"Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself, question yourself. You must say to your soul: 'Why art thou cast down'-what business have you to be disquieted? You must turn on yourself, upbraid yourself, condemn yourself, exhort yourself, and say to yourself: 'Hope thou in God'-instead of muttering in this depressed, unhappy way. And then you must go on to remind yourself of God, who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. Then having done that, end on this great note: defy yourself, and defy other people, and defy the devil and the whole world, and say with this man: 'I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance, who is also the health of my countenance and my God'."
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
First of all, Happy birthday Patrick! Now get out of bed already! Quit lying there and go enjoy the day! And above all else, do what the Lord told you do when you were praying this morning-enjoy Him today! Wasn't it wonderful to hear the Lord say, "Enjoy your birthday Patrick but most all, enjoy Me today!" All your springs are in Him and everything you have is from Him. You are not hopeless like you sometimes think Patrick but you have more hope than you could ever ask for because He has placed His own Spirit, Himself, inside your very body! You have hope and you have joy today Patrick and so be encouraged. Most days you would just try to stumble along in that hope and joy but today, Patrick, be encouraged to not only walk in it but to run His hope and joy! Don't think about what other people think and don't listen to the dumb voices in your head that try to calm you down and distract you. Look to your Father who rejoices over you today with singing and dancing! Strip off whatever clothes you are wearing and clothe yourself in the ones He gives you today. Now seriously, Patrick, get out of bed and let your heart be filled with a song!
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Having Your Heart Held Together
"And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Colossians 1:17
I remember when I was going through a time of depression what it felt like. Thinking about it now feels like remembering a nightmare you had and even though it's daytime now you still feel a tinge of its' darkness touching you. I talked with a friend once who had been through depression. I remember her saying that God is letting you experience your own darkness. At the time, I merely thought that I am going to have think about that for a while. A year later, I think she was right. Coming out of depression is a strange thing. I think it's like a sunrise but not how you would normally think of one. You see, when the sun first starts coming up you don't feel anything at all. You know intellectually that the sun rising in front of you is supposed to be beautiful but still you don't feel anything. Then it comes, in little pieces, like little touches of electricity are starting to actually connect. There are little bits of pleasure and felt beauty but then it goes away again and you are afraid things are going to go back to the way they were. But then you feel it again and again until the sun actually makes you smile for the first time. You've smiled before in the midst of depression but it wasn't a real smile, the kind where you can't keep yourself from doing it. And as you are filled with this smile, it's like you are seeing a sunrise for the first time.
In the coming months, there are so many times like this. The first time you have a meaningful conversation again and the first time a friend makes you laugh. You can remember that these things used to happen before the depression but it doesn't matter. It all feels new.
It's not just that things are restored to the way they were before depression either. It's not like you used to laugh, then you stopped laughing, and now you laugh again. No, it's more like you used to laugh, then you didn't, and now you are truly laughing. You feel like you are laughing from the depths of your heart. Now you laugh with understanding, not only intellectually but with a heart-understanding. Now you understand why you are laughing--not just because what your friend did is really funny but because it's beautiful and they are beautiful and you know that it doesn't have to be beautiful but it is. Let me say that again. It doesn't have to be beautiful but it is.
You see, somewhere along the way in the midst of depression, you realize how weak and helpless you are. I've learned that I shouldn't shy away from that thought. If something is true but it's hard for us to face up to, that means we should think about it even if it hurts because the truth changes us and sets us free. Sometimes getting set free hurts. I could barely get out of bed in the morning. I remember driving to work and making my foot press the gas pedal down but every other fiber in my being wanted to turn around and go hide under my covers. And even hiding under my covers, all I could think was that I wanted some place deeper to hide. Each day there was nothing to look forward to, only things to dread. The only hope was that some day all this would go away but nothing in my day encouraged me in that hope. Somewhere in all this I remember thinking of that verse in the Bible where it talks about how Jesus holds all things together, that in Him all things hold together, that He is before all things, the firstborn from the dead. I remember feeling like I used to be held together but now in certain ways I wasn't being held together at all. I knew that if there was any hope for me of being restored, it would have to be in Him somehow. I knew that if He was firstborn from the dead, that maybe I could be one of the secondborn.
In my depression, I knew the truth could set me free-or atleast I hoped it could-but I didn't feel like it could. So I had to make a choice. This choice didn't have to do anything with feelings. This choice simply had to do with knowing and hoping in something I could neither see nor feel. It would be really nice if this depression was a one-day thing or even a week thing where you subject yourself to it and then it's over and you can talk with your friends about how interesting it was not to feel anything but still to make decisions you knew were the right ones. It's not like that though. You don't subject yourself. You are subjected. And it doesn't just last a day or a week but months. Months of waking up every morning, going through your day, and going to bed at night. You don't feel anything. You can just know things and it's hard because you could know you have to rip a band-aid off but once you feel it pulling against your skin, you start think that maybe you aren't supposed to rip the band-aid off after all. Your feelings are everyday trying to trick you into just leaving yourself the way you are. You'll be just fine in bed here all day. But you have to rip the band-aid every morning for months and get up. And it hurts.
I started realize somewhere in the midst of all this that I was actually being subjected by someone and that someone was God. Now that may sound really cruel and like I am accusing God for my pain. It might help if I tell you that now I'm not mad at God for making me go through all that but am actually thankful to Him. You see, I started realizing what God was doing. I had been making decisions prior to the depression that told God that I didn't really need Him. I never would have said that out loud and would have thought I was doing wonderful things like going to church and reading my Bible. I was doing these things but it was all on my terms. He didn't have my heart like someone who loves you wants your heart. Someone who loves you wants all of you heart and they don't want you to tell you how much you love them and then to spend your day loving and getting excited about other things. So He, in what I see now as kindness, let me see what I was like without Him holding me together. He still held me together in some ways. My body didn't fall apart and my mind still functioned but it was like some parts, namely my feelings, He stopped holding together. I got to see what it was like to live months of not being held together by Him.
There's a little term we use every so often called "taking things for granted". It usually happens when we used to treasure something, and even though that something or someone never lost its' worth, we stopped seeing that worth. We use the expression fairly freely and usually shortly after realizing we take something for granted, things drift back to the way they were. Things were different though going through depression. First of all, what I now see as treasure, I never really treasured to begin with. I never really treasured being held together by Jesus Christ every day. Then through depression, I realized day after day, week after week, month after month, that the only reason I used to feel stuff and laugh and cry was because He had been holding me together. So when the sunrise finally came and I started feeling little bits and pieces and then drifting back into the numbness again, I knew in the bottom of my heart that the only reason I felt any beauty from the sunrise was because it was Him holding me together. It was from Him. The smile I smiled felt like the first smile I had ever smiled because it was the first smile where I realized why I was smiling. It was completely from Him. And so in the coming days as the sun rose, I smiled for the first time, laughed for the first time, and had tears of joy for the first time. I knew in the core of my soul that I deserved none of it but He was giving it to me. This is what grace is. We use the word grace a lot and sometimes we wonder what it actually means and it just confuses us so we give up thinking about it. This is what grace is. Things don't have to be beautiful but they are. I used laugh, then I didn't laugh, and I now I laugh with grace filling my heart. I look around me and I know that this doesn't have to be beautiful but it is...because Jesus Christ is holding it together and that same Jesus Christ wants not part of my heart but all of it.
I remember when I was going through a time of depression what it felt like. Thinking about it now feels like remembering a nightmare you had and even though it's daytime now you still feel a tinge of its' darkness touching you. I talked with a friend once who had been through depression. I remember her saying that God is letting you experience your own darkness. At the time, I merely thought that I am going to have think about that for a while. A year later, I think she was right. Coming out of depression is a strange thing. I think it's like a sunrise but not how you would normally think of one. You see, when the sun first starts coming up you don't feel anything at all. You know intellectually that the sun rising in front of you is supposed to be beautiful but still you don't feel anything. Then it comes, in little pieces, like little touches of electricity are starting to actually connect. There are little bits of pleasure and felt beauty but then it goes away again and you are afraid things are going to go back to the way they were. But then you feel it again and again until the sun actually makes you smile for the first time. You've smiled before in the midst of depression but it wasn't a real smile, the kind where you can't keep yourself from doing it. And as you are filled with this smile, it's like you are seeing a sunrise for the first time.
In the coming months, there are so many times like this. The first time you have a meaningful conversation again and the first time a friend makes you laugh. You can remember that these things used to happen before the depression but it doesn't matter. It all feels new.
It's not just that things are restored to the way they were before depression either. It's not like you used to laugh, then you stopped laughing, and now you laugh again. No, it's more like you used to laugh, then you didn't, and now you are truly laughing. You feel like you are laughing from the depths of your heart. Now you laugh with understanding, not only intellectually but with a heart-understanding. Now you understand why you are laughing--not just because what your friend did is really funny but because it's beautiful and they are beautiful and you know that it doesn't have to be beautiful but it is. Let me say that again. It doesn't have to be beautiful but it is.
You see, somewhere along the way in the midst of depression, you realize how weak and helpless you are. I've learned that I shouldn't shy away from that thought. If something is true but it's hard for us to face up to, that means we should think about it even if it hurts because the truth changes us and sets us free. Sometimes getting set free hurts. I could barely get out of bed in the morning. I remember driving to work and making my foot press the gas pedal down but every other fiber in my being wanted to turn around and go hide under my covers. And even hiding under my covers, all I could think was that I wanted some place deeper to hide. Each day there was nothing to look forward to, only things to dread. The only hope was that some day all this would go away but nothing in my day encouraged me in that hope. Somewhere in all this I remember thinking of that verse in the Bible where it talks about how Jesus holds all things together, that in Him all things hold together, that He is before all things, the firstborn from the dead. I remember feeling like I used to be held together but now in certain ways I wasn't being held together at all. I knew that if there was any hope for me of being restored, it would have to be in Him somehow. I knew that if He was firstborn from the dead, that maybe I could be one of the secondborn.
In my depression, I knew the truth could set me free-or atleast I hoped it could-but I didn't feel like it could. So I had to make a choice. This choice didn't have to do anything with feelings. This choice simply had to do with knowing and hoping in something I could neither see nor feel. It would be really nice if this depression was a one-day thing or even a week thing where you subject yourself to it and then it's over and you can talk with your friends about how interesting it was not to feel anything but still to make decisions you knew were the right ones. It's not like that though. You don't subject yourself. You are subjected. And it doesn't just last a day or a week but months. Months of waking up every morning, going through your day, and going to bed at night. You don't feel anything. You can just know things and it's hard because you could know you have to rip a band-aid off but once you feel it pulling against your skin, you start think that maybe you aren't supposed to rip the band-aid off after all. Your feelings are everyday trying to trick you into just leaving yourself the way you are. You'll be just fine in bed here all day. But you have to rip the band-aid every morning for months and get up. And it hurts.
I started realize somewhere in the midst of all this that I was actually being subjected by someone and that someone was God. Now that may sound really cruel and like I am accusing God for my pain. It might help if I tell you that now I'm not mad at God for making me go through all that but am actually thankful to Him. You see, I started realizing what God was doing. I had been making decisions prior to the depression that told God that I didn't really need Him. I never would have said that out loud and would have thought I was doing wonderful things like going to church and reading my Bible. I was doing these things but it was all on my terms. He didn't have my heart like someone who loves you wants your heart. Someone who loves you wants all of you heart and they don't want you to tell you how much you love them and then to spend your day loving and getting excited about other things. So He, in what I see now as kindness, let me see what I was like without Him holding me together. He still held me together in some ways. My body didn't fall apart and my mind still functioned but it was like some parts, namely my feelings, He stopped holding together. I got to see what it was like to live months of not being held together by Him.
There's a little term we use every so often called "taking things for granted". It usually happens when we used to treasure something, and even though that something or someone never lost its' worth, we stopped seeing that worth. We use the expression fairly freely and usually shortly after realizing we take something for granted, things drift back to the way they were. Things were different though going through depression. First of all, what I now see as treasure, I never really treasured to begin with. I never really treasured being held together by Jesus Christ every day. Then through depression, I realized day after day, week after week, month after month, that the only reason I used to feel stuff and laugh and cry was because He had been holding me together. So when the sunrise finally came and I started feeling little bits and pieces and then drifting back into the numbness again, I knew in the bottom of my heart that the only reason I felt any beauty from the sunrise was because it was Him holding me together. It was from Him. The smile I smiled felt like the first smile I had ever smiled because it was the first smile where I realized why I was smiling. It was completely from Him. And so in the coming days as the sun rose, I smiled for the first time, laughed for the first time, and had tears of joy for the first time. I knew in the core of my soul that I deserved none of it but He was giving it to me. This is what grace is. We use the word grace a lot and sometimes we wonder what it actually means and it just confuses us so we give up thinking about it. This is what grace is. Things don't have to be beautiful but they are. I used laugh, then I didn't laugh, and I now I laugh with grace filling my heart. I look around me and I know that this doesn't have to be beautiful but it is...because Jesus Christ is holding it together and that same Jesus Christ wants not part of my heart but all of it.
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