Out of the Miry Clay

Like most people I have had my share of ups and downs. Most of my life has been wonderful and I have been blessed so many ways that I have forgotten most of them. In fact, most of the good things that we receive in life we do not even appreciate. For example, when was the last time you or I stopped to be thankful for the air we breathe...Yet I understand what it is like to have my life literally cut out from under me. Although my devastating news was not sudden like Job’s nor was my loss as overwhelming as his; for me, my whole life appeared over and I could not see any means to get out of my dilemma. I was truly stuck in the mud deep within my own “Valley of Despair.” Within this plunge into hopelessness and despondency I wondered why I was even born-why I had to be brought into this cruel, mean world. I identified with Job who cried out from the bitterness of his soul (Job 10:18-19, New Living Translation): “Why, then, did you bring me out of my mother’s womb? Why didn’t you let me die at birth? Then I would have been spared this miserable existence. I would have gone directly from the womb to the grave.”

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     During this time I continued to deny the need for God in my life. He was directing my steps despite my rebellion towards His ways. Despite the demotion I was starting to feel better later during the spring of 1983. The depression had lifted and I was actually feeling good for the first time in over a year.

    I remember returning to Bamberg after the battalion had gone on an annual live fire training evaluation. It was late in the spring of 1983 and the Bavarian spring was in full bloom. Germany is so beautiful in the late spring after the winter thaw. I was taking in the warmer days, the improved mood, and general sense of optimism that pervaded my soul.

     I even joined a Bible study later that spring that was held off the base. I was reading my Bible again for the first time in four years and I was enjoying the fellowship with other Christian believers. It seemed like in spite of all the negative circumstances and the depression of the past year that things were finally starting to look up for Michael Quay.

     However, my short season of optimism and my newfound sense of heading in the right direction were short lived. Little was I to know that soon I would be entering into a deeper bog…a time that I thought would never end…like a nightmare that you cannot wake up from.

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     The Bible says to thank Him in all circumstances…even when they are bad or difficult…I had come a long way from that day in November 1983 when I received (in the mail) my discharge from the military, which, in turn, exacerbated my already deepening depression. 

     Now it was time to grow…. grow academically…. grow mentally…grow emotionally…grow spiritually…leading up to finally overcoming the circumstances that had literally taken my life away from me back in 1982-83.