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“Sometimes when you’re in a dark place you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted.” – Christine Caine
Close the door. Pull the curtains. Turn the noise machine on and place the blackout mask over my eyes. [Still too much light.] Add a pillow over my forehead. [There. Now the world can’t reach me.]
I struggle with depression. Not clinically diagnosed, but rather an occasional prolonged season (weeks) of being antisocial, hypercritical and self depreciating. In the Victorian era, they called that getting the Morbs… which is now my absolute favorite piece of mental health trivia.
Since adolescence – maybe even before – I’ve gotten the Morbs periodically. I’ve worked with my doctors, my family, friends and spiritual leaders to have a good plan in place to find my way out of it, but sometimes even with the hardest of work and the best of intentions, I’ll get stuck in a dark place. And being an incredibly selfish person, sometimes it just feels good to wallow there.
Ever been there?
You almost feel like you have earned the right to be angry, depressed and bitter. There are plenty of places in the Bible where great leaders of our faith wrestled with those feelings, so I don’t think they are inherently sinful – though they certainly can lead to sinful behavior. Job got fed up with God’s silence. Jesus experienced incredible sorrow and fear to the point he was sweating blood! Elijah felt abandoned. David got scared. And mourned. And depressed. (I’m pretty sure David was manic-depressive, but I’m not a psychiatrist.)
So if you experience the Morbs, you are in pretty great company. Having been there many times myself, it is my great pleasure to point out this great truth: God is good. He’s good when you’re not. He’s good when the situation is horrifying. He’s good when you have the Morbs and He will never ever leave you or forsake you.
Hold tight. This season won’t last forever.