Meagan is the Assistant Territorial Communications Director in the USA Southern Territory. We are grateful to share her story, originally recorded as an interview with Ashley, the creator of the Women of Hope series.

‘Anxiety has always been a part of my life, but I don’t think I had a name for it. 

‘I had anxiety throughout my pregnancy, but that was just normal for me. But after my son arrived, quickly I knew that the anxiety I was experiencing was not what I had ever experienced before and it was not normal. 

‘I was diagnosed with post-partum anxiety and OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). When I had my diagnosis, I was just honest with people about what was going on with me. I think within a world where we feel the pressure to have it all together, to have a picture-perfect family or house or whatever, we don’t want to share even an ounce of an impression that we’re struggling. My son is three years old now, so it feels like forever ago! Everything through that darkness that I experienced, I can look back and see how it’s made me who I am today. 

‘When it comes to hope, if you can just trust in God and know that, “I don’t know what you’re doing God, but I know that it’s going to be good.” Nothing that we experience in this life is wasted and God can do something through it. When we cling to hope and the goodness of God and his plans for us, then we can get through the “hard”. We can get through that hard day, that hard week, that hard season, because truly we were created with a purpose, for a reason and we just have to cling to that.’