Encouragement

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I‘m lying in my bed, staring out the window for endless moments. I close my eyes, needing to not exist. Sleep comes swiftly. The dreams are vivid and not always good. It’s late morning, I should really get up. Everyone I know is up and being productive. They are working or caring for their children, answering the phone, washing the dishes, cleaning their bathrooms. So I wake up 3 hours later to these thoughts and tell myself what a disappointment I am all while staring out the window. Every branch of the tree is burned into my memory. At this point I go over in my head the very familiar thoughts of how I can escape. The smallest expectations are completely overwhelming to me. I needed to get out. Suicide was something I only dreamed of, knowing I couldn’t let my family suffer so deeply. It made me angry when I thought I can never do what I want to do because of others expectations, even living. So with the broken faces I would see at my own funeral I would go back to sleep, frustrated that there was no answer or relief on the way. Sleep, staring out the window, plans of how I could escape, frustration, then back to sleep to start the cycle once again.

This was a typical day for me, happening about several times a week. Giving into the depression was my only option. “Get outside, go for a walk”, some would tell me. Of course a logical person would at least try that, but I had lost all my logic, or at least so I thought. I was going to the psychiatrist every three weeks, experimenting with different medication combinations. My very patient and loving husband stood by me through all this, even sometimes bringing a meal to my bed. Him giving me permission to feel this way was everything to me. He was speaking with our pastor one Sunday and he recommended I see a biblical counselor trained by CCEF* he had just met. I’ve been down the counseling path so many times that at first I refused to go. The last thing I needed was someone telling me what I need to do. I knew that’s not where I was, nor did I have plans to change. But I went, dragging my feet to a church in Reading for my first appointment. As soon as I laid eyes on Vicki I knew she was different. God had hand-picked her as a special gift to me. Instead of expectations there was grace...God’s grace moving through her. Wow! This was different. She listened to everything I felt on that first visit without one word of “advice”. It felt like a warm bath after not having one for months. A tiny little seed of hope took root in me. This time with Vicki was an integral part of my healing. I have learned more about God’s grace for me in the last four months than I have in all of my life. It was because my soul was starving for it without my knowing. I felt that God was disappointed in me, expected a little better from someone who is called His child. God was not and is not disappointed in me, He delights in me, even pursues me! The cross did away with any disappointment because when Christ died on the cross for me, all the ugliness of my sin was washed away when I received Him into my life at age four. Why do I keep wanting to put my sin as a barrier to God? I have found great encouragement from the book, The Cure, by John Lynch, Bruce McNicol and Bill Thrall. The book describes Jesus as a God caring so dearly about our hearts. So often we believe that we must take care of our sin in order to reach Jesus. In truth He is standing right beside us with all our sin in front of us both, helping us clean it up in His strength with total love as the motivation. This is the opposite of what the lies tell me. I would picture God moving just a little further away from me until I was able to deal with it, then He would move closer. What I have turned God into in my mind would make anyone not want to go to Him. I was turning my grace bound salvation into a salvation by my ability to please God. Increasingly, the path to pleasing God seems to be about how I can keep God pleased with me. So much striving. I read a lot of the Psalms when I’m low and understand I’m not the only one who battles with depression. So many of them are written as desperate cries to the Lord. These Psalms gave words to God when I couldn’t, reminding me that I am not alone with this struggle. My story isn’t over, but I can say with no shame that I am a devoted Christian woman who struggles with depression. My heavenly Father is not disappointed in me. Nothing can stand between God and me. As I live in the shadow of His love I know I am whole. God has not chosen to remove my depression completely. Even on good days it’s lurking somewhere in the room, and the lies start their whisperings, but I can see the real face of my Father and my hope soars with this truth.

*Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation, www.ccef.org

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