Depression and anxiety are two mental health disorders, two extremes of a balanced mind. Each of these can take us on a rollercoaster of emotions. Depression and anxiety are opposites, though treated with the same medicine.
We stand on the dusty road of our circumstances, and experience tells us the clouds will roll in soon and we’ll be left exhausted, knee deep in the mud. The humanity of it all is that we will find whatever we are looking for. Yet, the mercy of God’s hand reaches down to shield our hearts from the calculated pain, and offers something better for each of us than we could ever imagine for ourselves.
Three years ago, when I turned 30 (for the first time), my heart skipped a billion beats in anticipation of the glorious days this era would bring.
This is when life begins.
It is the monumental moment when a 20-something mistake-maker finally grows into a mature and sophisticated version of herself, with less baby fat.
The first few moments were great! But in the following months, everything came crumbling down. My job. Relationship. Friendships.
And my health. A brisk walk was no longer burning off that pumpkin spice latte! I failed to factor an aging body into my fantasy of a ripe, slightly older age.
With my imagination zapped by this rather rude reality, another nightmare ravaged my picturesque vision of 30… Adult acne.
I’m talking about cystic craters too deep for even over-the-counter creams and pill-popping prescriptions to zap.
Disturbed by my appearance, I caked on clearasil and tried facials, doctors, and dermatologists. Helplessly, the barrage of blemishes continued to plague my life.
If you’re a man reading this, it may mean nothing. If you’re a woman, you probably feel my pain.
Society makes it worse with its infatuation of a selfie-centered culture. Sure, I can keep my camera at bay, but friends and family are a different story. Everyone wants a picture. Smile. Cheese. Snap. It’s done before you know it.
Two years went by and my face was still a mess. I opted to see skin ‘aesthetician’. She suggested a procedure that would extract cysts caught beneath the surface of skin. A fine needle injected several skin layers deep, heats to the temperature of lava. Painful? That’s an understatement.
The nurse gave this disclaimer when she finished the hour long session: What you’re about to see will heal in about a month or two.
My heart hiccuped at “a month or two”. Where was that vital note an hour ago?
Blood flow stopped when I saw the reflection.
Embarrassment. Humiliation. Sadness. Any little bit of self esteem I was holding onto, all flushed out the moment that mirror reflected hideous wounds on my face.
My mind conceded in defeat. How could I face job interviews looking like this? How could I be seen in public?
For fear a depression could lead to that dark place I had been just a year before, I bought a one-way ticket home to heal.
It was December. My folks were happy there was timeline on my stay. However, my heart grew heavy as every distant relative cringed at first sight of the scabs. The infamous family gathering Q & A’s ensued, reminding me that I still had no job, no house and no plan.
“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.” Proverbs 17:22
Under the exhausting, emotional pressure, my fake confidence finally collapsed in tears. Discreetly, I took my meltdown to the bathroom. Never have I seen a room with so many mirrors. Gigantic reflections all staring back at me and projecting the very image I now hated.
Standing face to face with the fear, I saw another reflection. A deep-rooted bitterness. Anger. Pride. Defeat.
This scarred tragedy on the surface was transparent to the emotional crisis going on underneath.
The outside concerns distracted my reflection of an inside condition.
As I peered past my skin and saw my soul, my mind understood the deep rooted pain buried beneath. This is when my focus shifted.
My knees met the ground with prayers for a sickness others couldn’t see. For restitution. For restoration. For peace.
Suffering can produce unspeakable intimacy with our Creator. Never more than in the furnace of my affliction have I experienced the profound presence of God.
My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Job 42:5
The fire refined jagged edges and impure desires. In my weakness of pain and suffering, God purified and polished a radiant bride of Christ.
…I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. Isaiah 48:10
My mistakes still blemish the beauty of His design, but suffering produced character and growth (James 1:2-4). God used these hardships to mature my faith and develop a resilient spirit.
He can redeem pain in our lives. We serve a God and Savior who knows suffering.
My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. 2 Corinthians 12:9
Through this suffering, the transformation of my mind has blossomed into a beautiful daughter, mirroring her Father’s image. Though I know suffering will still come in seasons, my heart is awakened and wrapped up in His love, basking in the glorious gift of His presence today.
You may be reading this in the midst of your own suffering. Perhaps a lot of things have come against you and it seems like the more you pray, the worse it gets. You might be doing the right thing, yet the wrong thing is happening. It would be easier to throw in the towel now.
Look closer. Stand steady. Rest in His Truth. You’ve come too far to stop.
Whenever life gets difficult and the lies bombard your mind, that’s the time to dig in your heels. Put on a new attitude because you are closer to real freedom and victory.
Doing the right thing in the midst of our pain and suffering when it feels so wrong, is what grows us in deeper places and stays with us longer than what’s on the surface.
Instead of being bitter and discouraged, look in the mirror and see through the surface. Keep standing, keep praying, keep hoping and stay in faith even as the intensity turns up!
Jesus, my Healer and Deliverer, You have seen the things I’ve been through. You know what I’ve had to endure. And I trust You. I see the places you have taken me from and I am encouraged by Your promises that this is not my destination. You are working behind the scenes.
I have full confidence my current suffering is refining and growing my intimacy with You, Heavenly Father, as perseverance leads me in the path to victory. I keep my faith and trust in You and expect to see Your mighty hand in Jesus’ name! Amen.
With an end of the rough, twisted rope in a tight grip around my throat, heartbreaking tears exploded from within and covered my face. I didn’t want to die, but the pain of betrayal, a failing career, and grieving words haunted my heart too much to stay alive. It was August 18, 2011.
Self awareness made me a spectator with a front row seat, watching this nightmare unfold. Pain and deeper suffering kept me a helpless victim who lacked willpower to overcome the demons that had lured my emotions to act that evening.
The chair beneath refused to roll away. The energy was gone to do anything more than collapse in a pool of tears. Crawling up the stairs and out of the pit of my basement, I found a phone and called for help.
It was the first time since elementary school that I had climbed into a bed with my parents to feel the comfort and strength of their bodies next to mine.
It was a long drive the next day, as the reality sunk in and I admitted myself into a psychiatric facility. Mom and Dad couldn’t sugarcoat my trauma anymore with, “it’s going to be alright;” clearly it wasn’t.
For months I had been reaching out, however, a recent move narrowed the options of people close enough to care. As the sorrows grew too heavy for my heart to bear, I scoured our self-absorbed society looking for the land of listening ears, but it was parched of people who would pause.
Even the hospital wasn’t as interested in lending an ear as they were in prescribing an absorbent amount of prescriptions. That’s when I checked out of the psychiatric facility and invested my income into a Christian counselor.
We don’t need more breakthroughs in anti-depressant options. We need to break down the burdens with love.
Many consumed by depression are reaching out, yet we’re not listening. In our fast-paced, dream driven world, we’ve flown right past the shield of a smile and never stopped for a second listen.
This lifestyle of self-consumption has drenched the messaging in our minds to spit out, “what’s in it for me”. What prevents us to pause is the idea that we will lose ground in our schedule or success. Yet, none of us will take our dreams with us when we die.
God created community to care for each other. The measure of success in heaven is in hearts.
We’re too rushed to hear the tears falling. Our eyes too focused to see through the shield of a smile. And we’ve become too narrow-minded to notice the fear in a friend standing in front of our face.
Success is measured by love. It doesn’t simply talk about love, it walks out love.
How can you live love today? Who can you be a friend to? Where can you pause and notice that pain in someone else?
Or maybe it’s you we’re searching for. Speak up, reach out, I’m listening.
Loneliness is a disease! Did you know ‘lonely’ people have higher cortisol levels and less immunity to infections? Because of this, it is necessary for their bodies to work harder to pump blood. These folks also have increased trouble with self control and are prone to develop the obvious; depression leading to suicide, alcoholism, and difficulty getting deep sleep. And as if that wasn’t enough, they also have faster progression of Alzheimers. Gulp.
Being alone can kill you.
When I feel the weight of being alone, it’s really when I’m not connected 
with God. When the demands of the day override my dedication to seeking God. I wondered if deep down I was really fearing that God would leave my heart empty for many more days. I confess His goodness with my lips but doubt His faithfulness with disparity. When I am confident in my closeness with Christ, the consciousness of singleness vaporizes. My thoughts become focused on how beautiful and big He is, that my needs for a companion seem so small and somehow fade into the background.
I think it’s interesting that many times in scripture Jesus withdrew to ‘lonely’ places to pray. Why did He go to lonely places on purpose? After all, the enemy prowls around like a lion (1 Peter 5:8). Think about how a lion preys. A lion gets his prey alone. A pride of lion will hunt down game twice it’s size, but singled out, makes for an easy meal. But I imagine Jesus is thinking in the emptiness of a desert place, the worries of the world fade and distractions that once tried to fill this void vanish.
So maybe, just maybe, there is good to be found in being alone after all.
Maybe the lonely truth is that in my abandonment, I find God. And as I soak up the goodness of a Father so deeply in love with me, I realize the pangs of solitary living are satisfied with a robust zeal that revives the beat of my dead heart. I am made whole again, in the constant companionship of Christ, who covers the wounds and fills these longings. My desire begins to weave with His will and my faith strengthens as a single strand becomes the cord.
The seasons shift, but my trust, it still remains.
Oh, my Lord. Some days I think I get what your Word is trying to say, and other days I’m drowning in tears of forgetfulness. I am trying to live in your ways, but my flesh is weak and my spirit fails. Come, like you promised. Fill me with your living Spirit. Just like you said you would. Turn to me and be gracious, God. This loneliness is an affliction to more hearts than my own and so I ask for Your healing touch to revive their souls in this moment. Come with grace and mercy. Come riding on the wind. Come restore your bride, just like you said you would, Jesus. We’re waiting.
Are you filling your life with something tangible because your emotions are missing the intangible gift of love?
Lately, I’ve been overindulging in emotional eating. No sooner than finishing the last bite of a cow and my stomach is signaling to eat the hog too. It’s a pretty serious problem. Even now, as I type this at 7:30 p.m., I’m taking down several chewy Chips Ahoy and no amount of self control or fullness is registering, so I’m tackling an ice cream sundae because dinner didn’t fill me up.
I’ve had my own hypothesis for these buried emotions I’ve been sweeping under the table I’m gorging at, but my solution is enough exercise will zero out the day and hours of self analysis can be avoided. (I’m going to go out on a limb and say all our problems stem from the same thing I’ve been settling my stomach with.)
My available time is shrinking this summer, which means I need to figure out a better method to make up for these meals or stop being a coward and deal with these emotions so I can stop overeating. The solutions are slim so I invested in wisdom; Breaking Free From Emotional Eating by Geneen Roth.
My hypothesis was right. The deeper emotion that causes people to react in reaching for food is… love, or a lack of, I should say. 
People are lonely deep down and they want to feel loved, so they eat to suppress their appetite for affections. It stems from the lack of tenderness and touch in our lives. The stomach isn’t empty, just the love tank.
Regardless of whether you’re single or in a committed relationship, God made us all for love. If you’re body isn’t experiencing a form of love daily, it reacts through depression, anger, anxiety and withdrawal.
I even believe the source of a sour character is a scarcity of love. An inner revolt happens when there is a deficit of devotion and sentiment surrounding our soul; touch, time, gifts, affirmation and even service.
The hard truth is, you may be getting what you’re giving. You are a life created for love, but also a life made to live love. So I thought about how to live love. But the reality is, you can’t walk in these ways of you’re wandering in the wilderness of ‘busyness’.
So first, get free from the demands holding you down and then load up your empty love tank with what it’s really lacking:
1) Guard your heart and mind with the Word of God daily. Don’t let the sun go down or come up without the Word in your mind and on your heart. After all, God is love. If you are in need of love, you are in need of God.
2) Find more friends who are in a similar position of life as you. If you’re single, find single friends. If you’re married, get with other couples.
3) Allow others to love you. We are generally a selfish society. We want love the way we want it. A preference is good, but I’m challenging you to renew your perspective and accept love in the way it’s given. Take what you can get and find the good in it.
4) Love lavishly. Encourage others. Get involved in other’s lives (it can be online). Give your time to someone, or even something they care about. Ask questions and follow up! Generously give out hugs. Invite someone to coffee, dinner, a movie or a walk .
Everyone was created to be loved.
Next time you reach for the refrigerator or have an adverse attitude, understand food won’t fill your deeper need. Get un-busy and start extravagantly loving others, and this love will overflow their reservoir and flood your own.
God, you see the depths of our hearts and know that void space that’s crying out for love. Help us to see the need in others. Give us the willingness and energy to begin pouring out what little love we have left in us, trusting that You will bring a mighty flood our way. You are Love. Help us to take Your Word and Spirit and transform lives with the unselfish nature of who You are. In the name of Love, I pray this in Jesus’s precious name, Amen.
I am staring down this piece of fruit sitting on my desk. I packed it for a nutritious snack later. I’m thinking about the juiciness of this pear and how tasty it would be on my tongue. You will not surely die from a bite, I thought.
But I’ve decided to move the fruit out of eyesight as I’m praying for the peace of Christ to reign supreme over my heart. I’m proclaiming the power that is in Him to be stronger than any desire in me for ‘more’. My hunger for Jesus is bigger than my hunger for the things in this world.
You may be asking, ‘what’s the big deal? It’s just a piece of fruit. Why take such a spiritual stand against something so seemingly harmless?’
I struggle with anxiety. For more than a decade I took anti-depressants, but have been off medications for more than two years now. With that choice has come increasing anxiety. New prescriptions for another health concern perpetuate the panic and add to my angst. When my blood boils, I band-aid the burden by biting into food to release the tension. Then I workout like a body builder to burn the calories I consume. It’s a vicious cycle.
Emotional eating is a shortcut solution the enemy uses to soothe pain on the surface of my underlying issues. When concerns turn into conundrums and consume my thoughts, I mindlessly eat to pacify the problem. I even started drinking decaf coffee. What is even the point of that? But I deducted tranquility is more important to my troubling heart than the jolt of caffeine revving up my metabolism. Stopping coffee altogether is not an option, are you crazy?!
So this brings me back to my stand against Satan, and that succulent piece of fruit (that was) sitting on my desk. The plague won’t let up, but maybe it’s because I just won’t let some things go! I’m aware of his sneaky way to steal the self control God is strengthening me with. I can hear the enemy saying, ‘you will not surely die’.
I remember the last time he tried this trick with an apple on Eve. We all know how that turned out. Wisdom tells me he’s right, I won’t die, but a fragment of my faith will. As silly as it sounds, to someone with anxiety this is where I either choose self control and trusting God to fill my need for more or give in to the fruit, and then the granola bar, bag of almonds, and that small cup of applesauce. This is after I have already consumed a big breakfast. What my heart is hungry for is something food can’t fix.
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” 1 Peter 5:7
With food out of sight, I’m taking a 15-minute break to walk, as I pray for God to show me how to handle the turmoil, instead of eating my way through it.
My God, I ask for your peace and comfort over the storm swirling in my mind. I’m casting all my cares on You. Take this heavy yoke from my head. I know You have a good plan for me and will show yourself strong in this! You are working behind the scenes on my behalf!
The lilies of the field and the birds of the air are cards for, how much more will my heavenly Father take care of me? I’m choosing to trust that You will take care of me. I refuse to dwell on these problems and won’t allow them to steal my peace and joy today. I bless and magnify You alone, Lord. I am meditating on your Word and confess Your promises over my life! May I experience Your peace and joy and blessing in all the days of my life! Amen!