A Divine Darkness

Do you ever get depressed?  If you answered no, well, I envy you.  Unfortunately, I’ve dealt with depression and anxiety most of my life.  I can psychoanalyze aspects of my childhood, or perhaps blame it on PTSD from my time in Iraq; but the thing is, it’s as much a part of my genetic make-up as my eye color and height.  I firmly believe it’s both nature and nurture that contribute to my mental maladies.  I guess in the moments of darkness, that doesn’t really matter.   It just sometimes helps me to feel less inadequate and broken when I realize it’s not entirely my fault.  What is my fault is how I react to it and how long I decide to dwell in this space.

As a vocal person of faith, I can imagine when people see me like this, it can somehow cheapen their opinion of my God.  I get that.  It’s not like I’m trying to be sad, anxious or unmotivated.  It’s just sometimes I can’t quite deal with the weight of the world, and it all crushes me.  I feel overwhelmed, and it literally seems like I’m drowning in hopelessness sometimes.  So why am I telling you all this sad nonsense?  I would hope that as one of the people reading my articles, you’re likely a close friend or family member, and you know that at my core I’m at least honest about how I feel at all times.  If you’re a stranger, well, welcome to the madness.  I hope you find commonality and healing as I strive for the same. 

I didn’t want to write an article this week.  I love to write, and writing helps to snap me out of my mental funks more often than not.  But I haven’t wanted to write because, well, I’ve become obsessed with the analytics.  I’ve made the error of equating my worth to social statistics and the numbers of readers on the articles I post.  I’m glad my value is not calculated by clicks and likes, but I still get swept up into that rat race from time to time.  Lately, I’ve felt like I’ve been posting some of my best work, and each week I get fewer and fewer views on my articles.  Why does that even matter?  In the scheme of things, it really doesn’t.  I know I’m a decent writer and don’t need adulations or attaboys, but, if I’m being honest, sometimes that stuff really helps to fuel the fire.

Before I go too much further, I want to thank those of you who have subscribed to my newsletter and faithfully read these articles.  You don’t know how much your likes, comments, and emails mean to me.  Even when we disagree on points of theology or issues I raise in my posts, those challenges sharpen me.  I am unbelievably thankful that you’ve taken time out of your busy life to pour back into me.  So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.  To those of you not reading my articles, well, you aren’t reading this one either and I don’t really know how to get you stoked on what I’m doing.  So, I won’t focus on that.  To those of you reading these weekly posts, what have you enjoyed?  What do you want to see more of, less of?  I want to honor your time commitment and offer things you’ll be more invested in as I can. 

Ok, enough bellyaching.  Am I depressed this week?  Yes.  Am I planning to stay here? God willing, I’m trying to break myself out of this.  I’m not a victim, and refuse to live like one.  So, if you’re like me, I imagine the cycle of depression and darkness seems to compound and the more you isolate yourself, the more it seems to weigh you down.  That loneliness compounds those negative inner voices and affirms your funk.  At least for me.  So, step one for me is to reach out to friends and family.  Find someone to talk to, don’t just complain and lament your heartache, try to connect with others.  See if you can find ways to get outside of your own head.

Sometimes just taking a walk will help.  Consider a short hike as a way to disengage your brain and engage your physical body.  That shift can shut down the hamster wheel of cyclical melancholy.  As I mentioned above, I am a person of faith. So, if I can bring myself to actually do it, prayer or reading scripture helps.  The irony about all of the above mentioned “fixes” is when I’m at my lowest those are the furthest things from my brain.  When I get like this I just want to go through the motions at my job and then just sleep as much as humanly possible.  The opposite end of that spectrum is the insomnia that my anxiety will often produce.  It’s a balancing act I suppose.  A razors edge of sleep deprivation causing a sleep debt that you can’t seem to catch up on.  Sleep is a big deal, not too much and not too little.  I’m not a doctor, these are just things I’ve done that worked.

Last night I had a thought.  One of those thoughts that shouldn’t blow my mind, but it did.  Maybe this thought pattern will help you too.  Bear with me.  Prior to the illumination of Gods original creation, He brooded over the dark waters.  We attribute light to God and his holiness, shining brightly on our inequity and so on.  Although this is a true statement, I want to offer that God is in the darkness too.  Before He commanded light into the universe by the power of his eternal voice, He sat alone in the dark.  Being in divine darkness he was neither consumed nor affected by the inky black. 

He sits with you, even in your darkness.  Next time you feel as if there is no way out; that your path is only bleak and blackened; remember there is hope.  There is divinity even amidst the darkness.  Just as God spoke all of creation into existence, and called light from the darkness, he can sit with you in yours, until you’re illuminated by his grace. We just have to remember that whether it’s light or dark, God is there too, and take solace in knowing that the creator of the entire universe knows you by name.  Let there be light, and if there’s not, let God.

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