Monthly Archives: May 2011

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Then Christmas was over


I was feeling better, it seem to be over, the darkness, the hole seemed to dry up and all was ok, for a while. Jan came and was almost over I thought, wow I must have just had a bad season, The death of my friend’s son maybe over showed Christmas or something, but I was ok.  Then the darkness came back. It was different this time it didn’t swallow me, it slithered around my ankles and attempted to pull at my pant legs to pull me in. I didn’t fall into a hole, it came upon me like a smoky fog. The depth of the darkness wanted to drown out the light.

Here is an excerpt from my journal Jan 12 2011

“It’s a sad day, not sure if its hormones though I suspect they are, or its that devil
of depression sneaking around me. It is seductive depression, it’s a itchy coat
that completely envelops you.  Joy on the other hand is a fancy
dress. You wear it on special occasions not wanting to get it dirty or messy,
always aware that you are in it for a short time, never really believing that a
fancy dress could be worn always. Why can’t joy be like a comfortable pair of
jeans always ready to wear no matter what you are doing, where you are going,
always feeling good. Never worrying it will end, or never come again.

The darkness of depression swallows like pin the tail on the donkey it binds you,
spins you ‘round, and you can’t remember where the light is.

I am fighting. It sneaks around me but I fight. I cannot reconcile things in my
mind. The devil confuses me. I know God is powerful, creator, my heavenly
father, my source of love, my savior, the I am- God! But What about those who do
not find God. What about my friend’s son who took his life? What about my
brother, who turns his back on God, thinking me a freak for loving the creator
of the earth. We pray for these people, we pray for their souls their minds
their hearts. But the son is dead, the brother unchanged. Did we pray wrongly,
or is free will stronger than prayer, than God. Right now this is the thing I
cannot reconcile. This is what haunts me and keeps me up at night; I think this
is what is at the heart of my depression. Maybe I believe in a touch by an
angle type of God or magic God. One that saves in the nick of time and in an
hours time with commercials. “

God is not that way. What the devil likes to do is confuse you. Depression is caused;
for me anyways, by a biological chemical reaction in my hormones. When you are
not at your best the devil prowls around like a lion seeking to devour you.
What I learned through this bout of depression, my grief was not the source of
my depression, my sorrow added to my sadness, but when I could separate that I
felt sad, and confused from my faith. I soon realized I was not having a crises
of faith, it was a distraction, I could separate faith from sadness and I was
lifted up. God rescued me. I saw that faith did not cause depression and faith
helped me ’cause I could give my grief to God, he reconciled it for me in the
poem I wrote in the previous blog. I felt better and I thought Great making progress
I should have this thing licked! No God had other plans for me. In the mean
time, I went to my Doctor. Even though I figured things out as to what my
depression was not, I still could not function in the state I was in. One
Saturday I had a break down. Full on my face stretched out on the floor break
down. In front of my kids, in front of my husband, and totally freaked them out.
Then I went to my doctor. She is Great! She put me on meds to help. And they
did help keep me from the extreme but they did not stop the depression and here
is where the rub is. You will not cure it by meds they help but there is a
lot of stuff you have to do to help yourself, to heal yourself. But with God’s
help I am getting stronger. With some amazing friends I am coping and that is
how I am handling it for now. More on my journey next time. Come back and read
more. GW

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A few things about my friends son


In this edition I want to talk about my friend’s son. This was a guy that I watched grow up.
I never knew that he suffered as deeply as he did from depression.  On his memorial web site there are hundreds of pictures of this smiling guy.  A compassionate fellow, who was kind to my kids.  My kids were younger and he had a way of making them feel like they were special.  How ?? He listened.  He just listened.  I lost touch with him for a few years while he worked.   The yearly camping trips with his family did not always make a 18 -20 year old feel like hanging with abunch of 30 and 40 year olds who want to hike, swim, have campfires and a few glasses of wine.  But last summer he came.  He spent a week with us and we got him to come on the canoe trip with all 16 or so of us.  He had days he was not withdrawn, some he was.  I regret that I did not  spend a moment and ask him what was up.  It would; for the most part, maybe not have made a difference.  I would like to think it would have.  The day after we found out he was gone.  We went to the parents house and the father, a man of great faith put it all in a nut shell.  He asked God what could he have said to make a difference?Why hadn’t he found or God given him the right words.  Gods reply “he didn’t listen to me.” But God was there When he was at the cross roads of life and death Jesus was standing there as his Shepard.   The lie in his head pulling him away from his family, his God, his life, didn’t allow room for God to talk.  The pastor at his funeral makes this point more accurately

“But I’d better tackle what we’re feeling head on:

 is it not precisely God grace, His good favor, that seems to have been
swallowed and removed by this suicide? It’s like the lights have gone out and
we can’t get them back on. It’s like there’s been a grace power failure. I’m
saying, this is how it feels.

For, indeed, grace is not the one and only force
at work on planet earth, and actually, the Scriptures are candid about this. In
Ephesians 6, for example, the Apostle speaks about our struggle against the
evil power of this present darkness. I’m not going to take time to explain
that, but is it not exactly what we sense –this present darkness? Yes, and let
me warn you about something: beware that just when this present darkness is
most stiflingly black, beware of a cool, deadly voice whispering a thought to
your mind, saying,  This is reality.

Darkness, finally, is all there is. You were a fool to hope in God and His
grace; it’s an illusion.”

Beware this cool, deadly whisper because, my
friends, it is a lie. It is the lie the present darkness uses to try and pull
us still farther down, so as to increase its influence on us. But it is a lie.
A lie based on a partial truth, yes, because there is such a thing as darkness,
but when it claims that darkness, hopelessness, is the final, great reality, it
lies. Recognize it and reject it.

For the truth is much greater, and it is this: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. Furthermore, all the universe God has made is full of light, and joy, and loveliness, and grace. God’s universe is an excellent, happy place, worlds both seen and unseen, full of goodness and light. In fact, in all the wide universe there is only one, tiny corner of it where darkness has got a foothold, namely, this earth. Nevertheless, the overwhelming great reality in the cosmos is the grace and light of God –it’s everywhere.”

Ever have a feeling in your heart – it is a undeniable feeling that you cannot shake.  People tell you;  you are wrong, you see the situation in a incorrect manner.  But you are right you cause you have the feeling.   It’s your feeling, you can’t be wrong in your heart. Sometimes feelings lie.  Have you ever been proven wrong and the feeling in your heart is exposed as a lie and you can’t fathom it, but it is true.  This is what happen to this young man.  The lie of darkness spoke to his heart and we could not convince him otherwise.  We talked to him, we showed him with our way of life, but he did not realize it till he crossed over that it was a lie.  So then what? Is he sentenced to hell because of a lie?  NO and I say it again No.  Things happened long before God knit this soul together in his mom that saved him ,from a earthly lie . Jesus was born, lived died on the cross and rose again. but See the Poem I wrote.

Light Lost

Where are you my friend? I did not know you left.

We saw you as a light rising, Oh you shone so bright.

You stretched your wings, we saw you take flight.

But we never saw the darkness, lurking in the night.

We looked into your eyes, we saw only your light.

That captivating smile, outreach of compassion.

But behind the light,  the lie began to grow with passion.

We knew the darkness lurked, but we only saw your light.

The lie thought he had you, on your final flight.

But the lie did not know. That long ago

You were very small,  and baptized, witnessed by us all.

Upon the forehead and upon the breast

God’s love it always  rests.

The Son of Man, of love, and grace, ask that we bring the children in haste

So the lie has lost , for on the knee of the Son of Man

Forever and ever the light sits by His hand

Forever in God’s love

Forever in God’s Grasp

Never to hear the lie, that has made all us cry.

by GMW

In a nutshell the boy was baptized into God’s family, and no lie, or anything or one else  —  can take you from that loving grasp.

So In conclusion.  Yes there is depression, and yes there are victims from depression, and not the spacey ones you see on TV advertizing pills where the side-effects list is longer than the benefits.  I’m not saying all pills are wrong- there are some good ones prescribed by good doctors.  You just have to find the right doctor and then the right pill.  Most of the time that is the rub.    In God there is hope, love, grace, and joy.  It may not seem  near, but I ask you for one more day, then one more day, the darkness can lift.  See your family, see your doctor, see your friends, or a pastor. Call a crisis line, the operator- anyone.  You will not feel like it; but give it one more day and talk to at least 3 people— it will make all the difference.

Next time there is more on my journey please come back and read some more- till next time

Peace

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in the beginning


I have been suffering from depression for apx  a year now.  I didn’t realize it at first.  Some days were great, some days I was sad. I would be angry and then ok again.  It wasn’t till November 2010 that I realized that I was not in a good place.  At first I thought that I was sad or angry because I was too busy.  I am a mother of two teens, I work full time, husband, house, I volunteer at church doing Sunday School music, I play in a worship band. I work out, run,  I thought it was burning a candle at both ends.  Some nights I didn’t sleep, some Saturdays I slept in the afternoons for hours. I got hot flashes in the night.  Ya menopause and all its glory was reaking havic on me.  I have been getting the hot flashes since my first child was born. He’s now 18.  They never really bothered me that much you just get used to them.  But then the emotional things started happening.  I would feel sad for days.  I started having a never ending dialog running through my head, about how I would handle some situation that really made me angry, sometimes how I would put someone in their place who disappointed me.  These dialogs ran on and on.  At one point I was out for a run and the angry voices in my head arguing over what my mother-in-law had said to me were so loud and making me so crazy; I physically stopped in my tracks and yelled out loud for the on going tape to “stop”, and turned around and ran in the other direction.  There were cars on the road they must have thought I had totally lost it, and I felt as if I had.  In my journals I wrote about searching for joy and peace and never finding it.  I could not figure out why.  Did I doubt God was there to look after me? Did I not see that he loved me more and more and I needed to cultivate this relationship and make it grow.  I was reading my bible, praying, meditating but I did not feel peace.

Then Christmas started to come near.  A time of year all Christians rejoice and enjoy peace on earth to all men.  I was just mad! Then my friends son committed suicide.  He was 22 a wonderful, funny, brilliant artist.  He grew up in a good home, good parents, great grades in high school, but suffered from depression, deeply, deeply.   He believed the lie presented to him in his mind.  I am unworthy, I m better dead, I am unable to go on one more day.  – – – – all lies – – – – – over 300 people came to his funeral. He was not unloved, he was loved.  But unlike what you see on TV when they talk about depression — people sitting staring out like they are spacey or something, but depression is not quiet.  It is not just sadness. There is a storm going on in your mind.  Dare I say voices? Your voice arguing with the demons that are in there wanting to convince you that you are worthless and no one cares, and you are nothing but a speck of sand.  The lies scream over and over and over they make you doubt everything you believe, they make you question your life your direction, the power of your God. You know that the storm is not right, and then you get scared.  What is happening to you? what will people think? You want to cry for help, but you can’t.  I belong to a church where I have people there to help me,people to talk to, my pastor and friend would listen to me counsel me but I am in a worship band, I sing and praise God in front of everyone, I lead Sunday School music.  If they know the depth of my illness the depth of my depression, they will think I am crazy- I am not crazy, I want to help people I want to be a useful member of church, my work place, my home.  But I am falling into a hole that swallows me up and I am not sure if I can get out of it.

Christmas was aweful.  I tried to make it best for the kids my husband, but I couldn’t stomach it.  I put 1/2 of the decorations up- I go nuts usually with decorations even in the washrooms. Not this year.  I couldn’t cook.  Praise the Lord for cooked chickens at Costco! and the 101 things you can do with it.  My Mother-on-law thought I was just being a snob, and called me a “poop!” cause she was disgusted with me.  I couldn’t tell her that I was in a dark hole the I was trying to get out of.  She already doesn’t like me I couldn’t give her another reason to think badly of me.  I struggled through.  And then I got better I felt happier for a while.   I am going to stop here in this journey for now.

I guess the point of this post is that as the realization hit, that I was going through some troubling times, God was near. I felt that I was alone from him.  I felt as if there was a cloud between us –but that was my own mind creating it, when I was at my most down He drew closer. But the lie likes to take these moment when God draws near and try to confuse you.  Its the lies  way of doing things, confuse, distract, hurt.   The more I felt down the more I meditated on Gods word and I felt relef, not peace but a little better.  Our God is  a Mighty God, and when I was lowest He showed me His Great love, and Grace that is so abounding , these simple words can’t not do it justice.  Just know He is there for the asking.  Ask and ye shall receive seek and ye shall find knock and the Lord will open the door.  You will find Him and the love, joy, and peace that goes with it.  More to come next time please come again and read.