It comes in waves. Seasons.
There will be times the tide is out and the water seems much more manageable. The breeze is blowing, the flowers blooming, the birds chirping. There are seasons where Spring seems to wash over my skin and breathing isn’t so difficult. I laugh, even. Deep from the pits of my soul laughter.
Seasons change. As they always have and always will. Clouds form on the horizon and the sky, in its fury, spits stones of ice, systematically crushing every flower so carefully tended to in the Spring. The tide comes rushing in, beating the shore with all its might, sucking out to sea the only life left under my feet. Spring is long forgotten and the breeze has turned hot, searing my flesh.
“And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.” – John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Steinbeck had it right. Our human condition, I think. At least my condition, anyway. These waves – seasons – they seem to wash away every memory of the season before. My vision tunnels and my mind cannot, no matter the amount of energy I put toward it, recall or remember a time when it wasn’t like it is in this exact moment.
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I bought into the lie, and it is a lie, that if I just prayed more, read my bible more, memorized the right scriptures, and joined every activity the church had to offer, then I wouldn’t be depressed and I would would be healed. Because Jesus wants me healed…right?
Sometimes there are reasons for your sadness. Sometimes there are things you can point to that fractured and sent your heart reeling. But more often than not, there is nothing tangible to point to, you just know you are bleeding out from a million different places. You are unsure why your heart is breaking this way. You can’t figure out why you feel so sad but you are certain that somehow the shattered bits of glass have slipped quietly into your abdomen and sliced your insides all to pieces. Your sadness and the weight of hopelessness come out crooked. You are bleeding from all the wrong places.
It comes out in angry, poisonous, words, flung toward the people you would never imagine. It comes seeping out in jealousy and rage, resenting the very ones who would fight the world on your behalf. It comes out in shouts and screams of pain, even when the source of pain remains hidden. It comes wearing bloody knuckles and broken promises. All this bleeding. From all the wrong places.
No one would ever suspect you died of a broken heart.
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Depression is like that. Swooping in from the fringes of life, giving no warning of impending attack. I often wonder where God is in all of this and to be honest, I don’t have any answers. Most of the time I am left scrambling around in the dark hoping to reach out and touch something solid.
In regards to God, the Psalmist writes “clouds and thick darkness are all around him”. Somehow that verse is comforting to my weatherworn soul. While it is dark, part of me latches on to the “surrounding him” part. The bent inside of me that always leans toward hope {even when I don’t want to}, you know what that part of me hears?
“You are getting so close…”
The darkness that threatens to overtake me? The clouds that seem to suffocate? I am getting close to him. Over and over in I am told that God is near to the brokenhearted, he saves the crushed in spirit. I am reminded that He is in my midst and a mighty one to save. There is a promise of God being near to those who call on Him. When I am not swearing at the darkness, that’s what the “prone to hope” part of me reaches toward.
Help me believe this. Remind me.
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So, what do I know? I know that seasons come and seasons go. Just like they always have and just like they always will. During the dry years I will have no memory of the wet years and during the wet years there will be no recollection of the dry ones. I will need help remembering. People who love me will remind me that it won’t rain for the rest of my life. They tell me there will come a time when the clouds will part and the sky will open up and before I know it, it will be spring. I am told the breeze will bring you to your knees and you won’t want the air to be still. Spring comes. It always does.
If you need the reminding, ask for it.
If you know someone who is stuck in the hard seasons, remind them – “spring.is.coming.”
Please remind us.
there will be joy... 