I can feel it lifting, like how amazing you feel the first
time the baby sleeps through the night- refreshed.
I can feel it lifting, like the time I cut off a whole foot
of my hair – lighter.
I can feel it lifting, like the first time you laugh out
loud after a long day at a funeral – stabilized.
I can feel it lifting, like how the pregnant humidity breaks
after it finally rains – relief.
I can feel it lifting, like a balloon floating slowly up
into the sky – calm.
I’m so glad I’m a
part of the family of God
I’ve been washed in
the fountain, cleansed by His blood
Joint heirs with
Jesus as we travel this sod
For I’m part of the
family, the family of God! (Bill & Gloria Gaither Gospel Song)
I was dragged for a walk through the valley this week.
Depression strikes, and for the many out there who also suffer from it, you
know just what that valley is like. Dark and exhausting, detached and
unmotivated, irrational and sad with new grief lurking around every corner. My
desire to do normal things evaporated into thin air and I spent several days
simply surviving until I could take my next nap or go to sleep for the night.
Not a great place to be with two babies and a load of responsibilities, right?
The depression times are the hardest times for me to pray.
Not only is my thinking foggy, but my connection to myself, to those around me,
and to God is elusive; I just can’t seem to get a grip on anything. My usual
love of devotional life is watered down to a silent acknowledgement that God is
God, I am a mess, and it will pass, because it always does. He does not require
any more of me in these times. He takes into account my pitiful state and
simply carries me along, like the twig floating on the river.
Depression is the epitome of the rock and the hard place,
because it’s so silent that no one knows about it unless you tell them. But to
tell them, to actually talk about it, is agony. Yet to silently scream is also
agony.
So there you are, wanting to be known and wanting to hide all at once,
playing the tug-of-war with yourself, wishing someone more reasonable could
make the decision for you. God Help Me.
My need for help won out this week, no doubt with a push
from my Heavenly Father. I slowly forced myself to tell the people around me
that I was struggling. My husband, my blog, then an email.
The results were humbling.
Almost immediately, I was bombarded by emails with kind words, holding
me up in prayer and love and beautiful words of comfort. My mom swooped in and
watched the kids several extra times so that I could have a break. My husband
helped the boys make me a plaque with their handprints on it in messy paint
which reads “Best Mom Ever”. Hugs and
inquiries from many were made on Sunday morning. What more could I ask for?
I’m out of the valley now, but if I learned anything this
time, it was the value of asking for help. I would rather not, most of the
time. I would rather simply pray to God for help, and have Him drop virtue and
strength directly out of the sky and into my soul, so I could then stand up,
refreshed, and once again take on the world.
Sometimes my expectations are so askew that I can’t even see
God answering my prayer right in front of me. I pray for help, and I look for
it – where, in the sky? Or I still think it’s going to be something I dig deep
down out of myself. But it comes from others, from other people who love God
and love me.
There are people I know, people we all know and see every
day, people we love, who see no use in the community of believers. Not only do
many think they don’t need God, but they have also convinced themselves that
they don’t need others either. So a type of flying by the seat of the pants
occurs as they make decisions based solely on self, listening to their
self-based feelings for guidance. I have
been there.
And I can still go there, to the altar of the almighty self, trying
to pull myself up by the almighty bootstraps. The truth? A lot of times I don’t
even remember that I need to wear boots because it’s cold out, let only worry
about my bootstraps…I need a lot of help.
So the world tells us you can only trust yourself, but we
say we love each other unconditionally. The world speaks self-reliance, but we
encourage each other to ask for help. The world says keep what you work for
because it’s yours, but we give it
away. The world says get yourself
together and put your happy face on, and we hold each other up in prayer as we
struggle and wrestling with life together.
This is Jesus’ commandment brought to life in our
present-day world that we are so blessed to experience firsthand as children of
God: “A new command I give you: Love one
another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men
will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John
13:34-35)I am surrounded by a divided culture full of anger and fighting. No
doubt as Christians we are not always faithful to Jesus’ command and we fight
even amongst ourselves. But as part of His Church, we get to see glimpses of
this love for Him and for one another, glimpses of what He intended for us all along.
And then there is the other part – the part that says the
world will know we are His disciples by our love for one another. Our internal
love for Christ spills out into active love for the people around us and the
world sees and comes to believe. And we get to be a part of it all as He uses
us for His good purposes! How awesome is our God?
So I am surrounded by a culture of ME, but I am so blessed
to serve and take part in a community of believers whose overarching theme is
WE. This week I could not help but hurt
for the many people who struggle all alone. When I struggle, if I ask for just
the tiniest bit of help, I can immediately rest in the knowledge that a small
army of saints is praying for me, loving me, thinking of me, and interceding on
my behalf for mercy from Jesus. Like
just peeking out from behind a dark curtain and being surprised to see a
beautiful sunset with a landscape of rolling hills, fields, and flowers – a
little bit of asking for help goes a long way. It is indeed so sweet to live
the countercultural life of the Christian.
Can you remember your own dark times when you were upheld by
the small army of saints around you? This week ask yourself, how can I uphold a
brother or sister who is struggling? The small acts of many can make an
enormous impact in the life of one who is facing difficulty.
