MARILLA: The depths of despair?
ANNE: Can you eat when you're that way?
MARILLA: I've never been that way.
ANNE: Can't you even imagine you're in the depths of despair?
MARILLA: No, I can not. To despair is to
turn your back on God. This is your room for the night. Wash up and
then come down for supper.
ANNE: Yes, Miss Cuthbert.
Source: http://greengables-1.tripod.com/script/1part1.html
Oh how I adore LM Montgomery's book Anne of Green Gables. I relate to Anne in some ways. I was never an orphan, I don't have red hair and I didn't hit my future husband over the head with a slate.
BUT - an overactive imagination, a dreamer, a chatterbox, - "But if you only knew how many things I want to say and don't, you'd give me some credit" - resonates with me.
Even though in the book we only see Anne happy and overcoming problems in her dramatic style, it's the depths of despair part I am focusing on.
Can't you even imagine you're in the depths of despair?
No.
No you can't. Unless you have had the depths of despair moments, (days, weeks....) you can't imagine them.
You can imagine that you'd think happy thoughts, go somewhere quiet, replenish yourself, talk to someone, cry, forget about the issues, move on, get over it, and it would all be better.
guess what? If it was that easy the pharmaceutical world wouldn't be doing such a good business.
Sometimes people say "Wow, I saw (something sad), how depressing" or "I'm depressed because...." and I want to hit them with something.
No. You're frustrated, you're sad, you're annoyed, you're cross, you're worried. You're maybe mainlining a "there but for the grace of God go I" moment. But that isn't depression. That is the mood which matches the word in the last sentence. It's not depression.
'Depression is a lying bastard', says Jenny Lawson, of "the bloggess" fame. It is. Depression might bust you into a million bits and every piece will scream lies and accusations at you, and no number of well meaning people telling you "but you're awesome", "but you're not like that", "You'll be fine" can ever ever speak louder or clearer than those one million pieces of you.
I can hear your mind now telling you "psht, and she says she's a Christian. where's her God now?"
And you know what? That's my problem. I am a Christian. I will tell you a kazillion times how God loves His people. I will tell your kids that God loves them and He wants them to follow Him.
I will tell you that Jesus came to stop the old testament law and become the law and the love. His death His grace and His love overcame that and all your sin.
I will tell you that God watches over you and Jesus died for you as well as the stranger on the corner, the kid doing drugs, the homeless man, the kooky woman down the road. Just each person as a unit, to become all of mankind, which is way too big a number to comprehend, but if you make it 'you and you and you and her' it seems easier to deal with til it becomes too big to deal with in number again.
.
And I will tell you that God holds you in the palm of His hand, secure and safe. Close to His heart. I'll say all that and I'll believe it with a passion I struggle to understand, because I DO believe it.
I also believe that because I'm human not God, that I listen to voices. I listen to media and society telling me how wrong God is, how wrong Christians are, how wrong I am, how can there be a God... and my heart will cry out that people can't see the truth because they're asleep in the light. That even people who claim to be God-loving are sleeping and letting the dark take over.
And then it all starts to weigh in and I start to see all the things I do wrong, all the ways I lead people wrong and say the wrong thing, and realise how small insignificant and just wrong wrong wrong I am. How hopelessly and irreparably I am making a mess.
And I'm in the depths of despair again.
And every broken piece of me chimes its own melody of wrongness at me and usually I lash out and hurt other people only this time it's worse and I can only lash on myself because the pieces of me told me other people are sick of dealing with and listening to my shit.
And I know God loves me, I know know know with every fibre of my being that He does, and I know He's right there...just right there... but I don't want to talk to Him about it because He's probably sick of listening to my shit as well.
And I know there are starving children in Africa. I know there are victims of abuse possibly living in my street, and I know families are going to bed hungry and I know that my life probably looks incredibly polished, lucky and glittery to them,
that I don't have anything to complain about.
And the funny thing is I'm not complaining. I'm just thinking. And I know I'm lucky. And I know I have good stuff in my life. And I know... and I know.. and I know...
And I'll go to church and hear the words and hear the words and it's all rhetoric and I'm
detached.
And my head is full of steel wool that nothing can get through, teflon coats my heart and then I read the quote from Anne of Green gables that "despair is turning your back on God" and people are smiling and laughing around me and I know God wants me out of the depths.
And people say "Pray".
But until I get my head clear and ask God to make every single broken piece of me sing His name I can't start to heal. That's one million pieces of me telling God how awesome He is. And I cynically smirk at that because I know that's ridiculous with the state my heart is in.
And then one piece sings "we don't have to hide scars They just strengthen our wounds and they soften our hearts. They remind us of where we have been But not who we are So praise God, praise God we don't have to hide scar" (Jonny Diaz)
And then I see on my facebook wall a prayer that I will pray in church today.
And then another piece cries out to God for help, and it feels better just for doing so and my heart is nudged that maybe I CAN do it.
And literally - piece by piece - I will give up my hurt. And piece by piece
be restored.
http://iwilltrustinyou.tumblr.com/post/29221452114
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