Psalm 130

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more that watchmen wait for the morning. O Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.

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I drew back the living room curtain, to let the evening light in, and thought to myself “It’s like a depressed person lives here.” I cleaned to keep from crying, then I sat on the porch drinking a beer, counting the cars until he ran to me, and when he did, I was so confused that he was running.

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The morning light greeted my eyes already full of tears. I thought I had reached the end. I would be spending the day entirely alone, and was so very afraid.

I sat in the red chair and looked at the book on the table, trying to convince myself to open it while my coffee was brewing. I didn’t want to have to tell those girls again that I didn’t believe God loved me anymore, and that I wanted very little to do with Him. And what I wanted even less was to endure their encouraging and genuine responses about God’s love and faithfulness even in the hardest of times. So I opened it, halfway out of spite and halfway out of fear. The last words I’d read sent me reeling to the arms of the one whose heart ticks like a clock, and convinced me that there was no where I was safe from pain.

I read Psalm 130.
Once.
Twice.
Three and four more times.

I shut the book because I was actually angry at God for addressing me. If he stayed far away from me, and I could prove that he really did have it out for me, then I would be justified. But he didn’t. He crept right up from behind me and put into words the achings that had been pouring out of my eyes in the form of tears, so many tears that it seemed a little part of my soul went with each and every one until there was no soul left inside of me for God to revive and I would spend the rest of my days cold on the inside, quietly serving him until he took me home.

I sighed. I knew what I had to do. I ripped a page out of my journal, which is basically like cutting Samson’s hair. I wrote the Psalm out on that page, pausing when I wrote the word “Israel.” The name God chose for his hand-picked nation of people means “he who struggles with God.” In some way, that name has always given me hope, reassuring me that God knows how hard it is for us to actually believe in him, and that he doesn’t hate us when we don’t. I would rather fight with God for the rest of my life than blindly accept what someone tells me because they are a “stronger” Christian. And I think God’s okay with that, because I know that he made me, and that it is his hand that instilled that characteristic in me.

I read the Psalm out loud, my voice cracking and shaking, microcosmic parts of my soul spilling out from eyes. “O she who struggles with God, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.” I asked God to redeem me, to restore all the parts of my heart that I had given away, and the parts my heart I still possessed, but were so gnarled and scarred that I am afraid to show them to anyone. I thought about God’s promise in Joel, that he will restore the years that the locusts have stripped away.

Staring at my turquoise wall until they cones and rods in my eyes fired orange, I remembered the last time I felt the way I do now, spending everyday in my pajamas in a basement apartment in a town that reeked of death, and that every single day since I left that place, I have fought tooth and nail, to never, never go back.

But I am back. I am in that place again. I am the depressed person that lives in the house.

And it’s perfectly okay.

I always knew it would come back. For as much as I wanted to be one of those people who God has miraculously rescued from their days of mental illness, I’ve sort of always known that wouldn’t be my story. My diagnosis when I lived in that basement was “major depressive disorder, with personality change.” It’s some pretty heavy duty shit. I sort of always knew that I would fight this for the rest of my life, which is probably why it’s taken me so long to actually admit that I am legitimately depressed, because I was scared out of my mind, that even admitting that I was depressed again meant that I broken beyond repair.

I’m not writing this to elicit pity or sympathy, or because I think it’s cool to be sad.

I am writing this because now is the time when I have to fight. I’ve been fighting the wrong person for a while now, and when it clicked in my mind, that I am legitimately, clinically depressed, I felt free. I am not under God’s thumb, and God is not my enemy. My own brain is my enemy, which trust me, is a strange, strange realization.

Just like a cancer patient has to fight their own body, I have to fight my own mind. And just like a cancer patient needs lots of people around them who love them and will help them fight, I need that too.

In the end, this really is between me and God. But He is on my side, so I’m going to be okay. There’s a good chance I won’t always be myself, and I will probably do some really crazy things, and I don’t know how long it will take to get better, but I will.