Our Honesty Shows God's Grace

I was talking to a friend of mine today, and we were talking about our depression! How crazy is that? It's amazing how many of us are out there, but we don't always find each other!

I can't tell you how many times I've mentioned to someone that I'm taking meds for seasonal affective disorder or clinical depression (which is what we thought I had at first), only to have them say to me, "Hey, I'm on meds for that too! But I've never told anyone outside my family."
Why are we so afraid to share this with each other?

Okay, I know the answer to that. There are lots of people out there who just don't get it. And we're tired of having them look at us weird or tell us to snap out of it.

But here's what I have to say about it: Stand up and be counted! Don't be ashamed of mental illness. It's a physical condition that is just, in many ways, beyond our control. I'm not embarrassed about my depression. I find it inconvenient, annoying, infuriating, and frustrating on many levels, but Thank God! He has shown me that it doesn't make me any less valuable as a human being.

And it doesn't make me a bad Christian.

It took me a while to realize this. I was bogged down with guilt over my inability to be a "good Christian." But you know what happened? As I was lying in my bed, totally incapable of getting up and going to supper because it seemed too hard, scary, and stressful (and I did this for weeks, only eating when my roommate forced me to), I cried out to God. I just gave up trying to do anything, and I felt horribly guilty about it. My cry wasn't even coherent, really, more like a vague "Help! I can't go on!" And it seemed like he kept directing me to read the book of Galatians in the bible.

You know what the theme of Galatians is? (It took me a while, in my state of mind, to figure this out, but it finally got through.) God didn't save me because of anything I'd done. He didn't expect me to become perfect by doing all the right things (ie. "following the law"). He just wanted me to trust in his Spirit. All I had to do was cling to him. That's it.

And I realized that he was telling me that I was valuable to him, even if I was never able to get out of my bed for the rest of my life. My worth was not tied to my actions. It was tied to him, and how he sees me.

And with that realization, the weight of guilt started to lift.

He showed me that being a "good Christian," to him, is just plain allowing him in and letting him work on my heart. Everything else flows from that.

Now that's grace. And that's why I'm not ashamed to tell people I have depression.


I've got more to say about this. Go to www.yourencouragement.com/toughtimes.html to see it.