I've had days where I honestly cannot take one single person telling me how loved I am, how special I am or how strong I am. Days where it takes all I have to contain myself when someone tries to reassure me that the Lord is working, has a plan and wants me to be OK. I have had days where I hate myself because of it all. It's been uncontrollable, diminishing and hopeless.
For a long time, I built a wall around all the mess because I was told things about happiness and joy coming from the Lord and thought my heart would only be desirable if I made it look strong. A whole lot of, “I was this before God, now I am this after. Look at me. Please notice the difference. This is what you wanted.” I lived in that.
Christians don't get depression, right? Christians' lives are easy and they sparkle.
Part of the problem, my wallowing, has been rooted in shame. I’d rather brush it all off because it doesn’t make sense to me, and I would completely understand it not making sense to my friends who believe in the Lord because yes, His love casts out fear and His sacrifice overpowers what the lies in my head say I’m worth.
It's too hard to explain that my depression has never been dictated by anything. Society doesn’t tell me lies about who I am; a guy didn’t ruin me; my family and friends haven’t left me alone or hurting. Depression is not circumstantial and my depression is smart. My depression is the dictator. It tells me lies about what society is, it ruins guys, it makes me leave and hurt my family and friends. My depression is artful and me being aware of its control makes it more destructive to me because I am a wallowing queen. I don’t want to talk it out, I want to wallow and continue just surviving until I don’t have to anymore.
Though having a relationship with the Lord doesn't make life any easier, it gives you something to live for. The Lord will be sad and He will mourn over you not experiencing life. Those truths don't magically fix things and I would never say that they should, but with them I have survived even my worst days. It's motivation if nothing else. It lets me wake up and pray for the joy of the Lord one day at a time.
"And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting ... For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” Hebrews 10:11-14
The priests, the people we would look at nowadays and say, "They love God more than me," even their rituals were never going to take away sin. But Christ’s sacrifice on the cross did and does and always will.
Most of us understand the Lord’s loving sacrifice in our most undeserving states. We were sanctified in that and in our acceptance of the Lord into our lives, but it extends so much further than that. “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” Christ was resurrected and is still sitting at the right hand of God knowing that in His one single sacrifice, He made us perfect. Desirable. In all that we are; in all our disaster, our diseased malfunctioning brains and in all our sin; His plan was to make us, being sanctified by our relationship with Him, perfect for all time. No matter the biological battles inside our heads.
It's so important to know that in our struggling, He will always see us as His beloved children, even if the world is quick to tell us we're doing Christianity wrong.
I've never had a reason for the way that I feel, but I do have a reason to know I am not a disaster. I am not nor have I ever been broken. I have a disease and I have Jesus and I am perfect in Heaven through that.
