Post-Depression Life: An Introduction

 

Job 42:12-17

12 The LORD blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.  

13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters.  

14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch.  

15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.  

16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 

17 And so he died, old and full of years.

 

Again and again, the same scenario played itself out in my life whilst depressed.  Some song, such as Coldplay’s Fix You perhaps, would be blaring through the speakers of my car, sparking my recurring fantasy.  Though the means always changed, whether it be a hidden tumor, some rare disease, some pill, being struck by lighting, or simply just hitting my head, the end result of my fantasy was the same… healing.  I would go from my state of horrific, torturous emotional paralysis and involuntary negativity, and would return again to a normal heart.  The lightning would strike, BAM, and somehow, as if by magic, the hell would be over.  I would be alive again.  I would look in the mirror and see myself.  Not just the physical body, but me.  I would feel me, and everyone around me.  I would be normal, whole again.  

Some five years have gone since my depression subsided.  It has been absolutely wonderful to no longer be under the thumb of such torment.  My heart is overwhelmed with gratitude, joy, and excitement over no longer “living” as I once was forced to.  However, it has looked little like my fantasy. 

One of my best friends just had half of his liver taken out after they found a cancerous mass in it.  As of right now, it looks like he is going to survive completely.  There is great hope that the surgery was the last of it, that the cancer is gone.  Praise God!

However, things will never ever be the same for him.  The surgery may have saved his life, but it also left him with an enormous scar.  He will carry it for the rest of his life.  Not only that, but that surgery was painful, and so is the recovery process.  Think about that for a moment.   Even the process by which healing came hurt, still hurts, and will leave it’s mark on him, both in body and in spirit.  His life will never be as it was.  Every doctor’s visit will be met with a hint of fear of recurrence.  Every decision made form here on out will be made through a lens of cancer.  Can I eat this?  Should I do that?  Can I drink this?  The doctors have given him a list of new guidelines by which he will have to follow in order to ensure he continues.  He will live every single day with the fear of recurrence in his mind.  Over time that fear will be assuaged, but at each occurrence of his body acting up, the fear of recurrence will jump straight to mind.  He may live to be ninety, and never have cancer ever again.  He will still live with the residual scars of it until the day he dies.

Guys and girls, so it is with depression.  In my fantasy, the catalyst would come and wake me up.  Life would go back to the way it was.  The truth is that there is no going back.  I know what they may make you feel.  I know that hurts you.  That is not my intent.  There is life, love, hope, and goodness on the other side.  It is just going to be different than your life was before.  Life is still good for my friend, but it has changed.  My desire is to give you so much hope, but a hope based on what is real.  I want you to thrive in your post-depression life, and that means not being set up for disappointment by not being told what is true. 

Like my friend with his cancer, you will have to change things in order to live fully, things others may not.   You will have scars, big ones.  There will be an enormous healing process that goes on long after you are depression free.  Your mind and heart has been twisted by pain.  That doesn’t come undone overnight.  It takes faith, hope, love, courage, patience and much more.  You will live the rest of your life with a fear of recurrence.  Over time it will get better, but it will always be there. 

Now, go back up and read that passage on Job again.  Feel the hope in those words.  One of the most famous sufferers of all time.  So famous is his suffering we are speaking of it thousands of years later!  After his suffering, Job was given back what was taken.  Now, at first look we just get excited.  With further thought it hits us that what was taken from him was people.  His children died.  Are those people replaceable?  You know they aren't.  Nobody is replaceable.  You can refill an emptied roll, but you cannot replace a person.  Job was blessed.  His life was good!  However, it was not the same ever again.  He was given new life.

So will you be given new life. It's not that what was disappears completely.  There will always be links to who you were.  Our lives are a whole, not just of the moment.  You are no more you now than you were in the past.  You will simply grow and change.  It is only logical.  Let’s start looking at what is ahead, after you are healed.  Let's let go of the parts of the fantasy that are not real... the instant healing, the return to your old life one hundred percent, the miracle pill, and replace it with the truth.  You are in the fight for your life, and even after depression is defeated, your healing will take a long time.  In some ways (some bad, but some GOOD) you will be forever changed.  You will have new insights into the world.  You will have experienced and survived a torture and torment that is daunting.  In many ways I struggle with feeling like a failure, as most of us do.  I have not achieved much of what I wanted.  However, when I reflect genuinely upon what I have come through, when I remember the true depth of the hell I survived, I know that I have already achieved something great.  Every breath, every wondrous emotion, every time I feel love, sadness, wholeness, it is a victory I once thought impossible.  Most people will never know it, and that's okay.  God knows.  He knows my pain, my struggle.  It has not been lost, nor forgotten.  Nor has yours.  Nor has yours.

#7: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression

This is number seven on the list of things to say and not to say to someone with depression, as was posted by health.com.  Here's the link: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  It's a super simple article.  It gives a good and bad example, that's it.  If you missed it, here was the Number Six Thing to Say (and Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  Here's number seven:

What to say:
I can’t really understand what you are feeling, but I can offer my compassion.

What NOT to say:
Believe me, I know how you feel. I was depressed once for several days.

Nicholas L. Laning

This is great, because sometimes I think that we feel like we need to understand to sympathize.  We don't, not fully.  I don't have to experience cancer to hurt for someone who has cancer.  All I have to do is know they hurt, and that hurts me.  It's that simple.  The only way this gets complicated with depression is that people want to understand it so they can actually believe it.  Most people simply don't trust that depression is real.  It is very difficult to sympathize with someone when you feel they can stop the pain.  That doesn't move us toward sympathy.  It makes us angry.  We feel manipulated.  So, behind this is the very simple question... do you believe depression is real?  If so, then you understand that depression is not controllable.  The depressed person can't simply stop it.  They are being tormented against their will.  If you see that truth, then sympathy should be beyond easy.  

I also love this because, again, it does not attempt to fix.  It says that you believe them, and are there for them.  That is the bulk of what they need.  Done!  How easy is that?  Your job is to just believe and be there.  Simple.

Believe me, I know how you feel. I was depressed once for several days.  Sighs.  I understand the heart behind this.  At least, for most people, I think this is said in an attempt to help, to fix.  As I have already said a hundred times though, you can't fix people.  Heck, one of the lowest points of despair in my battle was when my psychiatrist of three years told me he had nothing left for me.  He had used the extent of his knowledge on me, and I wasn't better.  It was brave thing to admit, but it devastated me.  Each week I went in with hope that this next time we would find out what was wrong, that the answer would be found.  So when he said he had nothing for me, my hope faded.  

Point of that story is, if this genuinely talented psychiatrist couldn't fix me, you definitely weren't going to.  Trying to relate is incredibly human, and in a way, really touching.  So, I understand this.  However, it is folly.  You don't have to be depressed to know this.  This line of attack against sorrow comes up empty.  There is a reason people who are battling cancer go to cancer support groups, and that is to be around people who genuinely understand.  

Contrast the what TO say with the what NOT TO say.  One admits a lack of understanding, but is liberal with compassion.  The other falsely claims a knowledge not possessed.  If you wen through a couple of days of depression, I would say that you have a touch of understanding of what I went through.  You would have a clue.  But, if you were to think that a couple of days of depression is equivalent to ten years, then you are a fool.  That's like someone who spent two nights in jail telling someone who just got done doing ten years hard time in maximum security they understand.  No they don't. 

Be encouraged by all of this.  My hope is that as you have read through these responses you will see a pattern, and see just how simple your task is.  In reality, all you have to do as someone who is on the outside is be there.   You don't have to fix.  You don't have to reason away their pain.  You can't.  You can't reason away cancer, or the flu, or any other illness.  this is no different.  You can look up doctors if you feel led.  Buy books.  Admonish your loved one to get outside, to put the donut down and grab an apple, to push themselves to be as social as they realistically can.  Don't get mad when they can't do stuff healthy people do, because they aren't healthy.  Whatever.  Just be there.  Have compassion.  Have compassion.  Have compassion.

Meditate on these words from Romans 12:15...

"Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."

Why Do Men Struggle So Greatly in Understanding Depression?

Picture of Douglas MacArthur from Shorpy.com

“He doesn’t understand.  He thinks it’s just… he thinks I should just get over it.  You know?  He doesn’t understand that it isn’t something I can just get over.  I can’t go to him when I feel like this, I just have to deal with it alone, ‘cause I know he won’t understand.  You know?”

Those are the words of a women explaining to me how her husband has dealt with her depression.

Men are just set up for struggle when it comes to understanding depression.  There are a lot of reasons for this.  Generally speaking, men are less empathetic than women.  We often find ourselves reverting back to football boot camp methods for every kind of motivation.  Someone is struggling?  Can’t seem to fix it?  Then you aren’t yelling and swearing loud enough!  To be fair, this is how we are motivated most frequently when we are segregated by sex.  The peer pressure plus the yelling turns out quite effective… if you are teaching someone how to overcome their fear of getting hit in football, or trying to get someone over the wall on an obstacle course.  I am chuckling thinking about someone employing this technique on someone in depression, simply because it is so awful and absurd, it is ridiculous.

The main reason men are handicapped compared to women in their understanding of depression is because they have never experienced anything like it.  Almost any other pain can be empathized with even if not experienced directly, because it still links in with pain already felt.  For example, I don’t have to have lived through the holocaust to empathize with those who went through it.  Can I know the full breadth of their specific pain?  No way.  But I CAN definitely imagine it.  I can easily picture the faces of my family getting thrown aboard one train as I am thrown aboard another.  I can picture their tattered faces lurch slowly away as the train pulls out of the station, taking them to their death, as I head to mine. 

Depression is not like that.  It is so unique, so different from anything felt previously, that if you haven’t felt it, then your brain will struggle mightily to comprehend it… at all. 

Confession, before I was depressed, I struggled to believe that depression was real.  Irony, I know.  It’s a gift though, as it humbles me to recognize the struggle of those on the outside looking in, particularly men. 

Women, on the other hand, are all familiar with the something happening to your hormones, to your brain chemicals, that changes the way you feel, turning you into a different person.  Women experience this once a month for a majority of their lives. 

Men don’t understand this really either, but here is the kicker… they accept that it is real, and they (if mature) react accordingly.  I’ve never heard a man tell a woman that her PMS isn’t real.  Cowardly men may hide, but that’s only because they know it will go away in a couple of days.

Depression, most likely, isn’t going away in a couple of days.  It needs the attention of every loved one that can be there.  Besides, if men are all about bravery, then this is a time to be brave, because you are being asked to wade into uncomfortable waters.  A piece of encouragement is this though.  You don’t really need to understand depression to help someone in it.  Many men have become incredibly adept at encouraging the women in their lives when they go through PMS.  Our patience grows.  We understand that things are going to be said that are not common, that may even fly in the face of what was said just days ago.  Such it is with depression.  You don’t have to understand depression.  However, you do have to believe it is real, and you have to learn how to encourage your loved one in the face of it. 

Another thing that deters men from being involved with a depressed loved one is that you can’t FIX depression.  My father almost lost his mind as he watched me, his beloved son spiral into the darkness for a decade, and he didn’t have a damn clue what to do about it.  It changed him, crushed him a bit.  I could see it in his face.  He would look at me and it was blank, as he was completely overwhelmed with his inability to duck tape my heart back into my chest, or drain the poison out of my mind.  All he could do was be there.

What he doesn’t know is that my depression would have been years longer if it weren’t for his acceptance of my depression as real.  Not one time did he tell me to get over it.  He did try to convince me I was more okay than I was, but that is what everybody does (makes me angry just thinking about how many times people tried to convince me I was depressed, but not THAT depressed), but when the rubber met the road, he was there with my mom looking up the next doctor, or buying the latest book, or whatever. 

In all of my dealing with those whom are depressed, fathers and husbands have been one of the greatest impediments to healing.  So many people have shared with their inability to move forward, because they are crippled by the doubt and harassment of their ignorant, prideful husband or father. 

I want to remind you that I am not bashing men.  I AM one.  Women are not better.  They didn’t earn their understanding.  It is simply a part of their biological make up.  The point is that the men of this world need to join this fight, now.  You can’t close your eyes on this one.  If your son, daughter or wife is hurting from depression and you’re playing the ostrich, then you are a prideful, hypocritical coward.  Don’t let your ignorance and pride stand in the way of you loving your child, spouse, friend, whomever it is.  It isn’t really that hard.  All you have to do is accept that depression is real even if you don’t understand it.  (statistical reminder, over 100 million people have been diagnosed worldwide.  Seeing as how most deal with depression alone in the shadows, that number is actually much higher.  Are a couple hundred million people all faking it?  Really?)  From there you can grow in patience.  You will strike idiotic phrases like, “just get over it,” out of your speech, and you will instead say things like, “I don’t fully understand it, but I am here for you.  You understand me?  We’re in this fight together.”  And you are, because the truth is it IS a battle, one like you can’t imagine.  You can either be a part of the biggest battle of your loved one’s life, or you can go AWOL and hide in the corner.  What’s it going to be?

The most horrifying part about this struggle that men have with depression is how it affects those men who become depressed.  All of that pride, that fix it attitude, that unbeatable attitude… they are concrete boots… and we’ve been thrown in the ocean.  Men in depression always seem to take the longest to deal with it, because they spend so much time and effort, years maybe, fighting their new reality.  For me, it took a year of feeling the hell of depression before I was worn down enough to admit that there was a problem.  A year!  Gone!  Why?  Because I could fix it.  I just had to push through, pull myself out of it.  Only I couldn’t.  Not only that, but the harder I tried to fight it by not accepting it, the worse it got, the more complex the knot in my mind became.  I truly believe that, had I accepted my depression sooner, I could have gotten help sooner, and I believe years would have been shaved off of my battle.  Years.  I am thirty.  A decade was lost to depression.  That’s a third of my life, and to be honest, a lot of that is my own dang fault.  Those concrete boots have laces.  They can be untied at any time.  I just couldn’t let go of my concrete boots.  I thought they made me a man.  In reality, they nearly drowned me.

Praise God the times are changing with regard to depression, and people are really starting to talk about it and address it.  Thank God that more and more people don’t have to grope around in the dark as I did.  It is a new day.  It is a new battle.  Our Earthly fathers are great, but like us, they are flawed.  Fortunately, we have a Father in heaven who is not flawed, and while He doesn't promise to wave away your pain, He does promise to give you courage while your in it.  He promises to give your pain meaning, something atheism takes away.  He promises that, if you'll just hold on to Him, one day, the pain will stop... in this life or the next.

Close Your Mouth, and Just Listen

Nicholas L. Laning

I am saying this as much to myself as I am to anyone else.  That is not a rhetorical concession, something said to soften what is going to be condescending.  I mean it.  Someone starts talking to me about their problems, and I usually have to reiterate this to myself over and over.   

Nicholas, just shut up.  Stop it.  No.  Maybe there is truth in that thought you want to throw out there, but that's not the point.  Later.  First, listen, and not just with your ears.  Look at their eyes, Nicholas, and see their soul.  Open your heart to who they are, and shut up. 

On it goes, again and again.  To be honest, there are but a handful of people in the world that captivate me, that hold my attention without effort on my part.  I pray daily that the Holy Spirit would change my heart, that more and more people would captivate me, that I could be someone who genuinely loves others, has affection for them.  It is a work in progress.

When I was in the middle of the Abyss, my mother is the person I most went to.  There were a few friends I would share with (Christina (Brandon) Stock, Christine (Hand) Jones , Sarah (Perry) Hardie, to name a few).  Still, more often than not, I went to my mom.  (I will talk about how men and women responded to my depression later)  For the first several years of depression, it was rough.  I would go to her only when I had to, because when I told her, she would just freak out, and make me feel worse.  She would weep at my pain, and then she would try to fix it.  I came to her less and less, and felt more alone, which is exactly what the enemy wants.

Finally, somewhere in the middle of my time in the Abyss, I finally just told my mom that I needed her to stop, and just listen.  It was hard at first.  She felt justified in feeling sad, in weeping, and you know what?  She was, but not to me.  For me, she needed to just listen.  She could cry later to someone who was strong enough to handle it.  Sorrow has a chain.  It goes up, not down.  You don't lay your burdens upon the weary.  You seek the strong, the resolute.  Then when it is their turn to weep, and you are strong, you can return the favor.  It is now my turn to shut my mouth and listen, to be strong for others.

This post is for those of you on the outside trying your dead level best to love someone who is depressed.  Hear this.  More often than not (though surely not always), what is needed is simply for you to listen, and not just with your ears.  I know what I am asking.  No, I don't want you to join in their depression.  What I am saying is that everyone needs to know that someone out their cares.  You don't have to feel their pain to be effective.  Listening is huge.  Yes, they will say crazy stuff.  Unless they say something suicidal (in which case you rebuke them swiftly, as there is no room for such talk to fester), then let them rant.  Once finished, if they seem up to it, calmly tell them it is going to be okay, whether you feel that to be true or not.  You are stronger than they are, so tough.  You can be the difference maker.  God has used less to do more, just read the Bible. 

Boredom and Depression.

Nicholas L. Laning

Boredom is defined as: the state of feeling bored.  Thanks for that awesome definition.  Okay, so the definition of bored is: feeling weary because one is unoccupied or lacks interest in one's current activity.  That seems pretty accurate, don’t you think?  I was listening to a special about boredom on public radio as I was driving home, (Yes, I realize that is nerdy beyond nerdy) and the specialist being interviewed talked about how wide the definition for boredom can get.  One question I found interesting is, does it hurt?  I’ll answer that later for myself.

This is an aspect of depression rarely talked about, which is amazing, because it is one of the largest thorns in depression.  We talk about the apathy a lot.  Apathy this.  Apathy that.  Well, aren’t apathy and boredom linked?  They are so linked that some people may very well think them equivalent, or at least close.  We are apathetic usually because we are bored.  The things that are meant to stir no longer do, and therefore we are left with… apathy: a lack of interest, enthusiasm, or concern.  You read that definition, then the one for boredom, and you can’t help but see that the two can be connected. 

I say can, instead of will, because most often, boredom is wrought from wanting something, and being told you can’t have it.  For example, a student is filled with dreams and desires to play with his/her friends outside in the sun, but is instead forced to spend the vast majority of the day in a dingy classroom learning about the Industrial Revolution or the Pythagorean theorem.  It is the deprivation of that desire that hurts.

In a way, this is the same with those whom are depressed.  It is the deprivation, but not from the desired object.  No, it is taken back a step further.  It is the deprivation of desire itself.  It is but the mere memory of desire that remains. 

There are only two “desires” that are accessible at all times, and they are not true desires, in that they do not spark passion or pleasure in the end.  They are the wants, the wishes of depression rather.  One is for the ceasing of the pain.  The other “desire”, is for the ability to desire to return. 

I know that that sounds like an oxymoron, but it is not.  It is a paradox, for sure, but not an oxymoron.  I spent years in depression begging God to restore my ability to simply want.  I would beg and beg and beg thousands of times over for restoration in my heart, that I might one day feel again. 

For those of you on the outside, you may be wondering, “What am I to take away from this?”  You should take away a greater understanding of what your loved one is going through.  I know it is difficult, but you should try your best to imagine what having no desires would feel like, if but for a moment.  You may be struggling to believe it even possible.   I understand, though I don’t know this for sure, my inclination, when I hear people refusing to believe the testimonies of a hundred million people in the world today, is to believe that the reason you don’t believe it, is because it scares the crap out of you.  It is so mysterious, and can strike anyone, that it is too terrible to believe until forced to.

Well, if you have someone in your life whom is struggling with depression, then you are being forced.  You can be a coward, and continue to let fear push you away from your loved one, and the truth, or you can be someone special, be a difference maker in your loved one’s life.  You can, quite literally in many cases, be the difference between suicide and survival. 

For those of you whom are depressed, I hope you come away knowing that you are not alone, and that others have fought and won the battle against the very same beast you are battling.  There is hope.  You can get better.  You are never too far gone.  I would know, as I reached the end, lived there for ten years, and am now redeemed.  So you can also.

God's Sovereignty and Pain

Romans 8:28-39

28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 

29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.  

30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 

33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.  

34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died--more than that, who was raised--who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.  

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?  

36 As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."  

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,  

39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nicholas L. Laning

 LAST night at church, Matt Chandler gave one of the best sermons on predestination I have ever heard.  I am not going to get into the ins and outs of that sermon on the whole.  If you want to hear the sermon, then you can go to this link http://www.thevillagechurch.net/resources/sermons/, and listen to it when it is put up later today or tomorrow.  I highly recommend it.  

What I am here to talk about is how, as I was listening to the sermon, I just kept asking myself, "How did I ever question this?  How could I have ever thought that God's goodness and pain were incompatible?  It is right here.  How could I have let my anger toward Him go so far?  It was right there the whole time for me to see."  


There are many verses on predestination, but this one is the most definitive, the most frequented, or, the most hated, depending on where you are at in your heart.  Regardless, here we see God flat out saying that our salvation, justification, and glorification are all because of Him.  Then we have verse 35, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?"  

In one paragraph we have God telling us through Paul's letter that we are saved by His calling and sovereignty, not by anything we did.  We then have Him tell us it is because of His deep love.  He loved us before we even were.  We have Him saying that if we are His, then nothing can be against us.  Then comes the kicker, he lists all the above trials: tribulation. distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, or sword!  He flat out tells us that those things exist, and will be present in some form in our lives.  


I say that I wonder how we would doubt God because of His allowance of tribulation, but I know the answer, as it lies within my own heart.  I struggle to not think that it is all about me.  I say with my lips that I am not God, just as Matt said we do, but I live like I am.  The greatest turn around in my depression came when it was revealed to me just how much it isn't about me.  I was swallowed up in pain, and so much of it lifted instantly, as I recognized that I was not good, that it isn't about me, and that I had no place to shake my fist at God, and neither do you, no matter what you think.


Just read the book, it is all there.  God is sovereign, and He loves you, and He has allowed pain to exist.  If you doubt that could be possible, I challenge you to answer this question... why?  I think you will find the answer is, at its core, simply, "because I don't like it.  It offends me.  It isn't what I would do."  While this appeals to your emotions, there is certainly nothing logical about it by any stretch.  It is as logical as thinking that because you don't like gravity, because you have this intense longing to fly, that gravity cannot exist.  Certainly not.  Like it or not, the truth is not always in line with what you want at any given moment.  I would dare say that it most often is not, at least for now.  For those who are called according to His purpose, all things are used for their good, even depression! 

Living in Spite of Your Feelings

Nicholas L. Laning

What do you do when all your feelings are terrible?

We love to think that we are rational beings.  Atheism has flourished, somewhat, not upon its actual strengths, but upon the lie that it is devoid of faith.  So many Christians have fallen for the lie that they have figured out how to remove faith from Christianity, despite the fact that this is what is counted to us as righteousness, and have convinced themselves that they it is solely reason that pushes them.  I have been amongst struggled with both of those lies myself.  We love to feel that we make our decisions based upon nothing but rational ideas, but no ones makes their decisions based upon thought alone.  If we are willing to be honest with ourselves, and were to search our thoughts, we would surely find that emotion plays a huge part in why we decide things.  So many times I have talked with people who have claimed to make a decision based upon thought alone.  Yet, after asking the tough questions, they have come to offer up that they decided to... whatever... because they just... insert an emotional response to whatever the issue is.  I have had this happen to me many times, especially in my youth.

Christians surely do this.  How often do we make a decision, not based on any rational thought, but because, "We FEEL called to... change jobs, do missions in a foreign land, whatever?"  If we are honest, then the answer is... very often.  We get a good feeling about something, and we take that be the blessing of the Holy Spirit.  We feel bad about something, and we feel the spirit telling us to avoid it.

Well, what do you do when all your feelings are terrible?

One of the most terrifying elements of depression is that our emotions no longer follow a normal path.  They no longer follow life.  In a normal heart, you go see your friends, you feel something good.  Someone dies, and you feel sad.  Well, in depression, you just feel pain, no matter what, and it drives you crazy.  Part of our decision making process has been stripped.

So, how do we move forward?

We move forward by doing something that takes courage, and is not natural.  We have to make decisions based upon faith and hope.  We have to believe that goodness is real, despite the fact that we don't feel that to be true.  We hope that love will return to our hearts, though we haven't felt its glow in years.  We move forward in faith and hope of things to come.  We keep breathing, and one day, God willing, we will, in this life, be restored.

Have hope.  Believe in good.  Believe in love.  Believe that this current pain is true, but only a momentary aberration.  The ultimate reality is that goodness and love and joy and happiness are real.  Keep fighting.  You are in my prayers.  My heart goes out to you.  Write me if you want.  Always remember that God loved you enough to allow His only Son to suffer worse than you have on your behalf.  He does love you.  He really does.

The S Word

Nicholas L. Laning

I never struggled with suicide.  That is one of the few lines I never crossed in my heart.  It never lingered in my mind for more than a second.  For one, I knew the effect it would have on everyone else in my life, that it would destroy so much.  I would have lived my entire life in that hell simply for their sakes.  Two, I didn't want to exit life like that.

Though I didn't think about killing myself, there were other dark thoughts.  I longed for death then in the same way I now long for a hug from a friend.  It was not feared at all, but craved for insatiably.  Again and again I prayed, for at least eight of my ten years of depression, for God to kill me or at least allow my death to be soon.

The peak of this came when I was at Dallas Baptist University.  I spent my first year there, and barely made it through.  The negativity in my brain was incessant and was driving me mad, helping me ruin the one true friendship I had at DBU at the time.  Everything loved was lost in seconds to the monster in my brain.  It felt like satan held my brain in his hand, and he was squeezing the living daylights out of it.

I would lay in my room for hours upon end, unable to sleep.  Finally, I would get up, exit the dorm, get in my truck, and just drive around in the dark.  I would drive for hours at a time, being very sure to drive as carefully as I could, as I would not be the reason I died.  Yet, the entire time I was praying, "God, if you love me you will end this.  Take me home, Father.  Take me home.  End it.  Please, if you love me..."  Each Mack truck that passed was hope.  When they finally whooshed by, shaking my car in their wake, my heart would sink in disappointment.  I did this for about two weeks before I realized that it was too expensive to continue, and that God was not going to give me my ridiculous request.

It is very difficult and embarrassing to share this, but I am willing to do it if it brings any of you hope, if lets you know that you are not alone.  I went through that.  I prayed for death for years upon end, and here I am, healthy, past depression, telling you that it can end.  Have hope.  I am the same person who drove around hoping to die, and I now love life as I did before.  My hope was founded.  God was faithful.  Yes, it was awful, but it is over, and yours can be too.  Hold on to the truth, past what you feel this moment.  Remember the good you felt before.  That was real, not an illusion.  Good is real.  Happiness is real.  Joy is real.  Love is real.  God is real.  Cling to hope.  Cling to Him.

James 5:13 ESV

[The Prayer of Faith] Is anyone among you suffering?  Let him pray.  Is anyone among you cheerful? Let him song praise.

Be Honest With Where You Are With God

Yesterday, I posted a pretty large chunk of scripture from the book of Job.  Posting scripture can seem preachy, at least I think it can.  We usually assume that whomever is posting it must already know it, and is lovingly, yet probably condescendingly throwing us a spiritual breadcrumb they already understand.  You know?  Well, that was not my reasoning.  That scripture was as much me preaching to myself as anyone else.  Yes, I thought, perhaps it could help others.  Yet, my heart has been in dire need of such a reminder.

Job complains to God about how he has been treated by God.  God does not strike Job with lightening, or have a bear eat him, or any other terrible thing.  He answers Job in person with a series of questions.  Where were you (Job, Nicholas, ________  (insert your name)) when I formed the Earth? 

I don't know how you feel about this, but in my heart, when I get frustrated at God, or my heart is no longer in lone with scripture, I don't want to take the problem to God.  Here's a funny thing, I feel righteous because I will go to His word, His church, His people with my frustration, but not Him.  There is mixture of pride and faithlessness that tells me to do it on my own.  "Go to the scriptures," I think.  "Submit to God's will."  This is a lovely thought, only, my way of getting to submission is still my own!

This all stems from my frustration with work.  The things I have been doing have fallen short in continuing to provide.  So, I am left to ponder what I am going to do for work.  I am going to continue to write, but that is a side job for now.  Until/if God decides to allow that to be what I do full time, I need to find something else to spend my days doing that will provide for my family.

I don't want to go off on a tangent about the issues surrounding that.  Simply, I want to stay focused on the fact that, as this frustration has indeed come up, I have not wanted to take it to God.  I have wanted to do it on my own.  Through much prayer and listening, it has come to my attention that this is because I don't trust the Holy Spirit to move.  I try to shift my thinking, change my own heart.  In the end, this just delays the frustration, because it is never wholly dealt with, as I have no power to change myself for the better.

So, today, I hope you will follow me in this.  I am going to take my frustration straight to God.  I am going to tell Him I know I am wrong, that my thinking is messed up, that I am missing something, that I have believed lies.  Then, I am going to ask Him to change me, and not just once, but again and again, with full hope and faith that He will do it.  I don't want to do it on my own.

One of the greatest moments in my fight against depression was when i finally told God just how angry I was at Him for the pain He had allowed to come to me.  On a beach in Ireland, the very one that there is a picture of in the art section of this site, I shouted out to God my frustration.  I asked Him where He was in all this pain.  I challenged Him in His proclamation of love for me.  Much like Job, He did not kill me, or any such thing.  Nor was His answer wholly easy to swallow, but He did answer me, and it helped me in my depression enormously.  I will share His response some other time, as that is not the point of this post.

The point is to be honest with God in your struggle.  Tell Him what you are thinking, especially if you know it is wrong, and ask Him to move.  I look forward to seeing Him move in both our hearts.  There is one hope, and it is in Him. 

God Responds to Job

Drops by Nicholas L. Laning

Job 41

1 And the LORDsaid to Job: 2 "Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it."

Job Promises Silence

3 Then Job answered the LORD and said: 4 "Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. 5 I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further."

The Lord Challenges Job

6 Then the LORDanswered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 7 "Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. 8 Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? 9 Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? 10 "Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. 11 Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. 12 Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. 13 Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below. 14 Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you. 15 "Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. 16 Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. 17 He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. 18 His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. 19 "He is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword! 20 For the mountains yield food for him where all the wild beasts play. 21 Under the lotus plants he lies, in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh. 22 For his shade the lotus trees cover him; the willows of the brook surround him. 23 Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened; he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth. 24 Can one take him by his eyes, or pierce his nose with a snare? 

Job 42

1 "Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord? 2 Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? 3 Will he make many pleas to you? Will he speak to you soft words? 4 Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever? 5 Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls? 6 Will traders bargain over him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? 7 Can you fill his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? 8 Lay your hands on him; remember the battle--you will not do it again! 9 Behold, the hope of a man is false; he is laid low even at the sight of him. 10 No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me? 11 Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. 12 "I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, or his mighty strength, or his goodly frame. 13 Who can strip off his outer garment? Who would come near him with a bridle? 14 Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror. 15 His back is made of rows of shields, shut up closely as with a seal. 16 One is so near to another that no air can come between them. 17 They are joined one to another; they clasp each other and cannot be separated. 18 His sneezings flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. 19 Out of his mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap forth. 20 Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. 21 His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth. 22 In his neck abides strength, and terror dances before him. 23 The folds of his flesh stick together, firmly cast on him and immovable. 24 His heart is hard as a stone, hard as the lower millstone. 25 When he raises himself up the mighty are afraid; at the crashing they are beside themselves. 26 Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail, nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin. 27 He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood. 28 The arrow cannot make him flee; for him sling stones are turned to stubble. 29 Clubs are counted as stubble; he laughs at the rattle of javelins. 30 His underparts are like sharp potsherds; he spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire. 31 He makes the deep boil like a pot; he makes the sea like a pot of ointment. 32 Behind him he leaves a shining wake; one would think the deep to be white-haired. 33 On earth there is not his like, a creature without fear. 34 He sees everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride." 

Hope in What is Unseen

Double Rainbow Over The Irish Sea by Nicholas L. Laning

Things have been beyond rough.  Due to discretion, I am not going to be specific about most of the things.  I can say that Saturday morning, as I was driving to go be a part of Transform, a ministry through our church, I was met with the heart breaking news of my Nanna's death.  At first, I was tempted to turn back around and sit at home, but I am glad I didn't.  Being alone would have been bad.  Instead I was comforted greatly with some surprise conversation.  Also, the kind and comforting words of our Pastor, Steve Hardin, went along way.

When Daddy Jake (my granfather) died in February, I wept for days.  It was normal.  It was healthy.  It was a beautiful expression of my affection.  When I heard about Nanna, on top of the seemingly endless list of trials that has come our way lately, I reacted in a way all too familiar to most of you.  I did not weep.  Instead, my brain just stopped.  Too much pain.  Too much sorrow.  Too much stress.  Time to close up shop.  There is no room for me in this life.  I must become hard to survive.  That is the lie that was reaching up from out of the shadows to grip my mind.  Again and again I just did the opposite of what I felt like doing, and I kept praying.  "God, may you be praised in all this.  Please soften my heart.  Please don't let me fall back into the abyss.  Please Father."  And that is when I remembered so many things that helped me get through depression.  Things forgotten, if only in part.  Things we must talk about, like, how to act and believe regardless of what you feel.  To be able to not let your feelings dictate what you believe.  Influence, yes.  Dictate, no.

Or, I had forgotten about the most amazing weapon against depression.  HOPE.  Hoping in things that aren't yet seen.  Years went by with me sulking.  I would hope when I had reason to, when I was shown.  But if I see it, then it isn't hope.  


Romans 8:24-28
24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees?  
25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.  
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 
27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.  
28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

We cannot wait for things to get better to praise God.  No, it is here, in the middle of the pain, that lies the greatest opportunity for praise.  So, God be praised.  He is wonderful.  He is precious.  He is beautiful, and not later, when things are better, but right now, even through the thick of blinding pain.