Depression
Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Nehemiah 8:10
”Depression
We hate to admit it but life will just out-in-out kick you in the pants sometimes. You try to put on a brave face, shoulder your load and march forward like a good soldier. But after we've stumbled through the muck life sends us and over the dead bodies of friends and family lost in the fray we just want to throw it all down and lie quivering in the mud. I have known depression intimately, it has followed me like a fiest dog nipping at my heels as long as I can remember.
When I'm talking about depression, I don't mean the wimpy chemically induced depression that comes from too much alcohol or ego, or the inherited mania that affects some poor souls in the cradle and follows them all their lives. Maybe what I am talking about is more battle fatigue than anything else. When you feel like one more loss, one more searing, blinding, heartache will send you over the edge.
Well meaning comrades look at you oddly and are quick to point out little trite observations that all is well. They remind you that you have money in the bank, that the kids are doing okay and no one is in the hospital. "By George" we live in a free country and go to a good Church. But when the darkness of depression comes these words fall hollow and lifeless to the ground. Mere words cannot dispel the pain when it comes.
As we travel through life things happen, some people are able to brush them off like trash clinging to their trousers. Others carry them greedily tucked away in their hearts to torment them all their days.. never underestimate another person's pain, or make "light" of it. You cannot fully understand what another person feels. Remember that many of us "internalize" what they feel and hide their heartbreak behind smiling faces,
I am an expert you know, at pushing things back to deal with tomorrow, I push and push but somehow it all comes tumbling out. It tumbles out in the dark of night while I lay upon my bed. I find myself waiting (not to patiently) just to go home.
Yet I look to God, he is my friend and He somehow keeps me standing in spite of all I've been through, but He does not take the pain away. Nehemiah 8:10 tells us. "Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." But how does one gain an importation of that Joy? Especially when one feels so weak they cannot breathe. Yet I believe comfort and strength can be had a such times.
The Bible tells us in Romans 8:28 that "we know all things works together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose"." I never really understood what that meant until I almost died and had to spend six months in the hospital. it has been said that God does not bring heart ache and sorrow on us but sometimes for his own purposes he allows it.
”Depression
We hate to admit it but life will just out-in-out kick you in the pants sometimes. You try to put on a brave face, shoulder your load and march forward like a good soldier. But after we've stumbled through the muck life sends us and over the dead bodies of friends and family lost in the fray we just want to throw it all down and lie quivering in the mud. I have known depression intimately, it has followed me like a fiest dog nipping at my heels as long as I can remember.
When I'm talking about depression, I don't mean the wimpy chemically induced depression that comes from too much alcohol or ego, or the inherited mania that affects some poor souls in the cradle and follows them all their lives. Maybe what I am talking about is more battle fatigue than anything else. When you feel like one more loss, one more searing, blinding, heartache will send you over the edge.
Well meaning comrades look at you oddly and are quick to point out little trite observations that all is well. They remind you that you have money in the bank, that the kids are doing okay and no one is in the hospital. "By George" we live in a free country and go to a good Church. But when the darkness of depression comes these words fall hollow and lifeless to the ground. Mere words cannot dispel the pain when it comes.
As we travel through life things happen, some people are able to brush them off like trash clinging to their trousers. Others carry them greedily tucked away in their hearts to torment them all their days.. never underestimate another person's pain, or make "light" of it. You cannot fully understand what another person feels. Remember that many of us "internalize" what they feel and hide their heartbreak behind smiling faces,
I am an expert you know, at pushing things back to deal with tomorrow, I push and push but somehow it all comes tumbling out. It tumbles out in the dark of night while I lay upon my bed. I find myself waiting (not to patiently) just to go home.
Yet I look to God, he is my friend and He somehow keeps me standing in spite of all I've been through, but He does not take the pain away. Nehemiah 8:10 tells us. "Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." But how does one gain an importation of that Joy? Especially when one feels so weak they cannot breathe. Yet I believe comfort and strength can be had a such times.
The Bible tells us in Romans 8:28 that "we know all things works together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to his purpose"." I never really understood what that meant until I almost died and had to spend six months in the hospital. it has been said that God does not bring heart ache and sorrow on us but sometimes for his own purposes he allows it.
God wastes nothing, we see that in nature even the old dead leaves that fall from the trees to the ground are used as compost to feed both the tree and the seeds for the next generation. Trouble can be a catalyst needed to give birth to needed change in our lives and in the lives of others. Sometimes I think the whole of our very existence is orchestrated to teach us to trust God.
Once on a very bad day as I sat on the foot of my bed and reflected on the sorrow in my life, I asked God about it. And wonder of wonders it seemed he spoke to me. "Did you ever give birth to a child?" (He knew the answer but he was trying to make a point). "Yes" I answered, "Did it hurt?" He asked, "Yes" My heart spoke once again.."As your pain brought fourth a child so your present pain is birthing something else in you." I understood then as I never had before.
When we come to God he takes us as we are, he doesn't change who we are no more than you would change your children. We take life as it comes and use the tools God gave us to get by. Each of us process pain in his own time and way, Would I go back and live my life over again, minus the pain? No, I think not, when I signed up to follow Christ I signed up for the whole package whatever that might be and so I'm just going to have to trust Him. But there are things that help make things better.
Depression is aggravated by a lack of sleep, do what you can to get enough sleep if you are troubled by depression. Distraction helps too, during one of the most heartbreaking times in my life, when I could not pray and the pain clawed at my chest almost all my waking hours, I binge watched Netflix (I do not recommend this)but I was able to distract my mind long enough to keep it. Keep people around you as best you can and do what you can to serve others, in helping others we are often able to forget our own problems at least for a little while. Join a good, friendly Church.
Praise music is perhaps the best answer when you cannot find strength to pray and the Bible is a comfort in such times. I believe God often stands watching in the shadows, protecting and helping but letting us gain the strength that can be found in pain. Sometimes come what may all we can to is what the Lord told us to do, “Take up your cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23)?"
Lord take away pain
The cry of man’s anguish went up to God,
‘Lord, take away pain!’
The shadow that darkens the world you have made,
The close-coiling chain
That strangles the heart, the burden that weighs
On the wings that would soar.
‘Lord take away pain from the world you have made
That it may love you more!’
Then answered the Lord to the cry of his world:
Shall I take away pain,
And with it the power of the soul to endure,
Made strong by strain?
Shall I take away pity that knits heart to heart,
And sacrifice high?
Will you lose all your heroes that lift from the fire
White brows to the sky?
Shall I take away love that redeems with a price,
And smiles at the loss?
Can you spare from your lives that would climb into mine
The Christ on the Cross?
– – – poem quoted in the book ‘Take my hands’ by Dorothy Clarke Wilson
The cry of man’s anguish went up to God,
‘Lord, take away pain!’
The shadow that darkens the world you have made,
The close-coiling chain
That strangles the heart, the burden that weighs
On the wings that would soar.
‘Lord take away pain from the world you have made
That it may love you more!’
Then answered the Lord to the cry of his world:
Shall I take away pain,
And with it the power of the soul to endure,
Made strong by strain?
Shall I take away pity that knits heart to heart,
And sacrifice high?
Will you lose all your heroes that lift from the fire
White brows to the sky?
Shall I take away love that redeems with a price,
And smiles at the loss?
Can you spare from your lives that would climb into mine
The Christ on the Cross?
– – – poem quoted in the book ‘Take my hands’ by Dorothy Clarke Wilson