When Trouble Comes

“I live to show his power, who once did bring my joys to weep, and now my griefs to sing.” – preacher George Herbert

“For it is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness.” – Psalm 18:28

For three months earlier this year, I went through a period of emotional depression. I have always had a perennially optimistic disposition, and I am not only not very emotional, but tend to be easily critical of people who are. Dave is equally optimistic and even less moody (he is in a bad mood maybe once a year). Needless to say, this was quite a novel experience for both of us.

The whole thing happened very gradually. Without really knowing how it happened, I came unquestionably to a place where I found myself living with constant sadness and depressed feelings I could not shake. At heart I was lonely and homesick. I think we had strategized for this move for so long, then been so caught up in the logistics of settling in, that I had never really allowed myself to say that I was sad. I missed my parents, my friends. I missed the culture back East. I missed my old sense of self. 

It all sounds kind of inane, almost childish, but it was very real in my feelings, whatever my head thought, and for once in my life my feelings would not be overruled. I cried every day. I never felt like eating much. It felt like a big effort to connect with anyone. I didn’t feel like talking. It was hard to receive advice. I felt insecure about how people perceived me. I recall standing off to one side at a school party one morning, next to the stroller with the younger two, feeling like here I am yet I don’t belong and I don’t feel anyone cares. I remember Ellie coming up to me and giving me a hug while I struggled not to cry. 

I remember Dave asking what he could do one night, while I was lying in bed crying. I asked him to hold my hand and not say anything, and that helped more than anything. I didn’t want any words; I just wanted to feel I wasn’t alone. The fact was, I had lost a part of my life and myself, forever. No rightness of decision or future promise could change that, and no one on either coast could really understand how it felt. And it was something I had to feel, not analyze. It was something I had to walk through in an acutely solitary way, yet it helped to hold someone’s hand.

The most helpful practical advice came from my sister, who sent me an excerpt of When Trouble Comes by Philip Ryken. He talks about how it helped him to keep up outward routines when he was feeling down—to exercise, eat something healthy, be present with his kids, go to worship, share with close friends, ask for prayer, and pray himself. I did those things and in retrospect it undoubtedly helped.

But the main thing that helped was pressing into God. Maybe some people feel at these times like God is distant, but I never felt him closer. Who else truly understood me? Who else had been there through every other change in my life? Who else saw every tear? Only God. 

God showed up for me in the most unexpected of places. One time it was in Leviticus 8. I was reading in a café during lunch break at work, and suddenly I felt like every word about Aaron was about me—being washed with water, clothed carefully, set about with precious stones and a holy crown and anointing oil—it was all some love poem from God, to me. I could have done some inductive analysis about how the office of high priest pointed towards and was fulfilled by Christ who then imputed that to me—but what came through wasn’t cerebral at all. It was just a feeling, a feeling speaking into my feelings, and there I was, crying in public over Leviticus (a first).

Another unexpected place was in a sensory deprivation pod during a balance float (another first). I was praying, which those days meant praying my feelings because I didn’t have much else to say, and I felt filled with an unmistakable sense of security, that my identity was both fully seen by and deeply secure in Christ. I hadn’t even wholly realized until then how insecure I felt about who I was here. Again, it wasn’t some kind of self-generated rationalization: it was a conviction of feeling being given to me, and more than anything, it felt like a release. Coming out of that period happened as gradually as it started, but that moment was as much a turning point as any.

I don’t know if I will ever go through a period like that again—I sort of hope not—but part of what I take away is that emotional low points, sometimes beyond one’s ability to outthink or control, can be a normative part of the Christian life. I will also take away small kindnesses, from close friends and family, Dave and the kids. A God that can speak over and into feelings. The comfort of wordless presence.