God doesn't prescribe a happy life. Depression is a form of suffering that can't be reduced to one universal cause. This means that family and friends can't rush in armed with THE answer. Instead, they must be willing to postpone swearing allegiance to a particular theory, and take time to know the depressed person and work together with him or her. What we do know is that depression is painful, and, if you have never experienced it, hard to understand. Like most forms of suffering, it feels private and isolating.
It is common for spiritually mature men and women who feel depressed to think that they are doing something wrong. After all, Scripture is filled with words of joy and happy hearts. When they aren't feeling happy, they feel that they must be missing something or that God is punishing them until they learn some hidden lesson. On earth, however, God doesn't prescribe a happy life. He doesn't legislate emotions. Look as some of the Psalms. They are written by people of great faith, yet they run the emotional gamut. This one even ends with "darkness is my closest friend" (Psalm 88:18). When your emotions feel muted and always low, when you are unable to experience the highs and lows you once did, the important question is, "Where do you turn - or, to whom do you turn?"
- by Edward Welch, from Heart of the Matter
I was pretty much depressed from about age 13 on until I was well into my forties. A number of causes, I think. Mom was depressed for as long as I knew her. She didn't have a great life with my dad, or before that either, so I never really saw her happy. She was a Christian, though -- I think she wandered a bit, but came back.
ReplyDeleteSo a component of depression, in my case, may be hereditary. When I discovered Prozac in my early forties, I thought I had discovered the sweet mystery of life. I would have smoked it if I could. I had to get off it -- weight gain -- but at least it showed me what it felt like not to be depressed.
From there it was cognitive therapy for several years. But what had a noticeable effect was a good church. I think bad theology was the biggest single source of my own depression. Looking back, it was like the old George Gershwin tune -- "They're singing songs of love, but not for me." I believed in God, I believed in Jesus, but when I read the Bible, the hope of salvation isn't what I came away with, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth I was going to feel when I wasn't forgiven. I had felt this way since I was a child. I was afraid to let Mom out of my sight, because I figured she was a shoo-in for Heaven, and when she starts to disappear, I'll just grab her sleeve, or something. I was terrified of Judgment Day.
Good theology brought me back. I can't say I never get depressed anymore, but there's usually a specific reason for it now. And I have my martinis to keep me happy.
Thanks, Lee. Sorry to hear about your suffering. Theology does matter. When I was a Baptist, I was always worried about the souls that I didn't save. Reformed theology took that burden off of me. I felt like I could breathe again.
ReplyDelete> When I was a Baptist, I was always worried about the souls that I didn't save.
ReplyDeleteI've heard about that with other folks. You too, now.
I worried about that as a kid, but fear of my own situation drowned all that out. I could never square the circle. If I'm saved, I'm a new person, one who no longer wants to sin. But I did want to, and I did sin. Each day was just another day filled with more sinning, and the backlog was killing me.
So obviously the prayer of salvation didn't take. So I prayed it again. But wait! Now I was showing a lack of faith.
Literally: damned if you do, damned if you don't.
We hadn't been in Virginia Beach for very long, maybe a year, when Debbie and I attended a Baptist church. The preacher gave a sermon on the grain parable, where some got lodged in the rocks and give no fruit.
I remember walking out to the car with Debbie and I just started sputtering with rage. It's about the most angry I've ever gotten. "What am I supposed to do with that!?" I yelled. It's hard to remember my specific complaint, but only the general feeling that it doesn't matter what I do, I'm not going to be saved. I knew I didn't deserve it.
Voila. I've attended several Baptist churches and never found one that was any help at all in understanding that there's this thing called a sanctification process and how to approach it.
It took years, but finally one day, my fear was gone. And with it, so was most, if not quite all, of my depression.