I’ve often said that anyone who has not experienced true depression cannot really understand it.
About four years ago, while still in the midst of my depression, someone recommended The Shack by William P. Young. As soon as I realized the youngest daughter in the story disappears, I put down the book. Marlee was five at the time and it was more than I could bear to read. But since God lifted my depression, I picked it back up and finished it. I’m so glad I did.
As I describe my years of depression as The Great Depression, this author refers to it as The Great Sadness. When I try to describe the way depression feels, I suppose the pharmacist comes out in me, because I always describe it as “all of the nerve endings in my body were heavy and weighing me down.” I think William Young’s description in The Shack is more understandable:
“Emotions are the colors of the soul; they are spectacular and incredible. When you don’t feel, the world becomes dull and colorless. Just think how The Great Sadness reduced the range of color in your life down to monotones and flat grays and blacks. “
The dictionary defines “dark” as the absence of light. Depression is darkness. God tells us in John 12:46 that he has come into the world as a light, so that NO ONE has to live in darkness.
When Isaac Newton was dabbling in his many scientific experiments, he used a prism to see what exactly made up the color “white.” What he found was that white light is the effect of combining the visible colors of light in certain proportions. In other words, white is the combination of all the colors of the rainbow.
God came as the light. He also gave us a promise when he created the rainbow.
I think being raised with religion all around me, I took the light for granted. I couldn’t see the colors in the relationship. As a friend of mine explained it well, those were my “ivory tower” days. I lived in the white tower but I couldn’t see the colors that it contained.
During my depression, a black tunnel lay before me. Now I see that Jesus was my “light at the end of the tunnel.” Now that I have experienced darkness—the absence of light—colors have a whole new meaning for me.
My Great Depression led me to freedom. It painfully guided me to the color that Jesus provides in my relationship with Him. My world is no longer shades of gray. Whether you feel like depression is an obstacle for or not, Jesus can make your life into the most beautiful rainbow you’ve ever seen.
Jesus is the light. Seek Him. Read about Him. Talk to Him. Have faith in Him.
Religion will always let you down. A relationship with Him will never let you down.
