The Secret to Joy pt. 1 (Depression exposed)
I am one of those crazy lucky people that was exposed to Christ at a young age, and as a result have walked with God my whole life. Growing up, my Dad was a Pastor, and modeled what it meant to know and follow Jesus for me. He would do evening devotionals with us and I was always so curious about and mesmerized by Jesus. From a very young age I would pray and talk to God, and He would always answer my prayers in miraculous ways. I knew He was real, because I knew HIM. As I’ve grown up in Christ I went from Pastors kid, to Pastor’s wife and now to Pastor. In theory, I should have every reason to be incredibly joyful. I never had any kind of crazy falling away from God. I've never had to stress about where my next meal is coming from (although I've been close). I never struggled with an addiction or had an immediate family member who did. What reason could someone like me ever have to not be joyful?
The truth is, we all have our own struggles. It's not always helpful to compare our situation to someone who's experiencing what might be considered "greater" on the hardship scale. Actually, in terms of healing, it just makes it harder to overcome if you only consider your hardship to be "hardship enough" when it reaches catastrophic levels. You don't need to explain away your pain, because someone else has more. You experience pain, and all pain needs to be paid attention to so that it can healed. Even a small cut on our body can become infected and affect our whole body if we don't give it proper care. The same is true for our emotional cuts. An uncared for emotional cut can infect your whole life.
All that to say, even though I've had a really beautiful and privileged life, I’ve also experienced some devastating hardships and disappointments in life- just like so many of you. Because of that, I've also gone through several bouts of pretty serious depression, and had a very difficult time pulling myself out of it. In fact, I couldn't. I needed help, but when you're in the darkness sometimes you can't even see that you're there. The first time I went through depression, I remember being completely oblivious about it until my doctor (not a counselor, by the way... my FAMILY MEDICAL doctor) looked me in the face and told me that my health indicated that I was depressed. They prescribed me some medication and sent me on my way. That day, I woke up in a big way to what I had let fester in my heart for so long. I tried the medicine for a short time, but when it seemed to make things worse, I decided that didn’t want to be medicated out of my sorrows. Let me be the first to say, I am NOT against medication. It can be exactly what you need, especially if you are trying other things and they are not working. It's OK. In fact, it might be necessary to get you stable enough to be ABLE to work through the larger problem. And that's the bottom line... to work through the depression or anxiety. Outside of a chemical imbalance or neurological diversion, it is very likely a result of some unhealed emotional pain or trauma. Until you work through that, no medicine will help.
For me, the day that doctor told me I was depressed, was the day I realized that I had some unhealed cuts. They had grown. I let them fester. And I knew that these were a result of not receiving the medicine I really needed... internal emotional healing. I knew the God who said He would walk me through every situation and I was finally ready to invite Him in to heal the hurt I had been hiding. I decided that day that I was going to stop pretending that I hadn't had pain... I'd lean deeper into Jesus, seek some Godly counsel and therapy.
More importantly, I had decision to make about what was going to let govern my life. Was I going to let my pain govern it, or was I going to let healing and joy govern it? The funny thing is... I thought that by stuffing that pain down, I was not letting it govern me. I could "put on a happy face and just choose joy (!)"... I thought. But the irony is that by stuffing it, it did the very opposite. What I tried to cover up ended up taking over.
What happened in the next few months was not an easy season of skipping through the daisies with Jesus, but was a grueling time of choosing to trust that God was in control of EVERY part of my life, even the parts I tried to hide. In that season I learned some of the most important lessons that are STILL carrying me through difficult situations.
Stayed tuned for part 2 to hear how God brought me through to the other side.
