There's a Certain Kind of Pain That Can Numb You

Imagine looking into the face of someone whose face has been mangled by fire, a shadow of its former visage.  The pain of that fire is long gone.  No longer is the heat felt.  The moment of that torment has passed.

Yet, the scars themselves bring their own pain.  Being reminded isn't even the hardest part.  We move forward.  No, this scar is ever present.  It affects every day of that person's life.  No one will look at them the same.  Even if people don't mind, the person with the scar will.  They will never feel quite whole, quite right. 

If burned deeply enough, strong enough, there can be a complete loss of sensation in the skin.  Numbness can be it's own torment.  

This is how I feel.  I don't think about my depression much, unless I am trying to write for the Abyssic.  However, it is the scar of my depression that hurts me now.  Simply put, I can't feel the same as I used to.  It's like I've been burned too deeply, and can't feel quite how I did before.  I bump into things, and know I should have felt something, but it's all just kind of numb.  

And that's okay.


All I can do is move forward in faith.  Confession, I don't always have faith.  At times, like this past week, I am just angry.  I don't always remember my place.  I am not always thankful.  The gospel is not fresh in my mind.  I feel entitled and rebellious.  At times, I am downright mean and spiteful toward God for my inability to feel whole, to feel right.  There are times when I take my hope to other things.  I think, "maybe lust will satisfy," of "maybe just doing whatever I want."  Only, I have given into both of those so much, I know they leave you dry.  Their promise is a lie.

It is my prayer that God would continue to renew my heart, that he would heal it.  If not, then I pray that He would give me the strength and faithfulness to overcome the pain left by those scars.  To God be all glory.

As always, my hope and intent with confession is to encourage through the shared experience of living life in pursuit of Christ, both the ups and the downs.

I Thessalonians 5: 23-24

23 Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.  

24 He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

Paralyzed by Pain

The Scream by Edvard Munch

Sometimes pain is so bad, so strong, so overwhelming, that it paralyzes us.  We wish we could move.  We wish we could cry.  We wish we could scream.  Anything!  But, we can't.  We are stuck in our pain.  Each direction we look at to move seems dry and empty.  People talk to us, ask us what's wrong, and we have nothing.  Even if we say something, we feel it to be nothing, to be not heard.  We begin to feel like we don't matter.  The pain is too much.  We are no more.  There is simply pain.  Our bodies, once the physical houses of our souls, have become vessels for the pain now.  It has shoved our soul right of our own skin.  Like the painting above, we scream inside of ourselves, wondering why we can't scream aloud.

That's okay, because God can hear that scream.  When you have hurt so much that you no longer can cry on the outside, but have to simply imagine yourself crying, God sees those tears.  They do not pass Him by unnoticed.  He sees through our hearts.  He can winnow our thoughts.  So, don't you ever feel unheard or unloved, not for one second.

Hebrews 4:12 ESV

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

It isn't the same as depression.  The magnitude of my pain is nothing in comparison, to what it was in depression, nor what you are feeling if you are depressed.  Still, the lesson learned is one learned through the fire of depression, and still has to be applied.

The lesson is that you cannot always follow your emotions.  As in most things, we humans jump to extremes, as they are easier to define than balance.  Balance takes testing and discipline.  It is easy if your desire is just to tip the scale.   At some time in our lives, usually when we are young, we trust our emotions too much.  We feel something, and therefore think that feeling must be some omen, must be truth.  That's why children will sit at the edge of the pool and scream when their dad tries to get them to jump in.  They may be able to, on some level, see that Dad's got it, but there is this fear, and the fear trumps rationality. 

We do this with love even as adults.  Our hearts feel love for something, someone, and come hell or high water, we don't just believe that it is pleasurable, but right.  We justify marrying someone we are incompatible with, adultery, homosexuality, pedophilia, and more.  It feel so right, how can it be wrong?  Well, it can, and we know it.

For many of us, somewhere along the way, we become so hurt, so disgusted with where our emotions have led us, that we reject them.  Where they were once wholly true, never to be denied, now they are never to be trusted.  They are to be pushed aside, overcome.  The mind is where it is.  Then, we end up hurting even more, as one can do great damage to their ability to emote if they put their mind to it.  If you are depressed, then you know this all too well.  You are probably dying to figure out how to get the emotions back, the affection, heck even normal sadness would be bliss, anything but this grey abyss. 

The truth is that emotions are like most things.  They can help or hinder.  The same car that can get you to work can kill you.  The same knife that you use to cut your steak can take life.  Food is needed for life, but without restraint will kill you.  Heck, even too much water can kill you.  So it is with emotions. 

The beautiful part about them not being extremes is that tells us that they are apart of us, our living hearts.  They cannot be systematically placed.  We have to feel them out (no pun intended, honestly) and weigh them against the context of everything else we know.  Some times they are meant to be followed.  They can tell us things otherwise not gained.  Sometimes, we have to overcome them.  We have to plug the ears in our hearts and wait it out with wisdom. 

So it is with me today.  For some reason, I just feel not so right.  Something is off, and I can't tell what.   It is that mystery that is so annoying, so cloying in my soul.  Yet, it is one of those cases where I must trust God, keep loving Him and His people, and listen. 

Right this moment, I am sending out a prayer for you who are reading this who are still fighting depression.  I pray that you will open your heart up to the need for balance, that you will chance it with a spirit of discernment and wisdom, that you would also know when the emotions you feel are not to be followed.  This is most likely going to be the norm.  I pray that you will reject those thoughts that accompany the negative emotions of depression and anxiety, and that you will cling if but to the slightest memory you have of what is true and good.  Amen.