PSALM 103
1) My soul, praise the LORD, and all that is within me praise His holy name. 2) My should, praise the LORD, and do not forget all His benefits. 3) He forgives all your sin; He heals all your diseases. 4) He redeems your life from the Pit; He crowns you with faithful love and compassion. 5) He satisfies you with goodness; your youth is renewed like the eagle. 6) The LORD executes acts of righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. 7) He revealed His ways to Moses, His deeds to the people of Israel. 8) The LORD is compassion and gracious, slow to anger and full of faithful love. 9) He will not always accuse us or be angry forever. 10) He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our offenses. 11) For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His faithful love toward those who fear Him. 12) As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. 13) As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear Him. 14) For He knows what we are made of remembering that we are dust. 15) As for man, his days are like grass--he blooms like a flower of the field; 16) when the wind passes over it, it vanishes, and its place is no longer known. 17) But from eternity to eternity the LORD's faithful love is toward those who fear Him, and His righteousness toward the grandchildren 18) of those who keep His covenant, who remember to observe His instructions. 19) The LORD has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all. 20) Praise the LORD, all His armies, His servants who do His will. 22) Praise the LORD, all His works in all the places where He rules. My should, praise the LORD!
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The catalyst for this Psalm and blog today was Matt Redman's song "10,000 Reasons" (Bless the Lord). You can find it on godtube.com if you would like to listen ;) Particularly the lyrics, 'The sun comes up; it is a new day dawning; it's time to sing Your song again; Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me; Let me be singing when the evening comes...'
When you deal with Chronic Recurrent Major Depressive Disorder and ADHD life is full of up and downs. I am not making excuses but I would like to continue to try to be a voice for those of us who deal with these type issues to help explain to those of you who really just don't understand what it is like. This may seem extreme to you, but here is how I see it. My issues with depression and ADHD are like my own version of cancer. Now I am not suggesting that cancer and its effects are exactly the same, but what I am suggesting (as I have walked very intimately down the 'cancer' road on multiple occasions) that for me it is like a battle with cancer. One less deadly in one sense, but just as deadly in another. It is a battle. It is not something that goes away for me. The medicines and their effects sometimes cause me to be more ill than I was before and the frustration of depression is that there is a constant expectation in yourself and among others; particularly believers to just get over it, get out of your emotions and stop focusing on yourself.
Well, when you have a hormonal imbalance (and by the way, this is not a 'mental illness' regardless of what you have been told, it is a physical issue that affects our emotions, our spirit, our mind, our will and our strength) it is just not possible to 'buck up', 'straighten up' or just get over it as much as you would wish too or others would like you too. BELIEVE ME IF I DID NOT HAVE TO STRUGGLE WITH THIS I MOST CERTAINLY WOULDN'T! I DID NOT CHOSE IT AND I DO NOT WANT IT! And yet, despite all the hard work of therapy, changing my thinking, praying, reading the Word, taking meds and going to doctors it is an issue that has not at this point been taken away. Like a cancer it keeps raising its head and I keep fighting.
Do you have any idea the frustration of being expected to go about your day as if all is well when everything is so far from well within you that you literally do not want to go on! When for others and their difficulties a hospital stay or a plan of treatment is much easier to come up with, but if you need help emotionally due to physical issues and perhaps some other experiences through out your life, you are considered weak, or selfish or mentally ill if you hurt internally rather than have high sugars or a broken leg or even cancer. My point here is that a person like myself, needs your understanding and not your condemnation, not your judgment or your suggestions that we get up and think about someone else or do something for someone else. Is there a time for doing for others, definitely, but when someone is unable to get up and move or even think how to help themselves perhaps they need you to help them rather than to expect them to continue to help you and others.
I am not suggesting that you let a person sit, soak and sour in their depression I am suggesting that you try to gain an understanding and that you help them in the ways that they need. Perhaps a very short walk, because movement is difficult and it does not always make someone with depression feel better. Perhaps dropping by and not minding the pajamas and sharing a cup of tea or coffee and definitely prayer. Perhaps an email or a text. Perhaps fixing a meal for their family, whatever works best for that person. Trust me when I say we do not want to be this way and yet for some reason the Lord is allowing it. Care enough for the person to see past the tears, the irritability, the inability to accomplish things like before and help them. Just listen and don't try to fix them...if they are like me they overthink and beat themselves up enough, they do not need your assistance with that. Ok, enough of this, but please consider your attitudes and your comments, even well meaning about how a person handles their life; it is their life and they do want your love and your care but not your lack of understanding or your correction. Consider them to be ill, because they are...not by choice but often by circumstance and hormones, etc. and they need you, even when they push you away. It is because they realize that they are a burden, they realize that they are 'down' again and yet do you seriously think they would choose it??? Yes, we sometimes get stuck in it, but we certainly didn't jump up and down in excitement and say 'Oh, please, sign me up for this pain, misery, confusion and despair!' Think about it...seriously.
To Psalm 103...this psalm speaks to what I am determined to do in my life. I want to praise the LORD with all that is in me, I DO! I recognize His amazing forgiveness, His healing, the fact that He has redeemed my life from the Pit (of hell once for all time) and the Pit of depression (many times over). I am weary, deep within of this battle as I have said many times before, but for some reason this is the Journey the Lord has me on. I am not suggesting that He causes my depression, but that because I live in this sinful world depression is one of the battles I must face and at this point it is a slow progression of healing (like my entire lifetime), not the release of healing that I would prefer. Yet, I can emphatically state that there are moments (not all the time) but moments in which I am thankful for this struggle because He uses it to keep me looking to Him for strength.
I know what oppression is, I know what it means to be accused and misunderstood and I also, praise God, know what it is to be redeemed, to be crowned with His faithful love, to be satisfied with His goodness, to have my 'youth' renewed. You see I know Him, my Father, my God to be compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and full of faithful love. I know what it is to not be dealt with according to what I deserve because of my sin. I know that His faithful love is great and the it is as high as the heavens above the earth, I KNOW. I know what it is to experience His compassion, recognizing that I am dust and experiencing His forgiveness that is so great that He even choses to remove it as far as the east is to the west. He choses to not remember my sin! I am so grateful, because I am a sinner who is grateful to be saved because of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection on the 3rd day. I am His and I know it; however I also still deal with depression.
Depression is not the 'unpardonable sin.' It is not grounds for me to not be in right relationship with God, it is a hormonal imbalance that is often maddeningly hard to diagnose, balance and correct. This does not make me or anyone else who deals with it more or less bad than the next person dealing with something else. It is an illness that causes a need for compassion not contempt, for love not rejection and a desire to understand not a dismissal. I pray you never face depression like I live with on a daily basis. It is true that all of us will face a time of depression in this life when tragedy hits, or circumstances overwhelm, but to have chronic depression is not something you just get up one day and walk away from unless God performs a miracle. It is a constant determining to trust God and recognize that He is stronger than my hormones, my feelings, and that to get help is not weakness, but courage. He is in control and He is at work, even in the depressed.
Father God, please use these words of explanation and this attempt at explaining to open the eyes of those around who do not deal with depression in this major of a way. May there be less hurtful things said and done and more time spent encouraging and caring. May those of us who deal with depression to this degree be willing to open up, to get all the help we need and keep on getting it until such a time as You tell us to move on. Help us to stop isolating, withdrawing and hiding, God. May we stop giving the enemy even more opportunity to beat us up with our unwillingness to be open and upfront about our struggles. May we realize that we do not need to share the details as to why or what causes our specific issues but that we can share that we are hurting and be willing to reach out to others who are hurting as well. We all hurt and we all have issues, it is just part of living in this sinful world; however we do have hope and that hope is in You and when we forget that hope or get overwhelmed to the point that we just can't see You, may we have opened up and shared with others who love You, that are trustworthy, so that they can remind us that our hope is continually in You and that You, Lord are able, faithful and willing to meet us right where we are; all the time. May we look to You first, seek Your wisdom and discernment and may we follow through with what You have revealed to us. May we point others to You and You alone and God please help us to PRAISE YOU with all that is within us...
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