As a teenager, I noticed that depression was a reality at home, however, it was never talked about. My father took Zoloft, I took Paxil, my sister took Prozac, but somehow no one said a word about their inner struggles. I thought my household was just messed up and in denial, but something I find funny is that for a society that walks around with their head up high and refusing to "lose", our book store shelves are covered in self-help books promoting the latest jargon on healthy eating for a stress free mind. Fact of the matter is this, someone else is diagnosed with cancer as we speak, another child is raped, another criminal walks, another family goes homeless, another murder happens, all ending in the fact that 10 in 10 will die. And this is all happening by the minute. We live in a fallen world, a world that IS in fact fractured, to paraphrase Paul in Romans chapter 8, ALL of creation groans in childbirth like pain as it awaits restoration.
16 years old, depressed, medicated and because of my families inability to assist in such trials, I looked for ways to rescue myself... I ran. I spent an entire year, pretending as though I was going to school, instead I walked the streets of NYC for 8 hours each day, trying to make sense of the sorrow. Rain, snow and freezing temperatures, because I didn't have someone there to talk to, or at least didn't feel like anyone was able to talk, I threw away a year of school and really a year of my life. I can tell you the many places I went to for 8 hours every day, and how I got to those places by walking, but I can't recall a shred of what I thought for that entire year. I ran from truancy officers, hid bad attendance letters and avoided the counselor calls. I fled all possible avenues of help... because they were coming from the outside, not from my home. Their silence led to horrific days, and experiences that left many wounded.
So why do I blog about such a depressing thing? Because I believe that most of us don't know how to live when we are facing emotional affliction. We know how to BE depressed, but don't know how to live with and through it. Honestly, I won't sit here and type out some long list of ideas on how to deal with suffering, primarily because I'm still learning. I will say that we fathers must think hard and realize that there will come a time in which our children will face something that will rock them to their core. What will I say? "Quit being a pansy, and perk up" or "If you just take this medication, you'll be ok." However you handle your afflictions will influence them in how they will stand with theirs. Will we discourage them with empty words, or will we edify them so that with the little strength they have they will echo Joseph and say "GOD MEANT THIS FOR GOOD!" What will bring hope to them? Fact is, we can't solve it for them, we can't always fix it and in fact we won't always know how to address it, but we must know how to be hopeful for them and with them.
In a sermon I was listening to on Job, D.A. Carson said "If you live long enough, you WILL suffer." As morbid as this may be, that has become one of my favorite quotes lately. Probably because it keeps me expecting, and therefore preparing for when the time comes.
For the sake of our kids... what/where is the hope that we will point them to when suffering knocks on their door?
2 Corinthians 12: 8-9 "Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave 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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
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