So, I’ve been on a bit of a journey. Actually, I’ve been/am still on several, but those are more material for later blog posts.
This particular journey is the one of finding Joy.
You see, about a year ago, God reached down and pulled me out of my depression. He showed me the path to walk upon and gave me hope and breath and light again.
Not that my depression is a thing of the past. No, it continually haunts me, tugging at me, threatening to creep back in. There are nights where it finds an opening and for a brief time it floods back in, eating away at me, temporarily immobilizing me from any good action I might pursue. But it’s temporary. More of a reminder of where I’ve been than a truly paralyzing enemy. Depression no longer controls my life. I no longer crave death. I no longer wake up each morning wishing that I hadn’t (Well, maybe on Mondays…). But ultimately, I am free from the Pit I once called home.
And yet, for the past year I have been trying to discover what Joy is. You see, for me to try living without depression is much like it is for an alcoholic to function sober. We don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to process the world through any lens other than sorrow, just like a drunkard doesn’t know how to live without alcohol. And the easy thing is slip back into old, suicidal habits.
Therefore, I have been trying to find Joy. Because as it says in Nehemiah 8:10, “Do not grieve for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” And I know that I myself am weak. Like a newly birthed butterfly just breaking out of its cocoon. I was a shriveled, dying worm wrapped in the silky mantle of sorrow. And God rent the covering I had made for myself and set me free to fly. But I am fragile and weak and fearful. And many times I wish for nothing more than to crawl back into the the familiar, painful, comfort of that dark oppressive cocoon.
The other night I was sitting at home watching a movie when I suddenly felt the urge to seek God. (Now, lest you get the wrong idea, I often feel this urge and ignore it. I’m not a very good Christian at all.) But there was an urgency, and the more I thought about it, the hungrier for Living Water I became. So I got up and went to get my Bible.
But I was fearful. I didn’t want to open my Bible and find empty dry words inked on dead parchment. So I prayed, “God, please give me… Something! But it’s got to be something deep and alive and real. I don’t want to play cat and mouse. I will not follow a carrot.”
I sat there, eyes closed for a little longer and then opened up to Isaiah 60. And dissapointed flooded me. It was the same passage I had complained about on Facebook a week prior. Empty. Dry. Seemingly irrelevant. And it had no more life for me than before. In frustration I flipped to Jeremiah. And again I found nothing would speak to me.
I got up in disappointment and walk away. And still the hunger was there. Eating at me- gnawing at me. And I knew I couldn’t numb it with sleep or by finishing the movie, or by playing my guitars. I need something wholesome and deep and relevant. As a sort of desperate measure I turned on the CD player. Fernando Ortega’s “Home” album. The first track was “This Good Day.” And as I sat there listening to the lyrics, searching for something, anything, I finally found the answer. Thankfulness. Joy is a direct result of thankfulness. That’s were strength comes from. That’s where life finds its beginning, that’s where hope arises. It’s where Joy finds birth. And now, when I am weak, all I have to do is say “thank you” to the ever loving, every giving, ever joyful God, and strength comes to my weary limbs.
My thirst was quenched. My hunger satisfied. My heart was full. And I sat still in silent, exultant thankfulness. And again now, the wonder of Thank You fills me again. And I have found in it a Joy I only dreamed of.
“Thanks be to God for the wonder of living, thanks be to God that it’s free.” -Michael Kelly Blanchard.
Of Pain And Love And Life 