Battling Depression:Part Two

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As time went by, and the darkness didn’t lift, I found myself in a place of desperation.  My husband, shortly after the birth of our fourth daughter and approximately 9 months into my depression said to me, “Will I always have a wife who is depressed?” He said it not in an accusing way, nor in a frustrated way:  he seemed to be simply trying to prepare himself for what the rest of our lives (and therefore, his responsibilities) might look like. And in that moment I knew something needed to change.  I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know how, but I knew, with newly found resolve, that I could not carry on like this for the sake of my husband and children.  My husband was (and still is) a very hands-on dad, but he did have a full time job and it was unreasonable for me to expect him to pick up all my pieces too.  But where to start?  I continued going through the motions of parenting and daily life, and I continued willing myself to get better. I’m sure you can imagine the level of success that brought.

The turning point for me was in June of 2002. During the quiet prayer time at our church’s ladies’ retreat, I read a verse that I am sure I had never noticed in my bible before that day.

Isaiah 43:25 says, “I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins.”

I was shocked. Stunned. The tears flowed freely then as I marveled at the thought that the Lord, the Holy One who had every right to remind me of my past sin and current failings was not doing so. In fact, he had placed my sins behind his back (Is. 38:17) where he wouldn’t look on them, or remind me of them. My brain was so full of lies at that point, and what a victory it was to realize that I was believing my Enemy, not my loving Father. I was listening to the Accuser, not the Redeemer. He had rescued me from my sin: why would I doubt his loving intention to (eventually, in His good timing) rescue me from the pit of depression?

(Now, here is today’s disclaimer: this is not an article in which the writer means that if you have faith enough to be healed you will be. Neither is this the time where the author says doctors are bad for you and you shouldn’t go to see them or take their advice. I do not endorse either extreme. This is my personal account of how the Lord freed me from my specific depression, and the specific lessons he meant for me to learn through it. That’s all.  I do hope there are lessons here that you can learn too in dealing with depression –post-partum or otherwise— and I do believe that the means the Lord used to free me will be of benefit to anyone, regardless of other additional modes of treatment.)

And so I began to try to believe, because of his faithfulness, that the promises laid out in scripture were true for me. Promises of peace and joy and hope and abundant life: He desired that for me. Did I believe it? Did I see it yet? No. But is God a liar? Never. So it must be true, regardless of how I feel or what I see, that he has plans for a hope and a future for me (Jer.29:11)

The lifelines for me, the lifesaving tools, were my prayer life, my “hope verses”, and songs of praise. My prayer life so often consisted only of the following prayer; “Oh Lord, I cannot do this today. I don’t want to do this today. Please do it for me. Please help my kids to not even notice what a disaster I am today. Parent them for me, through me. Please help me want to finish well today.”

My “hope verses” are approximately thirty scriptures that I wrote on a piece of paper (that I still keep in my Bible to this day) that spoke hope to me. On that sheet are promises of a good future and reminders of Christ’s faithfulness, that although I wasn’t currently experiencing, I believed that God would make good on. And so I read and reread those verses countless times a day, praying them back to the Lord, asking him to remember his promises to his people, and to fulfill them for me (more on that in Part Three of this series).

And then there was the singing. Praise the Lord for the gift of music. Whether it is a CD I am listening to, a hymn at church, or a song I am singing privately, I am always able to more accurately express the state of my heart and the state of my affections for the Lord through song than through speech.  I remember, again, singing truths that didn’t seem real to me, but asking that the Lord take my mustard seed of faith, and help me to trust in this unfailing love of his that I was proclaiming through song. I remember being brought to tears by the oddest lyrics in the oddest of songs, but knowing it was a word spoken to me from the Lord; a word of hope through an unexpected channel.

As I’ve said, it was a slow process. But the nine months (or so) that it took me to get from that first lie-busting scripture to a place where the clouds seemed to have parted in my soul were well spent.  For me, if I had chosen to take medications, I have no doubt they would have relieved my physical symptoms. However, for me, had the physical symptoms lifted, I would have been very unlikely to turn to the Lord to heal my deeper spiritual disease. For me, I do believe that C.S. Lewis was correct when he said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”  Had I not been in pain, I would not have listened to His voice.

The ongoing life lesson for me then, and perhaps for all of us, is to tune my ears to his voice even in the times of comfort.

Barbara Postma and her husband, as they homeschool their 7 children, are finding out that no two children are alike! Between lessons and lunches, Barbara blogs at Fuel by Barbara.