Faith as a Vehicle for Healing
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Growing up, I was taught to believe that depression resulted from three things: a lack of faith in God's promises, God's judgment on sinful behavior, or an unwillingness to study God's word and pray. You can imagine the amount of guilt I felt when I approached my third year of college, and my depression symptoms became more and more severe. Of course, I began to do what a "good" Christian would be expected to do in my situation. I started filling up my free time with any activity that would be considered spiritual. I would go to church, lead groups like Bible studies, read spiritual books, and volunteer. Anything that might help fill the void or help me forget my circumstances.
When filling my time slots started to fail, I slowly found myself turning from spending time doing spiritual things to using more unhealthy coping habits like emotionally eating, zoning out for hours in front of the TV or computer, oversleeping, masturbating, and altogether just withdrawing from humanity. Suddenly, I found myself in this place where my depressive way of thinking was the only way in which I could see my world, and it really scared me. I found myself praying and pleading with God to take away the intensity of my feelings and all the reoccurring thoughts associated with them, but all I seemed to hear was his silence.
Then one of my favorite actors, Robin Williams, died, and I was forced, through seeing the parallels between his life and mine, to face the reality that denial or stigmatizing myself would not help me struggle less with my depression. God also used that time to remind me of 2 Corinthians 12:7-10.
In this passage, Paul wrote (in reference to his personal struggles): "Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."
Of course, there is no denying the level of anguish that comes from battling inner demons (often times it can be really tough). But one thing God used Paul to remind us is that, through Him, our "weaknesses" do not have dominion over our lives. We have a place for our pain through him – a safety net where we can battle our demons under his grace and sovereignty. For me, this meant that I could be honest about my depression without it being a reflection on my level of faith or my struggles with personal sin. Of course, those things needed to be presented to God as well. But, being honest opened me up to the possibility of seeking out help via counseling and talking to other believers. Eventually, I was able to come to a better place with God and my battle with depression.
I'm not going to lie. There is still a lot of work to be done regarding my mental health, but these days I'm a little more optimistic about its use in my life. I have seen God use my "weakness" in so many ways to reach people for the kingdom because I've learned to be more honest about it. If you are a person of faith and you have fears about being open about your mental health, take heart. God loves you no matter what you have done or gone through and wants you to experience wholeness and freedom. I encourage you to stop stigmatizing or ignoring your mental health concerns and let God work through resources like counseling, medicine, and community to help you become a healthier, better version of yourself. Of course, this may not completely take away your struggle with depression since we live in a broken world, but these avenues can give you resources and tools to help you navigate through your symptoms while you strive to become more like Christ.
In my own life, I have seen God use these resources to guide me through a lot of difficult moments and help others do the same. I hope that reading about my experiences enables you to make the decision to choose YOU today. If you are interested in finding mental health resources, feel free to visit some of my favorite websites: