Life of Pride
This article on boundless.org catches at my heart. I feel such a soreness for the young people of America. I guess I always have. These are the people I want to touch, and the more I know them, the stronger the desire grows. Somehow, in some way, I want to show them love, truth, beauty, and justice.
Amazing how I never knew how widespread an ailment depression was until I met the dark beast in person. Looking back, I know it lived inside me. I wrote poems about the creature in the past, but I thought it was typical angst of a young person. I didn't know it was waiting to swallow me. I didn't know it
was me and my own sin, and I guess I didn't believe the full reach of Christ's grace.
I've found out all sorts of fascinating things about this emotional disease. The amount of Americans with depression doubled between 1970 and 1990, and almost again since. All sorts of theories and studies abound as to its root causes. One major reason is unresolved emotional trauma from childhood, especially dysfunctional family situations for which people never forgave their parents. People do not develop their emotions fully, and they unconsciously interpret the same patterns of dysfunction as love. One of these situations becomes more than they can handle, and they crash and burn.
Another reason is honest lack of purpose. Most work nowadays is "knowledge work," done with the mind. It's much harder to connect such duties with actual, meaningful results than when one works with one's hands. Without a strong foundation in God, it is impossible to derive purpose. Also, nihilism is the natural child of postmodernism and technology. When an individual must define his own truth in the face of a swiftly changing culture, he simply cannot keep up. "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world." This is the result of neglecting tradition of all sorts - losing a sense of history, failing to teach literacy.
Once afflicted, people medicate. This is understandable. Not everyone is blessed with the support network I had. And I am saddened to note that I never heard anyone in Christian circles talking about depression before it hit me. But unfortunately, once on medication, often a person has to take it for life. Antidepressants actually reprogram the brain so that it becomes addicted to the condition they are meant to fix. When the drugs are removed, the brain reverts to an even more severe depressed state for a period of time before it can recover, if it can recover. That's why the warning labels on these drugs are so scary. Studies show equal or better results from cognitive behavioral therapy (i.e., talking through problems) and simple exercise.
It's not surprising that all this should be so. Fallen man is alienated from God, from others, and from his own self. A redeemed culture can alleviate this to some extent, but there remains no recourse for one that thrives on the refuse of the soul.
"The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life." So reads my meditation verse for the day. The 'fear of the Lord' - that means the knowledge that I am clay in His hands. He can do absolutely anything He wants with me. So then, how does that turn into a 'fountain of life?'
It's because it is the truth. There is no foundation for life but the truth. It springs up into the living water, Jesus Christ, the proof of God's love. So my Lord God presses me into shape with His mighty fingers, incrementally and inexorably impressing His image on my soul. The closer I draw, the deeper I submit, the faster the process. And it will never end. I can always drink a fresher draught than I ever knew.
My Lord says that He delights to reward those who diligently seek Him. During college, I thought I was doing so well. Sophomore year I asked Jesus to be my Lord, not just my Savior. That next summer, I started stretching my fledgling wings of prayer. Junior year through first senior semester, I read through the Bible for the first time cover-to-cover. Then I spent eight months at home, and I learned God was sufficient for my solitude. I started praying for my Lord to teach me about love, and I returned to finish out my time as a college student. I entered upon a test in which "I" was erased, and I dove into the valley of the shadow of death.
In four years, I have already been transformed, but I know I am only beginning. How exciting!
In a tentative way, this last Sunday I went to seek the Lord. I fasted, and I drove alone to a favorite hiking spot. It was chilly, so nobody else was about. Nobody. At the top of the cliff, a high wind puffed clouds across the sky. Down below, dead trees swayed. Once, as I watched, the faraway stick of a trunk cracked in two, and its top sank in slow motion down among its brethren. Otherwise, the caw of a crow and the rushing wind were the only sounds.
I climbed down to a ledge on the cliff, and I let the wind rush overhead. I read Bible, and I listened to the stillness. Natural solitude has much to say. It disappears into one's soul and leaves a calm space that swallows up hurt.
Like so many billions of others - in fact, every person who has ever lived - I find myself in the lonesome place of looking back at a piece of my path, struggling with the deep profundity of what passed there, and lacking the words or wisdom or skill to understand.
At times I am a small girl in pigtails, staring around me with bewildered eyes and clinging to a protective hand that belongs to someone powerful whom I cannot see. That girl refuses to die, for she is my heart.
At other times I am a maturing woman who quietly watches the masses of people who bustle around her on their own business. She is my mind.
The girl lives inside the woman; they are working now to become one. The silvery stuff that joins one to the other is my soul. God is embroidering the pieces of me together into a single fabric. The work is ongoing. It will continue my entire life, until one day at last He ties together the last stitches, and I find myself complete in Heaven.
Just this last week I've been finding pleasure in listening to music again. In fact, I am taking more pleasure in it than I ever have before in my life. I'm listening through all the pieces I have stored in iTunes on my laptop. I began collecting these in 2006, the months I was at home before my last year of college.
Has it been only two years? They mark great periods of change for me. Especially these last six months.
It's funny how music has the power to call up shadows. Every song connects to a memory and ushers past a parade of emotions. I am steadily making peace with these ghosts, so they no longer pain me. We wave hello in passing.
Someone I read recently said that perhaps the things that hurt us in our adult years are sent to heal earlier traumas. We think we're doing so well, and then something touches an ancient abscess. It has to be purged, and then at last the wound can close for good. I believe that is true.
