Archive for the The Journey Category

“Little Darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter.” – The Beatles

I was in grade school when my class went on a field trip to The Magic House in Kirkwood, Missouri. Back then it was merely a large house that had been converted into a scientific romper room of sorts. One could learn by looking at squiggly kaleidoscopes on the wall whether or not one was color blind. There was also a large globe that, when touched, facilitated a current of static electricity to course through ones fingers and out through ones hair(which would stand on end). There was even a maze one had to wander through at the beginning of the journey in order to gain entrance. Basically, it was every child’s dream field trip and I remember enjoying it immensely.

My 8 year old son recently had the opportunity to visit The Magic House with his second grade class. He was very excited. When he arrived home after a full day my husband asked him, “Did you go in the Touch tunnel?” And suddenly I remembered that all of my memories about The Magic House were not happy.

When I was little, the Touch Tunnel was a maze that was completely devoid of light. One was given the opportunity to wander through it (sans shoes) using only ones sense of touch. In hindsight, I wish someone had warned the little girl who was terrified of the dark exactly how dark it would be. But when one is not aware of the danger, one generally enters casually the path they realize later they never, ever should have taken. The Touch Tunnel was one such path. They may as well have called it, “The Tunnel of Terror.”

It didn’t take me long to realize how dark pitch blackness actually is. It felt like the darkness had weight and was pressing in on all sides. Darkness is disorienting. It is cold. It is uncaring. It swallows, buries, and confounds the senses until all sense of light is utterly eliminated—even the hope of light. It was not until a friend heard my cries, grabbed my arm and walked me out of the darkness that I began to feel better.

I have recently been learning how to walk in the darkness of depression without caving in to despair. It is a very lonely experience in that no human being has the power to lift the darkness. The only way out is to walk through it. It is another milestone in my journey to learn discipline in all areas of my life. This milestone is ugly, heavy, and has very sharp edges.

When one is in the midst of a depressed episode, all sense of right thinking evaporates like water on hot pavement. All good and happy thoughts are swallowed in that darkness and the tendency toward unhappy thoughts is almost effortless. Therefore, learning to banish the unhappy thoughts and focus on true and good things requires great concentration and focus—both of which are challenging when the brain is not functioning properly. The depressed brain is nothing if not a malfunctioning organ. And when the brain is short circuiting, the rest of the body doesn’t work right either.

…which is probably why I also found myself in the dermatologist’s office with a badly inflamed case of eczema. I had run out of my soothing steroid cream and was seeking a new prescription. Eczema is like poison ivy that never goes away. If you have never experienced a similar skin consider, consider yourself blessed, but I digress!

When I walked into that office I was overwhelmed with the sense of hopelessness in the faces around me. Skin afflictions abounded. The mostly elderly people sitting in the chairs wore faces marred and downcast. One gentleman in particular looked especially miserable and so I decided to strike up a conversation with him in the hopes that lifting his spirits might lift mine as well. I have learned over the years that my suffering is lessened when I give the gift of joy and hope to others.

It didn’t take him long to share with me that he suffers with a mood disorder. He then shared that he is a retired psychiatrist. He said, “Margaret, did you know that research has been conducted that proves medications geared toward helping those affected with mood disorders help only 30% of the people who take them?”

I was shocked by his statement and told him so. I responded, “So does this mean that I can stop feeling guilty for not taking medication as many of my friends have indicated I should do?”

He nodded. “30% is basically equivalent to a placebo effect.”

So I then described to him my approach to depression, “I like to celebrate the good days.” And then I asked him, “Do you ever have good days?”

He said, “You know what? I do. In fact, today is a good day.” And then he smiled.

His smile made me smile, and somehow the heaviness in that room didn’t feel so awfully heavy anymore.

I have been working very hard to banish the unhappy thoughts that clobber me. They come out of nowhere and I must deal with them. If I do not kill the first one, it’s like bacteria that multiplies, spreads, and infects my whole body. The most potent antiseptic to these thoughts are to focus on words that I know to be right and true. For this reason I listen to my audio Bible when I exercise in the morning, even when my brain is afflicted and I find it difficult to process what I am hearing. I listen to the words of the One who loves me and whose love I know to be a conquering power over the deepest and darkest depression. And this is how I fight:

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”  The Letter of Paul to the Ephesians 6:13-17

Learning to trust God in periods of depression is a discipline. It is the discipline of saying, “I believe You are who You say you are, and that your promises hold true even when I don’t feel your presence. My recent periods of darkness have left me feeling lonely, sad, and at times abandoned. It is in those moments that I begin to feel the tide of terror swelling—just as I felt in the Touch Tunnel. But even in those moments I have found that Jesus is faithful.

Yesterday I rose with the bleary-eyed shame of a cookie hangover. I didn’t have the strength to get out of bed, much less put on my workout clothes and go outside. So I did it anyway. If I waited until I felt like working out it would rarely get done. So I jogged and I walked, and I climbed hills and I cried because I didn’t feel well and because I was ashamed that I didn’t control my eating the night before. I was ashamed that I couldn’t stop binging on foods that seem to make my depression worse. And I felt the guilt fester and ooze and overwhelm me with hopelessness.

But on the dirt path I walked in the park, there in the pre-morning light, I heard a wonderful truth. It was a verse I had memorized many years before and it shone like a heavenly light deep into the darkness of my afflicted brain. The Great Healer said to me, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.” (Titus 2:11) And I felt his kindness overwhelm me and salve my heart with peace. I felt Jesus shame and guilt as he bore my sin on the cross, and I was impressed again with the great truth that He knew I didn’t have the capacity to do what is right and so he did it for me. The gospel message is simply this, we are sinners—broken and helpless—and he loved us so much that he paid the price to set us free.

I don’t really understand what happened in that moment yesterday, but as I was driving to work, I realized my depression was gone. It was as if a light switch had been flipped and I simply felt really, really good.

Last night I danced in my yard with my favorite boxer dog, Tank. Today I am celebrating another good day with lots of smiles, jokes and laughter.

And I am fully cognizant that depression will find me again. And so I choose to celebrate this good day and any others that choose to follow.

Years ago my friend Kitty took my hand in the Touch Tunnel and led me into the light. She didn’t eliminate the darkness, she only walked with me through it. But the touch of her hand reassured me. In sensing her presence I knew I was not alone. Today if you are walking in darkness, take heart. You are not abandoned. Sometimes we must feel around in the darkness and find the hands of those people who are just as terrified as we are. We must wrap our fingers in theirs and find our way along the dark path. But we must never, ever stop trusting and hoping that we will find our way through. And most importantly, we must remember to keep the promises of Jesus close to our hearts and wait. He is faithful who promised. 

Have you ever take a wrong turn? Maybe you were 5 minutes late and your hunch that the next street was the right street backfired and landed you in an alley with some shady looking characters. By shady I mean varmints—a ragged feline atop a rotten fence hisses a warning, and a half-starved dog with hollow eyes half barks/half growls from its chain in a bedraggled front yard. As you try to back out, you hear a crack, and with horror recognize the outline of a giant tree limb as it crashes to the ground behind the car. You are trapped! So you reach for your cell phone only to realize there’s no cell signal and suddenly your wrong turn has evolved into a very serious situation. On top of that, a hulking figure opens the door of a dilapidated house and peers out at you. What do you do?

Food addiction is a lot like that. One minute you are coasting along, driving the speed limit, obeying the rules that keep you safe, when suddenly a road sign pops up with some tantalizing message and your thoughts run askew. You may not even realize it’s happening until you are well on your way to planning how best to get your fingers on a Big Mac. You fight the urge. After all, you have managed to maintain your sobriety for a few months. But even that thought is deceptive. After all, you “deserve a break today”. You’ve been so good. What’s one Big Mac in the grand scheme of things? And a diet Coke? That almost makes it calorie free. And right after you say “I’d like fries with that!” you are in the parking lot scarfing down that special sauce laden patty and promising yourself it’s the last time. You’ll repent tomorrow. Until tomorrow becomes last week, or last month, and the path to hope is blocked by the giant tree limb of despair. Because the Big Mac wrappers may be safely hidden in the trash can no one looks in, but your pants don’t lie. And no, the drier did not shrink them again.

Food addicts always live in the tension of relapse. It’s not an “if”; it’s a “when”. We avoid our trigger foods to the best of our ability but inevitably the moment arrives when the flood gates of desire break down the dam of resolve and precipitously, we find that we are drowning.

I read a misleading book some years back titled, “The Disease of More.” Eleanor R. (who chooses to remain anonymous) details her journeys through alcohol and food addiction with the help of Emmit Fox and Overeaters Anonymous. By the end of the book she is cured. Initially the book was very helpful to me because her struggles made my own journey less lonely. But at the end, when she revealed that she had “arrived” at a place of full recovery, never to transgress with food again, I felt hopeless. I wondered, will I ever “arrive?” Is that even humanly possible? And I seriously wanted to call Kirstie Alley and ask her how she felt about that.

My heart is always restless, but more so when I am suffering. My body is restless too. I am constantly seeking for ways to cope in this world amidst the agonies it inflicts. Therefore, I sometimes take a wrong turn and end up in an ally with a tree limb blocking me in.

Now maybe you are reading this and thinking, “I don’t know what you are talking about. My life is fabulous. Good job. Perfect husband. 2.5 children, and everything is looking up.” Well let me tell you, “it” is coming. One day you are going to find out life is not “peachy.” One day you are going to take a bite and spit out a mouth full of worms.

It was in that condition I found myself on Sunday evening after a long weekend of weeping. I consumed one chocolate chip cookie. And then another. And that was after the giant bowl of popcorn and the ice cream cones. I had one thought while I was doing it, “I don’t care anymore.” And in the moments when I don’t care anymore, I slip on the lie that food will comfort me and fall further into the pit of despair. Then the tree limb isn’t just blocking me in, it has fallen on my chest and is crushing me.

On Monday morning when I woke up I had to ask myself a very hard question; do I really want to stay in the dark alley of food addiction? This is an important question because for many years the answer was yes. Sometimes we become a little too comfortable in our alley and with the tree that is crushing us. We make a habit of buzzing around inside like a fly in a jar.

“Woe is me!” we buzz.

“It’s not fair!” we buzz.

“God made me this way!” we buzz.

We distract ourselves with the scary cat and the barking dog because we don’t want to face our fears and our feelings. But what kind of life is that?

Tom Hansen illustrated this so beautifully in his book, “American Junkie” about his recovery from heroin addiction. He lay in a hospital bed sobbing because he had been numbing his emotional pain with heroin for so long that when he started to feel again, he was completely overwhelmed. With help from a counselor, he had to learn how to manage all those big feelings without drugs. So do I. And I need help too. My emotional pangs are big and scary. And I am sorely tempted to keep numbing them with food, but every time I do so I simply reinforce the bars of my cage. That is why it is so important for me to face the truth.

Food has never given me hope.

Food has never given me a future I can be proud of.

Food is a faithless lover that robs me of all my joy and peace.

Therefore to choose food is to choose a great lie. And to choose a lie over the truth is to deceive myself. Yes, my body requires food, but cookies, ice cream and popcorn will never feed my hungry soul.

And so I must make difficult choices. Buzzing won’t move that tree limb, but maybe I’ll get somewhere if I roll up my sleeves and begin chopping off smaller branches.

Which is how I found myself on a bicycle and in layers of athletic wear early on Monday morning. It wasn’t easy and I’ll admit I found myself sobbing as I climbed hills and considered the heavy grief I was carrying in my heart. For goodness sakes, we can’t all look like a Nike commercial! But in the middle of facing and dealing with my pain, I remembered that I am not on this journey alone. And what greater comfort is there in life than to know that regardless of how I feel, I never walk(or ride) alone. And thus I remembered one of the promises He gives, “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!” – Psalm 126:5

“I am sad and my sadness matters.” That’s what I said to the hulking figure poking his head out of the dilapidated house in the alley I found myself trapped in. And do you know what happened next? He leaned out from the shadows and said, “Would you like my help with that tree?”

I learned once again that facing my fears is important because usually fear is just the knee-jerk reaction to pain. Once we begin to address the pain, we start to notice what is causing the wound. And with the wound diagnosed we can finally ask the great Healer to heal it.

At least that’s what the Guy told me while we were moving the tree limb. Because even in the darkest alleys of life, Jesus is there. Even when we are too weak or broken or depressed to invite him into our stories, sometimes he will poke his head out anyway. Sometimes we just need to be brave enough to strike up a conversation.

God knows the ways our hearts most need to hear from him. He knows our questions, even when the ache in our souls cannot find a way to express them. So I have learned again over these past weeks, when my heart and soul have been so dry and thirsty, He is there to water me.

This world is not a safe place. Darkness and danger lurk in bedroom closets and inside the human heart. We can pretend they aren’t there by shutting our eyes and counting to ten. We hear them thumping in the night, shifting their weight, and pressing against our very sanity. And then when the door finally opens, just as we expected, all of that evil pours out. And there we stand, like paper machete dolls stuck in the hot tar, with no hope or expectation of rescue.

When the pain comes, all we can really do is crumple.

I was at work last week and walking to the cafeteria when I ran into a co-worker. She told me that a friend of ours lost her husband suddenly and without warning. There were no tearful goodbyes, only the anticipation of long, agonizingly lonely nights. I immediately called my friend and heard the choking sobs stuck in her throat. The force of her pain was like a hurricane; strong enough to topple trees and tall buildings. And my words—no one’s words for that matter—could possibly be stalwart enough to calm the winds.

I have been wondering where God is and why he allows such suffering in the midst of a personally crippling depression. One would think after all the times I’ve asked this question that I would know the answer by now. But knowledge does not comfort an aching heart. When the mind or body hurts this bad, I find it nearly impossible to be reasonable. I just need the pain to stop. The sad truth is, sometimes the force of pain is strong enough to push even the stoutest of heart over. So here I am, whimpering on the floor.

But I never remain on the floor, no matter how comfortable it is. And as crazy as it sounds, yes, depression can become a terribly comfortable routine. But I refuse to stay here because to remain immobile is to resign ones will, and I am no resigner.

My questions are big and I have been taking them to the God who is stalwart enough to hear and answer. And with great patience and perseverance, I hear his voice whispering to me. I feel a little like Elijah. I have been bruised and battered by unkind words around me, hungry and weak. I have been doing my level best to be faithful, but the darkness still overwhelms me. I am reminded once again that it is not my strength, but His that sustains me.

Depression is a thief. It steals not only the good thoughts, but all rational thought as well. Sometimes my brain is not even coherent enough to understand the Word of truth that comforts me, and that has been a very dark and dank basement to suffer in. I wake in the morning grasping for hope and see it slip out of the window.

And then He reminds me I am not alone.

He reminds me that He knows exactly how I feel.

He reminds me that His love is bigger than my biggest sorrows.

He will not abandon me.

There are some reading this who think the very idea of God is ludicrous. There are those who laugh at my faith, who pity my “foolishness”, who shake their heads in admonition at this “silly” girl. But I am comforted by my creator in ways I cannot explain or define. People have not been my help, but He has. When the floods come, He is there. When the despair drowns, He gives air for my lungs. When the darkness seeps in, He is my light. When the songs dry up, He sings to me. And I am comforted.

Today if you are lost in the whirlwind, if your heart is heavy, if the ship of your dreams has sailed and you were not on it, don’t lose heart. He sees your helpless estate and longs to comfort you. So often we are too busy flailing about in the water, and our pain is so big we can’t stop thrashing long enough to be rescued. He is there. Wait for Him. If you cry out to Him, He will come. He has promised.

“For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent;
he will lift me high upon a rock.” – Psalm 27:5

I am waiting and He is faithful.