We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t broken… We’re not keeping this quiet, not on your life. Just like the psalmist who wrote, “I believed it, so I said it,” we say what we believe… Every detail works to your advantage and to God’s glory: more and more grace, more and more people, more and more praise! So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. (2 Corinthians 4:1-16 MSG)
The long and tedious project of recording my book for the purpose of creating an audio book is almost complete (Discovering God’s Grace in Depression). It has been a labor of love for those who find it difficult to read because they suffer from depression and cannot concentrate long enough to read lengthy chapters, but also for those who’d prefer to listen to a book rather than read it.
As a gift to anyone who cannot wait to hear some encouragement for today, I am offering my final chapter to you here. My prayer is that you may find hope and peace in the arms of your Savior and that you would sense the smile of Jesus upon you. God bless you. Heidi
Chapter 39: The Hope of Peace (From the book: Discovering God’s Grace in Depression, written by Heidi Austel. All rights reserved.)
P.S. Look for the audiobook later this year on Audible. It may also be acquired directly from my book’s website (DiscoveringGodsGraceInDepression.com) when it is released in simple audio files. More details regarding that will be ironed out at a later date.
Ultimately, there comes a time when you need to decide, if the sweet smile of Jesus aloneis enough for you. Cling to Him alone. He is your hope! He is your peace! He is your enough!!!
I asked my husband if I could walk alone today; I had a feeling God wanted to tell me something and I wanted to be able to hear it. This is what I believe He wanted me to wrestle over.
We Christians speak of OUR living the “victorious Christian life,” or that we are supposed to, at least. ALL. THE. TIME. But is this just another way we have been deceived to become glory grabbers? When people say, “go live a victorious Christian life” or go live out the victory, or sing about all the victory we have, pumping their fists in the air like we are at a sporting event, etc, it is generally a call to not sin and to perfect ourselves because Christ has given us infinite power to achieve less sin and infinite goodness.
But after a biblical word study this morning, I don’t see a believer’s “victorious Christian life” something we are called to pursue. In fact, all the forms of the word victory (that aren’t speaking of winning an Old Testament battle) speak of what GOD has accomplished (the victory He has achieved over sin and death and defeat). We are beneficiaries of the victory Christ has achieved FOR US!
What does this victory mean? We don’t have to fear death; HE took the sting out of death. (I Cor 15:54-57). We don’t have to fear judgement for our sins; HE has reconciled us and made our sin powerless to separate us from Him. (I Cor 5:18-20) We live in the benefits of HIS victory! Even 1 John 5 speaks of a victory that is ours because of our salvation, the salvation that is ours because HE overcame the world. We no longer belong to the ruler of this world.
When we bask in the glory of victory that is OURS, we run the risk of glorying in our own works and our own power and our own strength to walk the straight and narrow, otherwise known as a “theology of glory” (a theology of self). It is not a theology of the cross which recognizes that God is the provider of what we need because of what HE has done or is doing FOR US!
When we seek to live on the mountain of “victorious Christian living,” we have a mindset of what is called “high anthropology.” This says, man can achieve what he puts his mind to by grit and determination, even though they may be good things. Focused on OUR obedience and performance.
While “Low anthropology” recognizes that we are incapable of the 100% righteousness and perfection that God ultimately required, and thus any demonstration of good works or good behavior is always simply a gift to an undeserving sinner because of the victory Christ won FOR US on the cross. Focused on God’s deliverance.
Be careful that you do not glory in YOUR victorious-ness. Any victory you think you have is simply what Christ has accomplished FOR YOU. That glory has nothing to do with what YOU have done or the way YOU seek to live. It has to do with a God who overcame FOR YOU to give you a life where death no longer stings and your continual sin no longer condemns you. Victory is not a standard to which we aspire to achieve. Victory is a blessing we live in because Christ was victorious FOR US!
“But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29).
I’ve been thrust into some real introspection recently. It’s been said that though we have been saved by grace, we can’t just live by grace. There are too many imperatives in the Bible. So, we need to live by “grace, BUT…., here is what we have today DO to live the Christian life.” Well, more than that, we should be aiming to live “like Christ.”
First of all, can you hear yourself right now? “Like-Christ”?! Like the perfect, only Holy One, Redeemer, Sanctifier, Perfect Sacrifice? That Christ? Well, good luck with that!
For 10 years now I’ve tried to describe what God so painfully taught me about Himself and His relationship of grace with me. But it often falls on deaf ears. Because once they think they have the Christian life figured out, their formulas work, or what they believe is God’s formula works for them, they feel like they’re getting better, and sinning less. What these people often say is that it works because the Holy Spirit living in them helps them NOT sin. This is assumption! Why? Because they feel pretty good about where they are right now in their Christian experience.
I push back against that? Why? Because where they say the Holy Spirit is doing the work, they can’t prove that. (I know! I can’t disprove that, but stay with me.) Do you know why I make this statement? Because this was MY life! This was MY formula! This is what I taught as God’s formula. And you know what? My Christianity worked under this paradigm! Because, I could make it work.
What is the real reason? I was a Pharisee. It worked because if you knew me 20 years ago, my life was filled with rules! With standards! With high convictions! No, I wasn’t sinless, but I felt if I disciplined myself to read the Bible, the Holy Spirit would transform me. So, I read thru the Bible. If I disciplined myself to pray daily and fervently, God would commune with me and I would please Him. So, I’d pray for hours. Once I got started, there was so many things that came to my mind and I didn’t want to forget one of them. Then, my list of standards and convictions started to grow; these strict convictions, I believed, would keep me away from the edge. Then, I’d be less likely to sin.
But here’s the real reason I thought that the formula worked. Because I could beat my body and will into submission and keep myself from at least major sin. You see, while I would say it was the Holy Spirit at work in me, the truth was it was MY effort and MY strength and MY discipline and MY doggedness. That is why my Christian life “looked” like it had Holy Spirit infused power. So, I looked at my life, and though I would never say it, I thought I was living right.
But when God graciously removed MY effort, My strength, MY discipline and every scrap of self-will, by giving me the most horrific mental illness that left me incapacitated, my Christianity failed me! This is why I see so many preaching effort and self will. They call it HS power, but the truth is that while Jesus did all that needed to be done to rescue me from my sinfulness, my Christian life still needed ME to bring the team over the finish line. The Holy Spirit wasn’t enough to perfect me; to make my life look “like Christ,” and to be honest, I don’t think that is why Jesus sent Him to be my advocate and helper.
So, when I got depressed, I got angry at God! He was a bait and switch God. He gave me a formula to get Holy Spirit improvement for my behavior, and then He denied me the ability to become “better.” That formula didn’t work anymore. So, I began asking questions about God. Would the God I loved, served, sacrificed for, laid down my life for, gave up so much for, REALLY call me to a Christian faith that I could no longer live up to to please God? Would He REALLY deny me the very thing He called me to do- to stop sinning and continue improving in the good works department!? Why would He take away my ability to live up to the highest of standards, you know, works that prove my faith?
You know what He was doing? Revealing my self-righteous heart. So I had to ask myself, what if that formula and that paradigm was never what God wanted of me and it was not the Christian life He was calling me to. I discovered that there was so much of my effort and my works in my Christian life that I didn’t even know it. I always thought it was Holy Spirit power. But in truth, it was necessary by living right to bring the whole team over the line with MY discipline and MY self control.
My problem now is that millions of Christians don’t realize that what they call Holy Spirit power might just be a strong constitution. A disciplined life (health, wealth, fitness, etc). A moral compass, morality. And they feel so good about their good life that they sacrifice to live out. And do you know what? They will NEVER see that they feel morally superior because they DO have the strength and doggedness to keep living that good life. And until God pulls the rug out from under their strength and their own “can-do religion,” they will keep looking down on the weak among them, and justify it by saying it is the Holy Spirit helping them live and maintain that better life..
Does the Holy Spirit work in our hearts and minds to call us into obedience? Yes, of course! But I think a lot of Christians are walking around just like Islamists and Buddhists and all other faiths who are trying to work to please their God, and after beating their body into submission by being deliberate and strong and disciplined, they are calling it “God’s blessing of improved behavior/living.”
And the church of today is going to keep preaching this good behavior via good disciplinary habits of right living is a work of the Holy Spirit. So, walk it back, church? If your behavior doesn’t improve, then you’re not living right. You’re not walking in the Spirit! Because the formula always works IF you are self-controlled. Well, and if it doesn’t, you dig down deep and try harder, despise yourself, beat yourself up, and sit in ashes.
The truth is that IF those in the church try hard enough, they can achieve better behavior. But you know what? It just makes them a “whitewashed tomb.” There has been no heart change. And this is what God is after. A heart in love with Him and an embrace of “grace only” living because of all Jesus did for us. Better behavior can be a sham, and there is no person who would be most surprised that than you. The heart is deceitful and it wants the glory. What if better behavior isn’t what God is after, after all? Just something to think about.
Matt 23:27-28 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.”
My heart is heavy today. I’m not depressed, but there is a brokenness emerging from deep within that has me feeling gutted. I’m not sure why really. So, here in this blog, I’m going to unload this brokenness for my very few “subscribers.” Maybe you will pray that the Lord will encourage my heart, today.
“Lord, why did you ask me to spend so many years of my life to detail what you taught me? Why did you ask me to do something that would cause me so much embarrassment and pain? It guts me over and over and over again. I wish I could just crawl into a hole and disappear.”
"O Lord, You have deceived me and I was deceived; You have overcome me and prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; Everyone mocks me. For each time I speak, I cry aloud; I proclaim violence and destruction, because for me the word of the Lord has resulted in reproach and derision all day long. But if I say, “I will not remember Him or speak anymore in His name,” then in my heart it becomes like a burning fire, shut up in my bones; and I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot endure it. For I have heard the whispering of many…Denounce him; yes, let us denounce him!” All my trusted friends, watching for my fall, say: “Perhaps he will be deceived, so that we may prevail against him and take our revenge on him.”… Why did I ever come forth from the womb to look on trouble and sorrow, so that my days have been spent in shame?" Jeremiah’s Complaint (Jeremiah 20:1-10,18)
Praise the Lord, God healed me of my depression of 12 years in 2014. I returned to Facebook to begin to boldly make corrections to the false beliefs that were being proliferated on social media about depression, and much to my surprise, people seemed to lap it up, as I was uncovering so many of the mysteries of depression. Depression is so completely “alien” to those who have never experienced it. I felt the first thing that needs to happen is that believers and the church need to understand what is actually broken to actually be of any help to the depressed; and I experienced so much emotional abuse from the church because they just had no idea what they were doing in terms of the depressed.
I attempted to clear up on Facebook what about depression devastates your spiritual life, just as much as it devastates every other part of your life. It isn’t because depression is a sin. It is because so much of your spiritual health needs a healthy mind to function properly. This was harder to understand for people, but some said they appreciated the insight; I mean who knows, really because Facebook is Facebook (those “likes” and “loves” are really worthless indicators of appreciation).
I began to share that BECAUSE of this helplessness in depression, God showed me that so much of what is being taught in our churches is behavior-focused and not God-focused. It’s so important to embrace the gospel of Jesus’ righteousness, His grace and His mercy if anyone is going to be able to bear up under the weight of depression’s oppressiveness. People seemed to hoorah God’s grace and mercy; few realized that they were actually the ones whose lack of grace and mercy beat down the depressed.
Anyway, about 5 years after God healed me, God prompted me to write my story. All of it. How it started. What it looks like from inside the illness. What made my spiritual life nearly impossible in the pit of depression. What God taught me about Himself and His incredible love, compassion, grace and mercy during those awful years. And most importantly, how God revealed to me how much of my former Christian experience taught me to build my spiritual life upside down, inward-focused on behavior and not upward-focused on God, and how that had to change before I could begin to make peace with what could have possibly been a lifetime of that hellish existence. It took me three years to exhaustively detail the testimony of my depressive illness and God’s retraining me to embrace the gospel. Finally, it was finished.
At that time, social media told me I had about 700 “friends.” (Don’t ever trust social media.) I had so many “likes” and “loves” and “atta-girls” on Facebook. I thanked God that maybe reading my book would help the Christian community understand depression and be able to better help the depressed in their families and churches. You know what happened? Crickets……….
Now, I admit that my book is LONG…. It is exhaustive. I get that. But there’s something for everyone in this book. It helps the family member understand what is going on behind the curtain of depression, so that they can be a better support to their depressed family member. Same with friends. It helps pastors who have no idea how much they are hurting the depressed. And it shares with the depressed how I learned to cope with the insidious illness both physically, mentally, and most important, spiritually. Personally, I believe that if people would actually read what God told me to write, it could be a very powerful resource. But… for the most part … crickets…..
Evidently, people aren’t interested in reading about depression, nor reading how to actually support friends and loved ones with depression. I don’t have any former ministry leaders or pastors who want to read my testimony, nor learn from what God taught me during that period of suffering, nor are they willing to invest in reading what could help them minister to the depressed. Evidently, they have it all figured out, already. And, to my regret, my story is too long for a deeply depressed person to read. All that work—all that heartache, now has no meaning for anyone, and once again, the depressed have little hope of being understood or ministered to in any beneficial way. It breaks my heart. I’m sorry, my depressed friends, that I have failed you.
I feel like the weeping prophet, Jeremiah. Sigh. At times, I’m even angry that God asked me to write something so personal that nobody would be willing to read. The writing was guttural, reliving it and trying to detail what nobody outside of depression understands. So, there it is…my heartache. Posted on this ‘lil ‘ol blog of mine.
After four years of writing and remembering and agonizing over every word, my story is finally available in paperback and kindle on Amazon. I’m hoping to release an audiobook in the future.
It’s exciting as well as scary that my story will be available for the world to read. The whole good, the bad, the ugly. But the gospel and the grace of God overshadows it all. The gospel is this: “when we could do nothing to rescue ourselves, God did what had to be done as our substitute, so that we can be at peace with God.” And, it really does change everything.
All my failures, all my inadequacies, all my “not-good-enoughs,” and all the frustrating helplessness I felt during my depressive illness were washed clean by the grace of my Savior, Jesus Christ. The sad thing is that I floundered for about 5 years before discovering that I could find relief in the grace of God. God allowed me to experience my depressive illness, I believe, so that he could first help me see my own self-righteous, Pharisaical heart. Unable to rely on my own strength, in my weakened condition, He could finally start to do what would heal my heart. He placed me into a weakened position because He knew it was the only way I’d give up on ME trying to save myself, so that He could show me the power and strength of my Savior, the preciousness of the gospel and the significance of the cross.
His gifts of grace, kindness, mercy and unconditional love helped me to bear up under the crushing weight of the emptiness and despair of clinical depression. His sweet Spirit kept whispering, “Endure, my child;’ I am doing something new.” What was that new thing? He wanted my heart! Not my perfect behavior! He wanted me to long for a relationship with Him.
Whereas I had originally believed the Christian experience was all about getting more holy, getting more righteous, and getting stronger in my ability to be victorious in my Christian experience, God wanted me to learn that it wasn’t about me at all! It was all about Him; it was about His glory. It was His story and He was the Hero of that story.
When I discovered that I was no longer condemned for anything I thought or did, that He had justified me, reconciled me, redeemed me and freed me (and those are just the start), I was finally ready to embrace His incredible gifts of grace and mercy. My Shepherd King began to demonstrate to me all of His kindness and compassion which caused me to fall more and more in love with Him. And, isn’t that the greatest commandment anyway?
And [Jesus] answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27 NASB
Contrast what Jesus said in Luke with what God says here: “The Lord said, Because this people draw near with their words and honor me with their lip service, BUT they remove their hearts from me and their reverence for me consists of tradition learned by rote.” Isaiah 29:13 NASB and Jesus repeated it in Mark 7:6 NASB And He said to them, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.'” (Can anyone say OUCH!?)
You see, what is different about my book about depression, is that very rarely will I suggest you have to DO anything! Because focusing on DOING, as it turns out, creates Pharisees which Jesus condemned. But, A) Jesus came that we may know Him and love Him out of a sincere heart devotion. Most churches will tell you if you pray and obey, you won’t experience depression; they push “doing” at all costs. B) But God wants us to understand what He has “already done,” (that is what it means to KNOW Him – His life and His death help us to know Him), to believe in the “already dones” in full faith, and to rest upon the “already dones” when depression beats us into the ground.
The interesting thing about meditating on ONLY gospel-drenched, grace-saturated principles when you are weakened by depression is that one’s heart is drawn to God’s heart out of love. You see, A + B will produce a heart that is MORE in love with God, and is a grateful recipient of His mercy and grace. It produces more of A: Loving Him out with a sincere heart devotion, which is obedience to the GREATEST commandment, according to Jesus. Intriguing huh?
Now, the gospel principles God taught me didn’t take away my depressive illness, but that wasn’t what God wanted most of all-my comfort. But, it sure made depression more bearable. I came out loving Him more deeply, embracing His grace fiercely, and embracing the gospel as the way Jesus wanted us to live. With a healthy mind, the rest comes naturally (the doing is produced as a result of His grace).
But with a depressed mind, it is a life preserver–not a life ring–but that which offers the depression incredible hope and peace that will help preserve their life as they seek to persevere under the most difficult and horrifying of afflictions, to humbly surrender to what God has ordained for them. to have faith to believe He knows what He is doing and to rest in His promises of reconciliation and peace with God.
Finally, out of the blue, God simply healed me. But I came out of knowing that God had set me on a mission. I knew my crucible was not for naught; I was to be His ambassador of grace to the broken. For all the believers out there who think they are beyond grace, beyond mercy, beyond kindness, beyond compassion… you are NOT!
My book tells you my story leading up to my diagnosis and the first 5-6 years of feeling completely lost. (Section 1) It educates loved ones about what it is like to be depressed; I open a window to my soul and show you where the conflicts were and what the wounds of my soul were. I describe how I wrestled over questions about my faith and how I was supposed to reconcile my Christian experience with my illness. (Section 2) Then, finally, I discuss the gospel principles that remade me from the inside out! (Sections 3-4) I return to my story to describe how the gospel and grace freed me from the not-good-enough hamster wheel, how it changed me and how I found the peace I was desperately searching for. (Section 5) Finally, I added 4 chapters of practical suggestions for the depressed, their loved ones and the church. I bet you can guess what they are about… GRACE! (Section 6)
It is crammed packed with Scripture which undeniably backs up the 50 foundational truths about God and His blessings to me (to you, too) that changed me, that freed me, and that helped me endure knowing my Savior wasn’t angry at me, nor was He disappointed in me. I also offer you my list of songs which ministered to me which might minister to you, too.
Buy it! Read it! Let the gospel of His grace renew you, too! Share the link with someone who suffers from the self-condemning voices of depression. Share it with the loved ones who just have no idea what in the world is going on in their loved one’s heads and why they are behaving like they are. And ask your pastor and church leaders to read it, too. If anyone, they need to learn what the depressed need to hear, rather than chasing the broken away with more rules and more demands. The depressed need grace, more grace, and then even more grace, but they rarely find it in the church.
Unless the church “gets it” and loved ones “get it,” the depressed really have no hope of living with this, because they have no support system to help them embrace these gospel principles. How can they embrace relief-giving grace if family and pastors beat them to death with expectations and rules and demands for behavior change?! They need YOU to show them that you are willing to invest yourselves into learning about this insidious illness and learning what is helpful and what isn’t. They need YOU to tell them their own gospel story of Jesus being enough for them and which make impotent all their feelings of not-good-enough. But you need to learn it first for yourself before you can help them. Be prepared for some challenging paradigm changes, though.
Grace is scary for a lot of people; everyone is afraid that if one embraces grace, all hell will break loose and it will create debauchery. But that simply isn’t true. Grace is what enables us to live with life’s difficulties without the self-brutalization of condemnation. Don’t be afraid; you can do it. Read my complete testimony of living with my incapacitating illness by embracing God’s grace and mercy. I truly believe they are key to helping the depressed live with their illness with less self-hate and self-condemnation.
With my last depression (which as I described was a doozy), I re-entered the life of a non-depressed right where I had left off. I was so in love with my Savior. I was committed more than ever to love and serve Him with my life! I was still in love with my husband and we could return to doing the things we used to enjoy doing together! I had a whole new relationship to build with my kids (as they were now adults) and my grandkids who hadn’t known me as anything but, “Oma feels sick today!”
It’s important to remind you that even in my very last depressive episode, I was unable to escape the torment and the lies. I was trapped inside that horrid existence. But as I emerged, I remembered all the things God had taught me during the previous 12 years and to my delight my spirit righted itself. Truly, the Anchor still does hold you even though you don’t even know He’s there. When the storm finally subsides, you might find you haven’t drifted too far from shore, after all.
As I consider all the anger I directed at God for abandoning me, only He knew that within the most violent depression I had ever experienced (to which I almost lost my life,) He was actually healing me! As I reflect, I can’t help but wonder how my life could’ve turned out without my kind, compassionate, prayer-warrior, Aaron!” It is an amazing story of God’s patience, kindness and miracle-working power! He was working behind the scenes through all the incredible, tortuous suffering to accomplish my healing. He was working it for my good! He had it all under His control after all! Wow! And, praise the Lord!
On this side of my experience, I can declare that my soul learned to say, “Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well, with my soul.” Horatio Spafford
A Plea For Compassion
Before wrapping up this blog I want to say a few words about suicide. Even after all the verses I claimed, the spiritual Foundational Truths I learned and how I learned to live with depression in the most self-compassionate way that I could, my final depressive episode made me suicidal. Think about that a minute. You see, most people just can’t comprehend that while a properly functioning mind might be able to reason clearly and integrate spiritual truths, a suicidal individual does not have a healthy functioning brain so they cannot access those spiritual answers that the Christian community thinks should be so simple.
Suicide is the evidence of the desperation of a very sick mind, not the selfish whim of a healthy person. Suicidal individuals aren’t selfish; they are sick. First, I want to make it clear that suicide is never a good solution to one’s suffering. But when I read the harsh and condemning statements made by healthy-minded people, they clearly, after all this time, still don’t truly understand that suicide is the result of a sickness that ended very badly. Many responses are cruel, resentful, angry, and harsh regarding that person’s supposed selfishness and cruelty to abandon their loved ones in such a violent way.
Instead, suicide should make us all break down and weep! These people only considered suicide when their minds could see no other solution to keep on living. What sorrow and sadness that someone had not been able to reach into these people’s suffering and pull them from the flames that licked their feet. I had an incredibly supportive family, but the last episode for me was so intense, in that I spiraled so deep and so fast, I lost all hope and no one could convince me that there was hope, except for my “Aaron” who stepped in to love on me and pray for me. My daughter’s unrelenting confidence and kindness to me and her hope for me likely saved my life.
Anyone who commits suicide is very sick with an illness that no diagnostic machines can measure, as it is all hidden deep inside their brains. It’s a silent killer. The world will never know unless they are listening carefully to their conversations about giving up and the haunting peace that comes from a sense of finality in their statements. This is a call to compassion and empathy. Can you just imagine the depth of suffering in their hearts and minds? Can you imagine the despair that they must have felt to believe that their loved ones would be better off without them? Can you just imagine how distorted, tormented, and twisted their thoughts were to choose death over life?
I wish the world would empathize with that degree of sorrow, sadness, sickness and despair, and weep for them rather than judge them. In fact, rather than allow them to suffer alone or get to that point, reach in and become that someone that they would be willing to confide their thoughts to, and offer them incredible 100% love and grace.
The week was almost done, and I was out walking; Bill would be home soon. Of course, walking is where I could think. I started asking myself, “Why is this depressive event not going away? Why is it so violent and extreme? What makes this particular time so despairing that I’ve actually been trying to come up with a way to kill myself?” While I had longed for heaven before, while I had idealized dying so I could finally be free of my suffering, I hadn’t ever considered the final step, the plan of how I might accomplish it. I hadn’t felt the need to write these kinds of notes before explaining why I might not be around some day because I had never gotten that close. Rereading those notes now, I believe that I was finally trying to say, “I am sorry and goodbye.”
Anyway, I started asking myself, “When did this depressive event begin? When did it start getting this bad? I figured it had been just over a month, which was unheard of in my whole history of depression, 1) that the event would be ongoing and increasing in intensity for over a month, and 2) of course, that it never had felt this severe. And then it dawned on me. I had begun a new drug about six weeks prior, an appetite suppressant that my doctor wanted me to try to kick-start a new diet. I rushed home to look up the side effects. Typical side effects? Nope! Frequent side effects? Nope! Rare side effects? Nope! Extremely rare and potentially deadly side effects? YES! What?!?!?!?!?
I had been enjoying regular weekly weight loss! It’d been years since I had lost 3-4 lbs. a week. Even in my depression, it was satisfying stepping on the scale. Better yet, I had no hunger! My doctor had implied, if I didn’t buckle down and lose the weight, it could kill me. I thought to myself, “If this is the reason for this depressive event, this might kill me!” I spent the night considering which way I wanted to die, by heart attack or by suicide. I texted my daughter first and told her what I discovered. She asked if I was going to stop taking them. I was still torn! Plus, I wasn’t absolutely sure yet that it was the drug. What if I were to stop it on a whim and the drug had nothing to do with it? Then, I texted my husband whom I had hardly texted all week, and asked him what he thought? Did he think it was the drug?
Both of them said, “Toss the drug! It’s not worth it.” It was a weight loss help! It wasn’t directly saving my life! It needed to go! The next morning, with some sadness, because I had tried for so many years to lose this weight, I didn’t take my pill. Nor the next day, or the next. In fact, I never took another pill. Slowly, I started to feel my “self” return. It was slow; in fact, it took about two-three weeks to feel like myself again. In fact, it was about a month before I felt depression-free for the first time in a few months. But I felt like I was back; praise the Lord! When I went back to my doctor, I was his first patient to experience this type of reaction. He sat there in the room and looked through the known side effects, and sure enough read, “Can make existing depression and mood disorders worse.” It is now listed on my chart as an allergy!
My Rescue Came From My Worst Depression
Glad to be relieved of this really bad episode, life went back to normal! My normal, anyway. I had a good week, then expected to fall back into another regular depressive episode the following week, one less severe as was typical. A week went by, then two. Then three! Then a month! I didn’t say anything! For months after that horrible month, I wouldn’t experience another episode of depression. I even experienced some other really difficult physical health issues. Yet, the type of incapacitating sorrow and irritability never returned. It was surprising to both Bill and me but neither of us dared to utter a word about it. We were almost afraid to believe what might be true. We’re not at all superstitious but yet, I think we were both just waiting for the next episode to show up as it had for twelve years. Still we waited, not believing it could be over. Another year and a half would come and go, and normal human emotions of frustration or discouragement would show up, but they felt “normal.” They felt like they had the first 39 years of my life: appropriate, rational and fleeting.
At thanksgiving, our family has a tradition. After dinner, we go around the table and say what we are thankful to God for in the prior year. On Thanksgiving Day 2015, I would announce to my children and my little grandchildren who would not understand what Oma was crying about, “I believe God has healed me of my depression. It has been 19 months since I last experienced an episode of depression.” The entire table began to cry; it had been a terribly long haul and they had all been there. Praise the Lord! God restored my mind and my capacity to reason and to cope and to respond to the Holy Spirit’s promptings. The expected lifelong loop of negative self-hate simply went away.
For those of you whose jaws you need to pick up off the floor, there was a medical reason! In short, I believe this drug so violently affected all my hormones, that it crippled my reproductive system and chemically shut down my hormonal system for good, putting me into menopause. The menopause stopped the cycling, so my body and mind were finally restored to normal functionality. All that suffering just ended because my hormones just stopped.
Back In The Light
I remembered then what the research doctor and researcher had told me back in 2008, 6 years prior, that the current consensus among researchers at that time was that when women with my rare depression went into menopause causing the cycling hormones to stop, that the ravaging mood disorder would dissipate and go away. Remember, he warned me that I should continue to get counseling so that when it did happen for me, I’d be able to find my way back to the life I used to know— that is, I would need to create new pathways to learn how to cope, to make decisions based on my upbringing and my faith, and to be able to know how to make good decisions.
What I was fearful would permanently damage my brain after so many years with depression did not occur because of one thing, I believe. During my years of depression, when I was able to crawl out of the darkness into the light, I devoted my thinking to adjusting my expectations of myself and my view of God. You see, I’d been seeing a different kind of Counselor. God had been renewing my mind, teaching me about Him and His everlasting kindness for me. He was teaching me Foundational Truths which adjusted my view of Him.
God Was Working Behind The Scenes
As I look back, during my depression episodes themselves, I couldn’t see what God was doing in my heart. Even after twelve years of learning how to view my own condition, learning how God might view me and learning about Who God was in His person and character, I could not see those truths, nor could I see Him “inside” the depression. But “in the light” (when I would temporarily emerge clear-headed), deep inside my soul everything was changing; I was being remade. These lessons didn’t deliver me from my depression, but instead it comforted me and gave me an underlying peace about my depression—a hope and a confidence in the One Who knew all and controlled all. God didn’t rescue me from my hell, nor did He tell me to just push past it. He lovingly made a way to make His presence known to me. He simply walked alongside me, working behind the scenes, repairing the broken pieces of my heart and life, and making all things new in my view of Him while all the while He was repairing my own view of me.
God's Grace For The Journey 