I Can Feel It Lifting

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.