a teenager, 16 or 17, definitely not diagnosed at that point. My depression was for sure triggered by the fact that I lost my father to suicide at the age of 12, who also struggled with depression. I was a very involved and kind of well rounded student. And so I feel like life just kind of kept me busy and prevented the depression from maybe manifesting itself to the point of not being able to function. And so I went off to college and then that's kind of where it began to really show itself because I couldn't function in school.
I just didn't do well. And it finally got so bad that I just stopped going to class. I just stopped everything. I would sleep a lot. I could not study or focus for my life. Like could not, could not, could not just not wanting to engage. And I am social, but not necessarily pursuing real social, like real community I guess. I went and I started medicine and I found, or my mom found, a really great Christian therapist that I really loved and began that process. And I lost a best friend when I was 25 and that kind of dipped me back down again, but it also gave me the courage to then fight. Because I knew he would want me to fight, I needed to not give up. And I had been, I'd been better for a while at that point before all that happened. It took me down a dark path though.
I ended up getting arrested for drinking and driving and that was my lowest of low. And so even though I had taken the meds several years earlier and started to get well, I still don't think, I still wasn't well, and then that death just kind of triggered me further. So I got flicked in at a church that had a huge singles group and just found other people that were what I would call quote unquote, normal. I mean that they were social and liked to do things but love Jesus. And so that really sustained me from 25 until I had my son at 34. And I was very candid with my doctor I'm like, look, I've had serious depression. I've been at that point probably seven or eight years out of it. So I just felt confident going into the pregnancy, but I wanted to also make the doctor aware.
So I had my son and it was hard. And I was told that it was hard because I was a first time mom and I had quit my job and my life had changed. And I believed the doctors, but you know, months went by and I still just didn't feel right. And I talked to enough people and I found a Christian doctor and I kind of went to him and told him my story. And he was like, "Well, you have postpartum and with your history, we need to put you on meds." So he put me on meds and very quick turnaround with postpartum once I got on that. So then I got pregnant with my daughter and I was just adamant. I said, "I'm not leaving that hospital without meds." And so I had her, I kind of fell into some postpartum, but then I just kind of think, I think I just kind of came into what my therapist has said, another episode, just from life.
My husband had tough times with [inaudible] and we were just trying to navigate schools and what we were going to do and what our life was going to look like. And I got it round three. And so I finally decided, okay, I have to see a therapist on a monthly basis. That's a no brainer. My therapist had a come to Jesus with me and said, "You need to be prepared that you will continue to struggle with depression for the rest of your life, in and out live well," is what she says. Live well with anxiety and depression. And being told that is like a punch to the gut and you're like, okay, I'm at the therapist, for depression. You remember why I'm here? And now you're telling me I am going to be depressed off and on, the rest of my life, which actually is depressing to hear.
I'm like, I'm supposed to feel like I'm getting somewhere with this therapy, that we're making strides. And it was a really hard pill to swallow. So I think in the back of my mind, I'm always aware and I do feel like it manifests itself in certain aspects of my life. I would say when it comes to writing, that would be where I see it manifest. That there's this constant pull of what am I doing? I have no business doing this. Oh, but I love it, nobody's ever going to read it. Just that constant, tug of what am I doing? But yet I feel like I should be doing it. And I feel like that's where the insecurity, just all of that kind of all the ugliness of depression, just kind of rears its head.
I have to say on medicine at this point in time, and if the medicine doesn't work effectively, then I have to be open to seeing the psychiatrist to actually get more medical help. But that has not seemed to have been the case. Now we all know that things can change. But up to this point, I feel like I've gotten on a good regimen. Up until the pandemic, I would definitely rule myself as being healthy. So struggling with anxiety, but healthy. Less than a month before this happened, we went to Disneyland as a family, things were great. And I remember coming back from Disneyland being like, Oh, this could come here. This is now a reality here because things were beginning to get canceled. Even going to the women's retreat, I saw South by Southwest canceled.
And I mean, if you live in Austin, you're like, it is the apocalypse, South by Southwest was canceled. What is happening? And I just remember that you know, that drop in your stomach, Oh, wow, okay. This is getting real. And the Friday before Austin went on shelter-in-place, was this big event at my son's school for all the kids, kinder through six. And I just remember thinking, like I already was cognizant of what was happening and thinking, is this a good idea? Even then I don't think I fully understood what would actually come. I think one of the hardest things to hear was to have to tell my kids they couldn't go back to school, you know? I mean, that was like, okay, now my fear is, well, what is the new normal? What will be the new normal on the other side of this?
I'm not really scared as much about getting this virus. That's not what scares me. What scares me is that I might never get to walk in the door of a church and just hug my friends and that people are going to forever be fearful, or there's going to be this change of intimacy of community. That is my fear. And I think that has to do with my depression, an extrovert who has depression that likes to be social and engaged in real relationships. Church at home, I mean praise Jesus for [inaudible] and the plethora of resources, but that's my number one miss, this church. Number one miss, hands down. I think it's hard. It's hard to be together all the time. I'm used to being out of the house, the majority of the day and engaged in relationships with my girl friends.
My husband's used to being at home by himself most of the day because he works at home. I'm used to my kids being so busy and I would have maybe eight hours once or twice a week totally by myself. So then to put all of us together and to watch your children, I mean, thank the Lord my kids really get along. But it's hard to watch my son only have to play with a five year old girl. He needs to wrestle with somebody, and my daughter wants play frozen, and my son does not. So I think those things are hard and then you're just together all the time. So every little thing that might've bothered you before is now amplified because you're just together. I'm for sure battling it and I've been very candid with my husband and with my friends.
So I'm like, this is prime time for something like this to happen, like a Petri dish. The mold will grow. It's a very thin line to depression, it's just like kind of got to walk the tight rope. But I've tried to maintain my rhythms as best as I can. I'm still doing my Ecclesiastes Bible study. So we're going to do it Monday nights and make it work. So I feel like I've maintained that. And we listened to church every week, that's a no brainer. I've exercised every day. I mean, it may not be part of your core, but I am at least taking a walk every day. Sometimes I get to walk by myself. But I also think the longer we're in it, the further, the harder, the more I'm starting to struggle. I would not say I struggled as much the first several weeks as I am now. I think I just have a very defeating outlook and a defeating attitude and kind of a negativity.
And I get, I would use the word hopeless. This is how it's going to be, and this is how it's always going to be kind of mentality. There's a difference between being social and legit community, which is accountability and authenticity. And so I would pursue social, not community. Now I think I don't, I regress some and I get quiet. I have friends will be like, "I haven't talked to you in a couple days are you all right?" You know, I have friends that call me. I do feel like depression this time looked a lot different because I just was diligent. I'd already had a therapist in place who I had met when I was pregnant with my daughter. I already was on medicine. We were plugged in with the church. I was leading Bible studies. You know, I just had all these things in place that even though I was struggling, I wasn't diving, plummeting, not like what my twenties would... You know, my twenties was definitely, I mean, I would pray, Jesus, just take me home, just forget this, you know? And I have not had that feeling since that time.
I just want some freedoms. I just want some structure. I just want some busyness. I told my husband, even if we could hang out with people, what would we talk about? We're all doing the same things. We're all experiencing the same thing. There's no, I don't know. There's no new information. Nobody's really experiencing anything. We're all experiencing the same thing, which yes, there is comfort in that because you know that other people are having that same frustration, but then you kind of want to not talk about it. That's what I find. What else can we talk about? Because I am thinking about this thing all the time. I'm watching the news. Well I think even when I study Ecclesiastes and it does seem kind of dark and somber, it has been, it has shed such a light on really there's only Jesus.
And I feel like in our American culture, it's real easy for that to get lost. Because we have so much and have access to so much and can be inundated with so much information, things just experiences, everything. I've also had to remind myself and I try to look at Ecclesiastes through this perspective and that Solomon did not yet know Jesus and a lot of what he is talking about, there's some uncertainty there and I feel like it's powerful as believers in this age to be able to read it and also think, but Jesus. Anytime he talks about we all die the same, but Jesus. I mean, yes, everybody does die, but Jesus. And I think that's kind of how I've really tried to look at this book. It's so full of wisdom and I feel like this pandemic has proven all of our securities and schedules, things, stuff, events.
I kind of feel like predictability was such a comfort and not every predictability has been taken away, I mean every predictability. And I feel like this, the way he words it, shows that so well and that really it is only our faith in God. I will go to heaven and not have depression anymore or anxiety and all these things that we see [inaudible] reflections and the curse of the world will be healed. And so I've just feel like there's so much hope in that. I don't know how people are doing it without Jesus? I feel like a lot of people will look differently now going to church on Sunday mornings. It's just going to be different in a good way. And I feel like the joy will be to sit in that community of believers because while yes, thank the Lord for things like Zoom and all the ways that we have to communicate. I think it's been a real lesson too.
And the power of being in the room with somebody and engaging conversation and seeing them face-to-face, I'm sure I'll cry a lot. And I will say probably the biggest thing that, the biggest influence on healing and not having hopelessness was the church. I absolutely will say that the church saved me for sure. I had a great church that just loved my mom and I very well, very unconditionally just as we are. And I had a pastor that came into my life and kind of had a dad role and very unconventional, I guess I would say. So I always went back to the church, even when I would stray, even when I would have really dark seasons, I would always go back. So I think that will always be like, I have to be tethered. I have to be.
when my mom didn't know how to do everything or be everything as any single mom can, the church literally filled in the gaps. There were other people I could go to. There were homes of people that I knew were a safe place. And by safe, meaning I could be myself and there was no judgment. And they would fix me dinner, and all that revolved around church. That's how I met every single one of those people was through that. And then I developed that trust. That is where the provision has always been this church.
In my life it was always a great tragedy or a turn or something bizarre would happen, something good would come out of it. I look back in my life and I've got God's faithfulness. I feel that you see that all throughout the Bible, how people would market, they would build those altars to be as a reminder. And I kind of feel I've been diligent to remember those things and try to remember. I'm not saying I'm always good at it, but to try to look back and see where God's hand has been and rescued me from situations and I'm still here. So the thing is if you're still breathing, God's still got something for you.

Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to this episode of stories from the Austin Stone. Please help us spread the word about the podcast by rating and reviewing us on Apple podcasts or wherever you found this episode and by sharing this episode with your family and friends. If you have a story to share with us during this time, please visit austinstone.org/share. That's austinstone.org/ S-H-A-R-E. Finally, for up to date information on how the Austin Stone is responding to the new coronavirus, please visit austinstone.org/coronavirus.