Depression, Emotion, and Reason

There's much to talk about when talking about depression.  Sometimes it feels overwhelming.  I get to thinking that I might forget something.  Something important.  Something that'll make a difference.

Yet, in the end, though there's quite a bit to cover, most of it is just extra.  There are some things that are the core of the fight.  They're the things that make or break you.

Hear me now.  I'm going to share with you one thing that really can change the battle, and not just for depression.  The truth works for anyone any time.

Your feelings DO NOT always tell the truth.

That's it.  Sounds simple enough, but with that in mind I think you will start to see just how often it is you let your feelings, how often I let my feelings, dictate how we think.  That's why I don't even like to say the adage, "Well, you can't control other people, but you can only control yourself."

Nope.  I can even do that, at least not a hundred percent.  If so, I'd be the happiest man alive.  Truth is, feelings are bigger than we think in rational process.  Start talking to someone with an opposing worldview.  If you know your stuff well enough to decently defend your view, there will come a point where that other person will throw out the "I just" clause.  It's where all actual reasoning has played itself out, and taken you or them so far, but not to the end.  Faith is inevitable.  And that point, when reached, is when we all say, "Well, that may be so but I JUST cant believe that... or I just have to believe that... and the following is filled in with what was wrought from emotion, not pure reason.

Everybody struggles with this.  I do all the time.  Only, most of the time, feelings follow enough of a pattern that corresponds with the circumstances of life, that it is easier to trust them (and also to be deceived by them).

This is why depression is so dangerous.  Thing is, in depression, your feelings stop corresponding with life.  Your feelings don't corresponding, seemingly, with anything.  Feels like satan himself has your brain in his hands and he's squeezing the living daylights out of it.

It is here where we are really challenged to ask ourselves... just what are we to do with our emotions?  Because, it feels like all hope is lost, and not just for now, but forever.  It feels like happiness is a lie.  It's not that it will not come back.  It can't come back.  Your every emotion screams for your life to end, or at the least for you to curl up in a ball and cease to move, for what's the point of moving?

I'll tell you how I first responded to this challenge.  Like an idiot, that's how.  I took on the problem of my emotions of death and utter hopelessness clashing with the memories of life before depression , of joy and wonder and happiness, and the need to survive for those around me, by trying to simply deny the importance of emotions in general.

"Feelings don't matter," I'd say.  So many times did I say it that my soul started to change.  A numbness came that I am still trying to fend off these couple years removed from the brunt of it.  My heart still tries to shut down at every turn.  All pain causes the walls to go up, and to my own detriment.  Walls keep out good things as well as bad.

Healthy people do it too.  This is where we get sayings like, "Love is a decision."  Takes out those pesky, unpredictable feelings and gives us a sense of control.  Only, it's a lie.  Love has a decisive quality to it, but it is much more than just a decision, and everyone knows it.  Love is scary because it is somewhat out of our control.  That's just the way it is.

On the other hand, as I said, most people feel something and take it as book.  If something feels true, we are almost helpless to believe otherwise.  The compulsion to comply with our feelings is huge.  I think this is because of the good feelings, the ones we cling to.  When we feel them, we want them to be true so badly that we feel we need to believe all our feelings.  If this feeling led me to this wonderful place, then my feelings must be true, because I want this feeling to be real, not just a fluke.

Why can't feelings be like people?  Yes, this is a metaphor.  People are real.  Some lie, and some tell the truth.  Part of life is discerning between them.  To feel the need to trust all people, at the risk of denying the reality that some people do tell the truth, is just foolish.  You'll believe any lie that comes your way.  Well, feelings are the same way.  They are all real.  But some of them lie.

In depression, your feelings are very real.  Your feelings are valid.  I am not taking away the validity of your pain.  I am simply saying that what they pain is telling you, "that you'll never be happy again, that you're lost forever, so just end it," is not true.  It just isn't.  And if you really want to fight well, you need to start internalizing this and acting on it.

One of the biggest, if not the biggest turning point in my fight against depression was when I stopped denying the existence of my emotions, started validating the reality of my pain's existence, but then rejected the message it was sending me.  It's when i realized that admitting that a feeling is real does not mean that what it is saying to me is true, that things changed.  I just said, "Okay, you're there.  The pain is real.  I'm just not going to believe what it has to say any longer.  Life is good, no matter what my feelings say.  It will be good again.  It will."  And things did change, slowly.  For a long time I felt that sense of hopelessness and had to daily reject the message.  It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and also one of the greatest.  Hope became real, because I didn't have to wait to feel something to be true for it to actually be true to me. My feelings no longer dictated reality.  They influenced, but no longer dictated.

And here I am, and I am no longer depressed.  I was right.  My hope was well founded.  What would have happend had I believed my feelings?  I'd be dead, that's what.

This is true for everyone.  Always know that what you feel is real, and is validated.  Then, have the wherewithal to discern whether or not your feelings are lying or telling you the truth.  Rejecting the lie of depression didn't make all other feelings lies.  That's impossible.  In order for love to be real, the feelings of depression had to be a lie.  Praise God they are.  Truth is you or your loved one can feel whole again.  Love is real.  Happiness is real.  Life is good.  People love you.  You are not a burden.  This will pass.  Whether you feel it or not, God is real, and He loves you, so much so that He didn't just stay above it all, but sent His only son to be a part of it.  He saved you and me.  That's the truth, feel it or not.

May God give you the strength to accept then rise above the emotions telling you that life isn't worth living.  May you press on toward the prize, and claim it.  Amen.

Hitting the Play Button in My Heart

Nicholas L. Laning

If you were to ask me when my depression ended, I would say a couple of years ago.  It is hard to give an exact moment, as there wasn't one.  My ascent out of depression was a long one.  It took years.

That said, I am still not untouched by my time in depression.  I find that I am still in this very long recovery process.  Slowly but surely I am becoming whole again.  By whole, I mean healthy.  I still have problems, and I still hurt, but there is healthy, normal hurting, then there is depression.

Something that has happened lately has been a reconnection with my past.  For those of you on the outside, I don't know if this will make sense.  To those of you who have or are battling depression, I think this will resonate.  It is as if my life got put on hold when my depression started.  The Nicholas that once existed almost stopped to be.  Perhaps a sliver remained, but only a sliver.  All in all I was gone.  I'd look in the mirror and see and feel nothing.  Just within the last couple of months I have been feeling the play button being hit on my heart again.  I look in pictures of me as a child and it finally hits me that really is me.  It is the same person.  Those pictures, sensations in my head weren't planted there, they were lived, experienced.  Again, to those of you who think this psychobabble, I am sorry.  It is not.  It is how my mind has dealt with such enormous pain.

It is something I never thought would happen ever again.  I never thought I'd ever connect with that kid in those pictures.  My childhood was lost.  Yes, we change in some ways.  However, I now see that I really am the same person as that kid.  I am not more me now than I was then, nor the other way around.  That was me then, and this is me now.  I am so excited to have those memories come back.  It is like a treasure chest that held me away during the storm is slowly opening up.  I wish it'd hurry up and just open, but it is taking time.  Slowly but surely.

I wanted to write this to encourage those who don't feel themselves, those of you who are staring in the mirror and feel and see nothing.  You feel dead inside.  You don't feel the warmth of your mother's touch, or the strength in your father's words, nor the kindness of a friend, nor beauty.  All are there, just not for you.  They can and will return.  I fought it for ten years straight, and thought I'd never come out the entire time.  I thought I was lost forever.  Yet, here I am writing you this.  It is coming back after a decade of hell and years of recovery.  So take heart!  Fight on!  Be brave, and remember that God is not lofty, far away.  He is here next to us, and came down and took part in all our pain that we might be saved.

John 3:16-20

16 "For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.  

19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.  

20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.  

21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

#8: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression

This is number eight 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 Seven Thing to Say (and Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  Here's number eight:

What to say:
I’m not going to leave you or abandon you.

What NOT to say:
I think your depression is a way of punishing us.

Nicholas L. Laning

Is this not a fear we have anyway?  Of being left or abandoned?  Add in the confusion, the stigma, the uncontrollable negativity that comes with depression, and you can just imagine how much this plagues the soul of your depressed loved one.  Chances are they have reached out to others, maybe not wholly, but in some way, and have been rejected.  

The hard part of this is that you can be near someone and abandon them.  We see it marriage, where the spouse is physically present, but no longer emotionally engaged.  This is true with depression.  It isn't enough to be simply be physically present.   You must also be emotionally engaged.  That doesn't mean feel what they feel.  You feel what you feel, which, if you love someone and they hurt, should include hurting for them. 

Also, there is this weird conundrum that follows loving someone.  When you love someone you trust them.  So, you can be tempted to leave things unspoken as a means to almost honor or cherish your closeness.  "We are so close, that we don't have to say it to know that we love each other."  This may be true to a degree, but love needs to be reiterated everyday.  We need to hear it.  Silence leaves room for struggle.  It is in that silence that temptation grows.  Doesn't it?  Am I wrong?  Is it not the mystery that usually drives the believing of lies?

Express your love and involvement, and do it often.  Don't leave room for lies to form in the mind of someone whose mind is being attacked by uncontrollable negativity.  

I'll never forget my brother sharing his process of coming to grips with the reality of depression.  Towards the end of my battle with depression, he shared with me that for the first year or so of my depression he didn't believe that I was in fact depressed.  Not only did he not sympathize with me, he resented me.  He was angry with me because he thought that my depression was an act.  In his mind, depression was fake, merely an emotional play, a grab for attention.  

In his mind, he had always been able to overcome his moods.  So, everyone else should be able to as well.  Therefore, if I was continuously acting depressed, then I was doing something to myself.  I was choosing to sit in a mood that I could in fact overcome.  If I was choosing to do this, and it was hurting our family to see me do it, then I was punishing them.  I was self-centered beyond belief.

Only, that's just not true.  I will continue with the same analogy I have been using all along to show how ridiculous this is.  Depression is a disease, and you don't choose it.  Can you imagine your loved one having cancer, and you saying, "John, just stop it!  Stop having cancer!  I feel like you're punishing us with this cancer!"

If you think it is different then you are wrong.  Depression is no more brought on personally than cancer is.  Perhaps someone smoked, and cancer resulted, but is that the same as choosing to have cancer?  No.  And you would never say that to someone.  It is so incredibly self centered it is unbelievable.  It is self-centered in about ten ways.  To think that someone's utter and complete misery is about YOU!?  Really?!  

I don't want to condescend.  I am the worst.  I have been guilty of this.  That is why I can say it with such fire, because I was extremely self-centered in my rejection of depression before I got slapped upside the head with it.  So, I am right there with you.  That doesn't make it any less stupid.  It just means I am stupid too.

Pray that your heart would be open.  Keep soft, and be willing to be wrong.  It's not only okay, but a fact, that we are all wrong about a lot.  We are human.  Fortunately, you can rest in the knowledge that a perfect God is there when you are not for your loved one.  That same God is there to strengthen you.  God changes hearts.  If you are struggling to believe, pray that he will change yours so that you can be what you need to for your loved one.  I am praying for you as I write this. 

#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.

Love (Or the Lack Thereof) & Depression

The Shipps by Nicholas L. Laning

1 Corinthians 13 (English Standard Version)

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 

2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.  

3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.  

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant  

5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  

6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.  

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it     will pass away.  

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  

10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.  

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Nicholas L. Laning

 "Love is a decision."  I cannot count the times I have heard this adage, a half thought out response, wrought from fear of losing a battle against the constant bombardment from movies, television, and music that, "Love is a feeling."  As with most fearfully wrought responses, the pendulum is not swung to find balance.  It is swung fully and completely, never bothering to ask if swinging completely in the opposite direction is any better? There is a decisive, devotional quality to love, and there is also a mysterious, emotional quality to love.  

To say that only one of those qualities of love is like being asked what an apple looks like, and responding, "Apples are round."  Okay, are they not also red, (or yellow or green, depending on the apple)?  Picking one quality to define the whole leads to a warped vision of the truth.  

Another analogy would be to say that a hand is a human.  No, the hand is a PART of the human body.  Without it, the body is not whole.  Yet, you cannot define the whole of the body by one part and come out with a real vision of the human body. 


The words found in the text above were not understood until my depression.  It is easy to say, "Love is a decision," in an attempt cut out or dampen the emotive qualities of love when you feel those emotions freely and easily.  When your struggle is to control your emotions, reign them in, it seems beneficial to grasp for the opposite, perhaps hoping to reach the middle, as it cannot be imagined to not emote.  


WELL YOU CAN!  Your ability to emote is not inevitable.  It can be stripped from you, and then you will see just how ridiculous the idea of love being solely a decision really is.  Without the emotions, without genuine affection, there is no reason to decide to love in the first place.  


This verse above completely blows up the notion of love being a decision.  If we were to look at the text before this one, we would see Paul talking about the different gifts, and their importance, then he says in 12:31 "But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way."  Then he starts above.  Love is essential, and it is not just a decision.   

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

To give all you have away, or to deliver your body up to be burned both take the utmost devotion!  Do they not?  Think about how intense those acts are!  Then Paul tells us that we can do those amazing things, and if we have not love, that we gain nothing!  In that one sentence alone we see that the love he is talking about goes beyond mere devotion.  

This scares me too.  It also gets me excited!  

It scares me because I cannot simply do love.  I cannot simply obey commands and think that enough to be considered loving God, loving others.  My heart must affect.  It must flourish.  Nothing else will do.  I am going to be honest, and say that depression has left me scarred subconsciously.  It has been a battle to encourage my battered and tattered heart to ever be open to feeling ever again, for one cannot hurt if one does not love.  My affection for God and for others is lacking.  This has been the greatest target of my prayers, that the Holy Spirit would do what only He can... soften my stone of a heart.   


It gets me excited because, after seeing the truth, I don't want love to just be a decision!  I understand the devotional quality full well.  When there was not a mote of affection in my heart for anything, not my parents, wife, nature, my self, nor life, I decided to go on loving those I remember loving.  I devoted myself to a God my heart screamed had abandoned me.  Without devotion, my love would have been lost.  Yet, it was not full at all!  I now want my heart to soar again!  I want it to burn!  I want it to flourish in the beauty of God's creation!  I want it full!  I want to love others, yearning to serve them, encourage them!  I want my heart to again beat red and tender within my chest, and that is exactly what God wants!  He wants, no, commands my affection!  He tells us we are to soar!  Our hearts were made for beating!  


So, let us no longer be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal!  Let us have faith, hope, and of course... love!

Lingering Scars

My depression started in the fall of 1998, my junior year of high school.  The brunt of my depression faded in the fall of 2008, when I was doing mission work in Ireland.  Those stories will be expounded upon, but what I want to talk about is the lingering scars of depression.

If people were to ask me if I was still depressed, I feel like saying no, and perhaps I am right.  I no longer feel any of the overwhelming negativity that ruled and tortured my brain for a decade.  I no longer get the feeling that Satan has my brain in his hands, and is squeezing it at his leisure.  The darkness has been lifted off of me.

But, I don't feel whole either.  I don't know if there is perhaps just the slightest effect of depression still on me or not.  Or perhaps, it is the natural outcome of being tortured for far too long.  My heart has been mangled, my soul shredded, and now it must slowly be mended.  I knew it would take time, but just like those in the throws of depression, I struggle each day to believe that it will get better, that this isn't my life.  If it is, then I will be just fine.  Compared to what I came out of, this is paradise.  To finally have the pain of the negativity finally stopped.  It is bliss, and I am thankful.  The question is one of restoration.  It is one I have yet to ask others who have survived.  Can I be whole again?  Will my heart ever sore again?  There have been moments, teases, to let me know my heart still could do it, that it wasn't just some fluke of childhood.  It will return to itself, and I just weep in gratefulness.  Then it fades, and I am left feeling just ok.  Always okay.  Not up, not down, just okay.

I am going to believe it will end.  Why shouldn't I?  I would rather spend my life pursuing it, and even if it is never realized in this life, that doesn't mean it couldn't have been.  Yes, I will fight for it.  I will fight in hope.  I will fight.