Good morning…
During my suffering season, I did share deeply with a small handful of old friends. That level of me was important to walk and talk through with trusted companions. And then there were two cloudy levels deeper, deeper still.
My deepest core level was lived just with my God. Our hard-fought wrestling match, bout after bout, was chronicled in several of my journals and some of my words found their way into a collection of poems I entitled “Dying to Live.” The level just above my painstaking battle with God was the day and day out level of me lived at home with my husband and our four great, young kids. Very clearly I knew this pain was not about them, not about them being either the cause or my saving cure. This was a war waged between me and my God.
Some of you have asked, “Did you talk to your husband about the depth of your depression?” I guess we talked a bit about it, but mostly we just lived our way through it, often silent, side-by-side, we slogged our way through. I do remember him saying once, “When you get through this, you will be stronger for it.” All I could do was correct one word: “IF I get through this.”
We were both right. There are rich, lasting treasures found in depression’s deep valley that are not found anywhere else on earth. Yet becoming stronger through a suffering season requires “getting through it” and at the same time “getting through it” is not guaranteed. As our posts have been saying quite candidly over the past week, why some depressed people make it up from the valley to reconnect in the land of the living and others end their suffering struggles with God in heaven, I am not sure. I am really not sure.
For myself, my family and friends, and now you who are touched by these words, I am extremely grateful I “made it through.” I am humbly in awe of the tiny bud of my true self that did find the nutrients she needed to grow big with blooms. Now all of us are nourished by the rich gifts God unearthed in that valley, our God who whispers: I will give you treasures hidden in the darkness— secret riches. I will do this so you may know that I am the Lord, the God of Israel, the one who calls you by name (Isaiah 45:3, NLT).
…Sue…
