Depression & Joy

 Before I got saved, I had the idea that Christians didn't get depressed - I mean, not deeply, darkly depressed. I grew up as a victim of pamphlets with illustrations of only-happy Christians.  Happy, happy happy, joy, joy, joy, all the day long!  Well, I know now how false that is. At least part of it.

I am once again in the midst of one of my dark struggles with depression and I had to see my doctor. She's great and suggested the various options for getting through it this time. One of the questions a doctor always asks a depressed patient is if they feel like harming themselves. My answer: When I die, if someone says it's a suicide, call in the police! She knows that I am a Christian and that suicide is the one thing I would never do so we both did get a little smile that day.

I've struggled with what's called "mood disorder" all my life but things got worse when I was diagnosed with this autoimmune situation. But somehow my depression, no matter how bad it gets, does not cancel out my joy. It's hard to explain but there it is.

One day, chatting with a neighbor at the mailbox, I could tell she was feeling very down. A lot of people in my building are in their late 70s and 80s - a few are in their 90s - and it's tough getting older at any rate but especially when you are on a really limited income. Some of my neighbors - like the woman I mention - have outlived all their friends and some of their children. This lady is someone who had a really busy life and career as a mom and a teacher. These days, she is quite alone and, I think, bored. At the mailbox, we chatted about the up-and-down weather we've been having and I mentioned that if she was planning to go out anywhere, she should do it before the temps went back down. She said that she never goes out anywhere but to doctors' appointments because she has nowhere else to go. She seemed so lost and sad that it broke my heart.

This woman has a depression worse I think than my own. She once told me that when she lost her only child (he was fairly young at 53) just before she moved here, and she never really got over it. She was already a widow and her health is not awful but not great. She'd lost her one sibling but had hopes of spending her retirement with her spouse at least. She has no grandchildren and her one nephew (or niece?) lives overseas.

So here we are, two depressed older women - without spouses or kids. But she is depressed with no joy.

I have shared my faith with her, bringing it up during one of our casual chats about our common woes. She didn't seem interested and told me that she has never been "into church and all that". Ever since then, I have been trying to find a way to tell her that faith and hope are not about a building. Shame on me that I'm having trouble working that into one of our chats.

Thinking about people like this woman, I wonder if a doctor has ever asked her about her desire to live or die. I'd like to think that a doctor - any of her doctors - will see the signs of her despair and reach out with help.

For me, even though I am lucky to have such a doctor, my faith is my main lifeline. 

In the darkest kind of depression, I can hold onto the knowledge that my life has meaning. My existence here might not be as impactful as anyone else, but God has me here. There are times when I should have died - from doing crazy stuff in my youth to running into and with the wrong kind of people to just being a breath away from dangers I didn't even know about - but, for this moment, I am here. I matter to God if I never matter to anyone else. And that gives me joy and wonder that maybe I won't understand until my afterlife.

So today, I am thinking of all the people who struggle with their physical, mental, and emotional ailments. I am trying to remember to pray that they find Jesus and through him, peace.

I was trying to remember the verse that applies to this and just looked it up:

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. 

And the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7 MKJV) [my bold]

This is something I never understood when my mother spoke of it until I turned to God and gave my heart to Jesus. I hope that it touches someone today.

Peace

--Free

How Good God Is...

Back when I was young, I remember sitting in church and hearing one of the old sisters singing a song that went something like "I just want to tell you how good God is." I don't remember any of the other words - partly because I was young and took everything for granted, including God's goodness, and partly because the old sister hummed most of the song. At any rate, I was thinking about that song this morning because of something that happened.

I've posted on my different blogs about my sorry financial state. It's still pretty sorry, but at church on Sunday, I stepped out in faith and just about emptied my wallet into the offering. I don't know how much it was - maybe eight or ten dollars.

The service was really a blessing because of the testimony of a woman who was visiting with her missionary husband. She talked about how she married him 43 years ago when she was nineteen and he was a youth pastor. She told how she never liked being a pastor's wife because she never felt she had a role that she fit well (she couldn't sing or play the piano and she disliked having to speak before congregations). Then she talked about how she and her husband lost their 23-year pastorship of a church in a place she loved. As usual, when the one bad thing happened, other bad things hit them: divorces and death in the family, etc. Finally, her husband was appointed a leadership role in the mission field. Their new home base: California - where the woman had been born and had never liked and had hoped never to live there again.

The most important part of this woman's message - important because it seemed to be so right for me at this time in my life: We can't always be in the circumstances we want for ourselves, but we have to learn to be whole and joyous in the Lord where we are right now.

She said that she had spent all these years feeling as if she were not really living but just existing ("just breathing in and out," is how she put it), wishing for something different. Then she said that once she realized that, you know what, this is her life, she was able to let go of wanting something else and being joyous in the moment. She said that once she realized that, everything changed for her. She said that these are now the sweetest years of life with her husband and their circumstances.

Wow.

I sat there and thought about how I have been wishing for my circumstances to improve. You know: once Tim and I get a place, once we get "on our feet again," once we have more money.... Well, guess what? We need - I need - to find a way to be more joyous in the place I am right now. I might not live to see circumstances change for Tim and myself. I just need to be here, with God, with joy and with as much as I can bring to be a joy to other people.

This moment we have right now is IT until we get to Heaven and have eternity. There really is no promise of "more," "different" or "better."

That's the first part of what I wanted to tell you. The next part, I won't really go into except to say that God blessed me with a little bit of money. Not much, but enough to cover some of the necessities I usually have to struggle to keep up.

So, I just want to tell you how good God is. I am praying that He blesses that woman for her testimony and I hope it touched other people in the congregation who needed to hear it.

"Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is forgotten before God. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than man sparrows." Luke 12:6-7

Peace
--Free