The Little Death that Brings Forth Real Life

4:00am. Pain flashes through the neck and scalp and the heart begins to pump like a herd of galloping buffalo; heavy and hard. The heavy, woolen blanket of depression remains, not so much in thought as in tangible manifestation. It has been smothering me for a few weeks now–like a python slowly digesting a meal. I know it is eating me but I refuse to be consumed.

Few will know because I don’t want pity, or comments that do more harm than good. They want to heal but they don’t know how. I don’t know why “I’m sorry you feel that way” feels like a curse. It’s so much easier to throw my shoulders back and use what little energy I have to smile and laugh. I will cry in private. Especially when I accidentally drop a glass and it doesn’t shatter.

Innocence is a Myth

My husband showed me the video. A mailman lay on the ground screaming while a vicious dog tore and tugged at his body like a wolf murdering a helpless calf. An old woman with a broom tried to beat the dog away but it would not let go. A man threw a trash can on the dog but it would not relent. Meanwhile the mailman screamed. It seems an apt notion of everything wrong in the world.

We may not think we need to take time to deal with the horrors of living in this world, but we do. Maybe we think we can ignore the hawk eating the gosling or the child predator beheading the boy who only wanted to look at toys while his parents shopped. We might think it doesn’t affect us, but our innocence has been slaughtered.

It’s good to be sad about sad things

I think depression is a reminder to stop and process the grief.

We rage against the senseless ache of depression because it interferes with daily life. The email must be processed. The meals must be made. The children must be bathed.

So we settle for another distraction. We binge watch the super heroes destroying the villains. We bake a pan of brownies and eat until we are sick. We have so many treacherous coping mechanisms that do nothing to actually heal us.

We are embarrassed to weep because weeping is a sign of weakness.

I push for healing like a machine pressing out parts. Input steel, output structural beam. I build a fortress of solitude and safety so how come it turns into a prison? The windows have bars but I don’t remember building it that way. I decide to make languishing an art because maybe it’s stylish to pout. But even this is meaningless. A chasing after the wind. Because I remember laughter that isn’t forced; the giddiness of a glad heart. Then I’m just angry.

But this is good! Anger is a wonderful beginning because it forces the heart to push the blood. And we all know the blood carries the white blood cells to the wounds so they can be repaired.

Waiting is Beautiful

I resolve to grieve well while I wait. I allow myself to cry. I invite the sadness to stay until it is done. I know now that I just need to really process all the pain so I can truly heal. No more pressing parts through my machine. Maybe hope just needs to go to hospice…and die.

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. you heard me say to you, I am going away, and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.” (John 14:27-31 ESV)

Elisabeth Elliott wrote in A Path Through Suffering, “I know of no answer to give to anyone except the answer given to all the world in the cross. It was there that the great Grain of Wheat died–not that death should be the end of the story, but that it should be the beginning of the story, as it is in all the cycles of nature. The grain dies. The harvest results. The sun must die in the west if it is to rise in the east. The crimson touch must be found even in the fresh shoots of the baby oak–they are destined for death.”

So the seed splits so that new life may grow. And the shoot is lovely.

That is why I love the amaryllis bulbs that I hide in the dark corner of my basement. During the coldest, melancholy months of the year, I pull them out to find the seed has split and a bud shoots forth. The rapturous explosion of color is a reminder that death is the beginning of something glorious. But one would never know that in the fall when one digs the cold, brown bulb out of the dirt to put in a pot.

Right now the months are cold. The sky is dark. The flesh is weak. Sadness is a cloak about which I am inherently swallowed. And while distractions abound, I am not lost in them. Because I think there is something wonderfully hopeful about depression. God is showing me that even when I am sad, the soft touch of new, freshly washed flannel sheets against cold skin is healing. When I am weak, the scent of mulberry candles tickling my nose is a touch of gladness. The little, brown wren flicking his tail in the early afternoon sun sings, “Don’t lose heart!” And the bright blue sky shining like a gem–the most overt prism in existence–is a promise that one day the Son will avenge all our sadness in a burst of glorious light with the heavenly host of angels behind him. And the prince of this world will no longer rule–not even in hell.

Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me,
 Bless Thy little lamb tonight,
 Through the darkness be Thou  near me,
 Keep me safe 'til morning light. (Mary Duncan)