When the Darkness Does Not Lift

Every single day, I go for a walk by the water.

I am blessed to live in a place that is beautiful, five minutes away from a town that still echoes its Norwegian roots with its painted shops, the false fronts, boardwalks, crisscrossing lights, and windows revealing wood-floored interiors supporting tables of homemade goods, books, and steaming coffee cups.

And then there’s the water, stretching across the passage, with forest and mountains behind and before, until somewhere, at both ends, the marina brushes hands with the ocean. The water, the forest across the way, the sailboats, the reflection of a perfectly distant sky, never fail to lift my heart and comfort my soul, no matter how my mood may be in the moment, or how the day has gone.

I take my walk every day — no music, no companion — and let the silence seep into my thoughts and my heart, and the beauty lift me outside of myself. I can open my eyes and not be afraid of what I see. I can allow my mind and soul to wander and not be afraid of what it feels. On my walks, I wrestle, I rest, I heal, I rejoice, I sink, and I gather strength. Because after the walk is the night, and I’m a fool if I don’t go to bed exhausted. And after the night is the morning, where I must face the unknown day.

On my walks, I notice the happiness most. It seeps in with the sadness, two old and weary friends, and for once they are content to be quiet, to not battle in my head, to simply sit inside me and let me feel the world through the lens of their offered silence.

As I have become more transparent this past year with my writing, I have mentioned these companions often — the glimpses of happiness, the heaviness of depression, the strange complication that comes with grief, with regret, with objective hope mingled with the weight of despair. I have spoken of anniversaries and hard days, dark thoughts and weary moments, the endless passing of time when all feels numb and all I want to do is feel again.

My grief and depression are distinct. They are two separate circles. They overlap. They share struggles, and outflow, and coping mechanisms. But they are different. They are shadows cast by monsters at either end of my heart, and sometimes in the middle, when the monsters sway, the ends of the shadows merge together.

I struggled with depression before my brother died. But grief has brought unknown and overwhelming chaos to complicate that darkness. The struggles are different, and the grief is new. But with the grief, came the outflow of transparency.

With that transparency, has come a sudden flux of interest and sympathy I have never experienced before. Suddenly, through my grief, people also caught glimpses of my old, dark companion — the one I had for so long, in the secret corner of my soul — and now it was different, a light had been cast up against its side, and people thought he was new because they had just discovered him.

The words poured from my fingers, and with a click of a button, my brokenness was shared with the world. I did so, not as a cry for help, but for connection, not to find someone to pull me out but to sit alongside. It was the hope that my brokenness would float out and settle beside some like brokenness. In many ways, it did.

But not every heart that met my monster had one of their own. That is to be expected. But the realization is also painful. My feelings are analyzed, checked up on, dissected, diagnosed. There are plenty of attempts at remedies, well-meaning advice, pitiful glances. Some of this comes from curiosity or ignorance. Most of this comes from love. I know it does. But within that love, there is also misunderstanding.

I write this hesitating. I write this knowing that you may be one of those who have shown the light beam on my shadow, and instead of saying, “It’s okay. I have one too,” you might be someone who said, “Let me fix this for you,” when it simply can’t be fixed.

That’s okay. I know you love me. I don’t write this to analyze, to condemn, to compartmentalize compassion as some do brokenness. I write this to me. To myself, the person who fails, again, and again, and again, to be the person grief taught me grief needs.

Broken people need broken people. And so to the person who knows this darkness, who has an unseen blanket that settles over them at night, who has a secret corner of their heart that speaks a voice they hate that no one hears, a voice they are familiar with, a voice that doesn’t go away, a voice that has become such a part of themselves that they hate it while being afraid to give it up: It’s okay. I have one too. 

Depression is not as uncommon as people believe. Sit in Church this Sunday. Look to the person to your left and to your right, behind you and in front. One of four people — one of these four, most likely struggles in some way with this darkness. And yet no one knows because no one says anything. Beneath the mask of smiles, small talk, functionality, the rhythm of daily life and human interaction, lies a web of brokenness and isolation, unseen and unspoken of, yet real, pulsing silently, crying for help beneath the surface.

Depression is not just a feeling of sadness, insecurity, or lethargy. It is not a surface emotion. It goes down to the very chemical makeup of the brain. It is an actual illness. It does not need a reason. It does not discriminate between experiences, physical health, athleticism, activity, location, wealth, age, or gender. It settles upon whom it wants and pulls them down, and the world’s response is to scream to learn to swim.

Sometimes it stays for weeks. Sometimes for years. Sometimes, it never really goes away. I believe that I am one of those in this world who will always struggle with depression in some way. Even in my happiest days, it is there somehow, beneath the surface. At certain low seasons, I try to remember what happy feels like and I’m not able to, but most of the time, I have learned to just wait for the glimmer of light that comes through and shines off the surface of the water.

Part of me wants to be fixed. To be fixed so badly. And yet, I don’t want to be the person I was without this. To be riven to the core, shaken, vivisected, refined by darkness has changed me. I can’t say I love my depression. Sometimes, it makes me want to die. But I also can’t say I love the person I was before depression and grief changed me, before it knocked flat my foundations built on the superficiality of my own disillusionment, tore off my blinders, blew an icy blast over my house of cards. What has been rebuilt sometimes feels cold, harsh, ugly, heavy, but I know the hand that holds the hammer has also been pierced by the nails.

To live is Christ, even when death seems sweeter. Take up your cross, He says, take up your instrument of torture and death and follow me. And so I must. This is my thorn in the flesh, but His grace is sufficient. This is the valley of the shadow, the slough of despond that, unlike Christian, I must go through again and again. Go on, go on, weary pilgrim, for you walk a path in good company. And when you want to turn aside ask Him, O Lord, to who else would I go? You have the words of eternal life.

So I’m not saying that if this is your companion too, to just be content to sit there at its side and let it consume you. Depression will try to destroy you, to sink you, to sabotage your pursuit of Christ. Pray, pray, and pray, and if you cannot, pray that you would want to pray. Read the Bible, immerse yourself in the truth, know that hope is objective, whether you feel it inside you or not. Do not be ashamed to get help. Reach out to people. Don’t allow yourself to sink into the isolation. And remember that depression is just as much a physical battle as it is a spiritual one.

You were not created to live your life in the shadow. And you will have to battle for the light every day. Even if all you can do some days, is crawl out of bed and cry to Jesus, then do it. And if you must stay in bed, then cry from there.

I’m not saying don’t get help. I’m not saying don’t try to get better. I’m not saying don’t chase joy and curiosity and excitement in Jesus and in life as much as you possibly can. Do it. You must. But what I am saying is that even if you struggle with this, and even if you struggle with this forever, and even if in your happiest days you feel the old monster that lives in your head, that it’s okay to be broken. It’s okay that it’s not okay.

Oh my friend, you are in good company. The Psalms are not a songbook for the happy. The Gospel is not good news for the healthy. Christ did not come for the well. Heaven is not a place for the righteous. All this — all this! — is for lowly, weak, and struggling wretches, who beat their hands over their breasts and cannot bear to lift up their eyes, and cry through sobs and tears, God be merciful to me, a sinner! 

When Christ says He has overcome the world, He has also overcome the world inside you. When God promises to turn all evil into good, this is one of the things He is meaning. This too, will be overwhelmed by a weight of glory. This too, will yield tears captured in precious bottles. This too, will yield a harvest of joy.

One day, happiness will feel real again. One day it will pierce all the brokenness of this world, and the pain of birth will give way for a new creation. One day, the first command will be the last command, and the light will come out of the darkness and pierce every evil and your broken heart.

But until that day, until He fixes you, I won’t try to make it all better. I know I can’t. I just know He will. So I will sit beside you in the darkness. You are not alone.

Soli Deo Gloria,