Stuck for a Reason

     

This excerpt is taken
from my book,
  Don't Let Go Before Dawn.

Jacob was at a crossing-over time in his life.  He was on his way to see his long-estranged brother, Esau.  He had reached the banks of the Jabbok River and wanted to cross over to the other side.  He sent the people he loved and the possessions he had acquired through hard work and trickery across the river, but he couldn’t continue the journey with them.  We’re not sure whether he sent his family and possessions across the river without him or if he took them across then returned by himself.  In either case, Jacob was stuck on the wrong side of the river. 

“Stuck” is a word many people have used to describe depression, the inability and, at times, the lack of desire to cross the next river, to move forward  into the next chapter of their life’s story. 

I was stuck in depression and I didn’t like it.  I complained to my counselor that I was so weary of feeling bad and was frustrated and angry that my doctor hadn’t found a medicine or combination of medicines that would lessen my symptoms.  Upon hearing this, Charlie’s face took on its own look of disgust as he challenged me to understand my breakdown on the wrong side of life’s river in a different way.  He told me, very emphatically, “This is not just about finding the right medicine to treat your symptoms.  This is about how you’re living your life!”

The day I heard those words was the day I began to understand that I might be stuck for a reason.  Beyond the genetic predisposition for depression I was certain I had inherited and could not change, I started so see that the way I was living my life, something I can work to understand, evaluate, and change, was a factor in my illness too; perhaps a greater factor than I had ever thought possible.  Even more amazingly, I pondered the possibility that I might leave this place where I’d been stuck a better person than when I arrived.  The challenge to understand the way I was living my life and change it for the better was the first glimmer of hope and the first feeling of empowerment I had felt in a very long time. 

If you are stuck in a season of depression right now, I want to challenge you to think about what my counselor told me.  You are stuck on what feels like the wrong side of life’s river, separated from people, from joy, from motivation, even from God, not just to find the right medicine to alleviate your symptoms and allow you to continue your life where you left off.  You may be stuck for a reason.  You may be depressed, in part, because of the way you’re living your life.  I don’t challenge you with that thought to blame or condemn you for your illness.  If you are like I was, you’re probably doing a very good job of that already.  I invite you to see being stuck on the wrong side of the river as an opportunity to understand yourself with new insight and an invitation to grow.  After a long night of being stuck, you can, like Jacob, cross the river more healthy and whole than you’ve ever been before. 

Be Still Until You Know Which Way is Up

 

David, a physician and friend of our family, served as a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War.  As part of his training, he was taught what to do if he had to bail out of his plane over water.  A pilot who ejects from his aircraft hits the water very hard while spinning very rapidly.  He feels himself moving through the water and experiences that lifesaving urge to get to the surface as quickly as possible.  The problem is, he doesn’t know which way is up.  A pilot who begins kicking and paddling too soon often swims down instead of up and takes himself further from the surface he wants to reach and closer to drowning.  So, the pilot is trained to wait—to be still—until the force of his entry into the water has run out and he slowly comes to a stop.  Then and only then, the buoyancy of his flight vest begins to tug him gently toward the surface.  Once he knows which way is up, he can add his effort to what the vest is doing and reach the surface where he can breathe again. 

Though few of us will serve as fighter pilots, most of us face some unexpected crashes.  We hit hard.  We spin out of control.  We don’t know which way is up.  We’re tempted to do something, do anything, to get back to the place where we can breathe.  But until we know which way is up, our efforts, as sincere as they may be, may take us in the wrong direction and away from the life we long to experience.  We, like fighter pilots spinning and sinking through the water, must wait, we must be still before God until the gentle tug of His Spirit guides us in the direction we need to go.  And once we know which way is up, once we know the direction that will lead us toward life and not self-destruction, we are ready to add our effort to what God is doing.  We can kick and paddle and move ourselves toward the place where our spirits can breathe again and we can feel restored to the fullness of life.