I used to hate going to the beach. It’s windy, it’s cold,
and I always get soaked even if I claim I’m only going to get my feet wet. At
the age of 18, staring out into the endless gray waves would inevitably serve as a grim reminder of the heavy emptiness that I felt. The crushing weight of the
neverending sea was a similarly crushing reminder of how worthless I felt I
was. The ocean became synonymous with my depression - a heavy darkness that
bound up my heart and felt like a literal weight in my chest.
Things got better after a while. I grew up, I went to
college, I made more friends, I found my calling in life, I got involved in
things that gave me purpose.
And then all of those things were ripped out from under me.
Friends, jobs, school, community, reputation, career plans, living space,
relationships, none of it was stable. I kept losing pieces of my life, and by
the time all was said and done I felt like I had become one of those underwater
ecosystems that are built around floating kelp islands, which are frequently
forced to disband and find new gathering grounds when the kelp has sunk or been
eaten (did anyone else watch that episode of Blue Planet? No? Just me? Okay).
I was lost in a sea of gray. No kelp island to anchor myself
to. Floating, endlessly, aimlessly. Often told what I should do or should have
done, when all I needed to hear was, “I’m here for you, even when you’re wrong.”
Adrift in a great, endless expense of slate gray, one wave
rolling in after the other, plunging me into the depths, too deep to breathe. I
couldn't breathe.
My heart rising in my chest, I reached my hand toward the
surface for help-
But I was too far down.
Nothing stable, nothing to hold on to.
Water surrounded me, cold and unfeeling, the horizon
stretching beyond my line of vision and I was sinking, slowly but surely.
Sinking,
Reaching,
Drowning.
I could count on nothing.
Or, at least, that’s what I thought.
See, I have had it all wrong this whole time. I have been
trying to set up camp in places I have not been not called to stay. The rug has
been pulled from beneath my feet repeatedly, not because I have bad luck or
made the wrong decisions, but because those foundations were never meant to be
as secure as I thought they were. The kelp islands I latched on to were not my
permanent placement.
And more importantly, I’ve been forgetting the most key
component of my life - Jesus. Rather than a kelp island, He is a strong reef in
which I can make my home and thrive. His love, His word offer me every ounce of
identity that I have so deeply craved. For some reason I still experience an
(unwanted) resistance to fully embracing that identity, and it’s something I definitely
have to work through. But oh my goodness, the depth of the suffering we go
through when we reject this, the simplest and most perfect of gifts! As Paul
wrote in Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I
who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh, I
live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me”
(Galatians 2:20).
This is not my life any longer - my life belongs to Christ.
Because of this, I no longer have to worry about being good enough, or being
good enough in comparison to others, or succeeding in a worldly sense, or being
well liked. I don’t have to worry about getting a “good job” when I graduate or
where I will be living in a year. If people don’t like me or my
perspective, I can finally say “so be it.” I have been trying for so long to
learn that lesson, and I finally learned it the hard way this past year; and
while it was one of the most painful lessons I’ve had to learn, it was 100% a
blessing in disguise.
Some of these worries and insecurities are actually
important, others not so much; but I don’t have to worry about
any of them, because this is no longer MY life. My life belongs to Christ. My
body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in me, whom I have received from
God, because I am not my own! I was bought by the blood of Christ, at a heavy
price - that price being death (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Therefore I seek
to glorify and honor Him with every day, because He paid the ultimate price for
my freedom.
This being acknowledged, every day is still a new challenge,
and sometimes I slip into a hole that takes painful and concerted effort to
climb back out of. I have my wounds and scars just like anyone else, and yes,
they hurt and sometimes it's a challenge to even get out of bed in the morning. But, while I still pray for healing, I have become okay with
remaining in the process - because the Lord has already used that process to lead to much growth
and healing in me already, and I regret none of it.
When I was 18 years old, standing at the beach and looking
out at the ocean only increased my despondency and sense of lonely
worthlessness, because all I could feel was the emptiness in my heart and the
physical weight in my chest that pulled me down. All I could see in the water
was murky gray.
Now, four years later, when I look out at the water I may
still see those things. But that is no longer all I see, nor is it what I find myself focusing on. I am too caught
up in digging for sand crabs and “accidentally” getting caught by rogue waves
(when I've told myself for the umpteenth time that “I’ll only go in up to my
calves”). I prefer to stare in rapture at the beauty of the setting sun shining
on the water, rather than complaining about the wind chill or the wet clothes
chafing at my skin. I’ll marvel at God’s creation... looking for shells,
digging up crabs, and staring at the sea foam washing up on the beach.
TL;DR: My depression may never really "go away," and I'm okay with that - because my Creator is bigger and stronger than the chemicals in my brain, and I choose to wrap my identity around what He - and only He- has to say about me.
