SILENT FIGHT
It is hard to win the battle when you don't feel like fighting.
Depression is no stranger to me, even if he has been the crazy uncle who was ousted from the family a few years back. He was kicked to the curb in 2010—I stood in my doorway and told him to never come back.
But he's been peeping in my windows and knocking on my doors recently. The other day I saw him in the swirls of paint on my bedroom ceiling. I lay there quietly, willing him away, asking him kindly, ignoring him, and finally looking him full in the face and telling him in no uncertain terms he was unwelcome.
He moved to the bathroom, staring back at me from the mirror, in the sad eyes, the straight mouth.
"Where is my joy?" I asked him. He shrugged. He is indifferent, this Uncle Depression.
I've been listening to a sermon from 2006 a friend posted. I've listened three times. It's my own pastor and he's not saying much different than he says in 2012, except a short rant on how ipods are here to stay (seriously?). He's talking about how sometimes we just have to move our feet in the direction of water and trust that wilderness can be where we find hope.
There's something different about this visit with Depression—different than his previous occupancy in my heart. Before he felt like he was there to stay, unbidden, but there to stay. This time he's just teasing me but he's also leaving room for me to still see the water. This time I know where the water is and I want it, I'm thirsty for it, and I know where to find it.
I just don't feel like it.
It's hard to win the battle when you don't feel like fighting and I guess that's where I am today. Everywhere I look, Uncle Depression is lining up his battalion, setting up a formation of fighters who will accost my soul and threaten my joy. And I feel alone. I know I'm not alone. But I feel alone. And no amount of people on my side will change that, I know. I've been down this path before.
What's different is formerly I'd fill my army up with doing, doing, doing. And this time I feel I just need to be still, trust. He will fight for me. I know it. I don't feel it. But I know it.