Confessions in the Midst of Depression

I feel like I am traveling in a dark tunnel going forward and looking forward for the light at the end of that tunnel. I know there's gonna be a light. I just don't know when will I get there.. This is me in the midst of depression.

There are times when I feel like how Job wish he was never born. Or like Elijah, when he begged God to take his life away. But here I am given yet another day to see the beauty of life in God's perspective and to just be grateful about this gift of life even in the midst of depression.

It's a hard pill to swallow that life ain't all rainbows and unicorns, especially as a Christian. Sometimes we tend to be guilty of perceiving that following God is like magical pill that will take away all the ugly, the pains, the sorrow and the sufferings but in reality it does not, rather, so many times even magnifies all of it. For in the Bible, Christ specifically told us that if we want to come after Him, we have to deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Him, (Matthew 16:24). In all honesty this is an even greater pill, something to choke on while we try to swallow Christ's idea of following Him.

"For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" — Matthew 16:25

So many times I tried to find my identity through my awards, trophies and achievements. It is an everyday struggle, on how I view myself, of my worth as a human person. It is an everyday wrestle with God, to truly embrace that I am worthy because of who I am and not because of what I can do. That the identity that I tried so hard to find in this world, always ends up with me getting lost, can only be found in Him.

What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? — Matthew 16:26

So many times we fail to see that the people we perceive to "having it all" in this world, tend to feel the emptiest. So many times we think that having these things will somehow make us feel contented but we ended up wanting to having more. We try to fill ourselves up with things that provide instant gratifications that will make you high on dopamine at the moment but as instant as it gives is the instant it fleets... It's a never-ending cycle of trying to fill yourself up yet still feeling empty.

These are the things I experience and led me to realize that in my brokenness GOD has made me whole. He is the missing piece in the incomplete puzzle that I was always trying to complete.

In my emptiness, He filled me up to the brim, it never fleets, rather it overflows in a way that I couldn't help but to share It to others.

God does not promise an easy life, but He promised that He will be there for us and with us in every hardship. The Bible story that always pulls me out of depression is the story of Meschach, Shadrach and Abednego in Daniel 3. Even if these three knew that God might not deliver them from the fiery furnace they will be thrown at, they still worshiped God. There were only three of them that were thrown in the fire but there was another figure seen along with them . There was another in the fire. God was in the fire with them.

And whenever I weep, I go back to the story in John 11:17-44 when Lazarus died. Jesus knew He will bring Lazarus back to life yet He still wept. He wept for Lazarus and He wept with the grieving sisters of Lazarus. I know whenever I wept, He wept with me.

Life is indeed beautiful but that doesn't mean it is perfect. The beauty of life does not cancel out the reality that this world is broken, and as humans, so we are. That as broken as we are, we are meant to experience sufferings in living this life. God never promised that we will live a life without difficulties. Life in this world will always be hard, but the promise that He will always be right here with us in the midst of suffering and that there is another more beautiful life waiting for me makes me hopeful.

I write these things down, in the midst of chaos. But In my depression, may GOD's name be exalted.