Dear Depression:
I wish you would just leave me alone.
I wish that I could wake up one day and be freed of you – freed of the dark cloud that nestles itself over me every moment of the day. I wish I could stop crying myself to sleep beneath your shadow, under your influence.
I wish that I could find joy again.
I wish that you didn't make me doubt my faith – make me doubt the very love of God, make me feel so insufferably alone. I wish you didn't dwell on me when life is hardest, and make me wonder if living at all is worth it. I wish you would stop whispering in my ear such nasty lies.
I wish you would stop making suicide look so seductive; enticing.
I wish I could get away from you.
I wish that I could look in the mirror and see someone worthwhile, rather than bags under my eyes and the deep, soulless gaze of a girl who doesn't know who she is anymore. I wish that you would get away from me so that I could be with my family more, and find joy in it. Instead, I come home from work and I sleep for hours on end, until nighttime comes and I am restless because you will not leave me alone.
You have ruined everything. Worst of all, you are so damn irresistible.
You tell me that God is a liar, that His promises to redeem me aren't ever going to occur. You tell me that everything He's called me to do with my life is a fraud – that there's no hope for someone like me. That I am useless. Nothing. That all my hard work is meaningless.
You tell me that no matter how much I try to honor God with my life, He will never consider me worthy of love. You lie about the sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross for me. You make me forget about it. You make me weak.
You are what becomes when I am too tired to even be angry anymore. You are the darkness within that is far worse than the rage that I am accustomed to. You are what is found in its ashes.
You point me to social media, where everyone looks happy, and you taunt me because I am not. You tease me because all around me are people whose lives are far less focused on Christ, and yet they are allowed so much more happiness than it seems I ever will be.
"It's hopeless – you're hopeless," you whisper, as you try to convince me that God just doesn't want me; that God only fulfills the promises He makes to children He actually loves, and He couldn't possibly love me.
You tell me that when I cried out for my Father, He watched me crawl into the open arms of the enemy instead, thinking the entire time that surely these were the arms of my Father--the voice sounded like my Father, the warmth felt like my Father, he looked like my Father--but he wasn't. He was you.
My Father is a Good Father, and He would never send me to you. You plague me with lies trying to convince me otherwise.
Dear Depression: you are disgusting. The jury's still out on whether or not you will win this war, but I hope you don't. I hope you lose miserably, and I never see you again.
Thanks for the twenty-pound weight loss, though. Can we keep it going? You might as well do something useful for me while you're here.