Autumn is my favorite season. As someone who has not much interest in flowers and plants, I have traditionally had little use for spring. But I've welcomed spring with a new joy in the past few years, and it's not just because the winters are incredibly long in northern Europe.
Several years ago, when we lived in Germany, the country's meteorologists reported that due to historically rainy weather patterns, they had recorded the darkest winter since they'd been keeping such measures of sunlight. As someone who is afflicted with mild seasonal depression when I lack consistent exposure to sunshine, this made for an awful winter. It was unfortunate that at the same time, I was using a new migraine-prevention medication that I did not realize had depression as a side effect.
For the first time in my life, I experienced what clinical depression feels like. Since I didn't realize it was medication-related, or that the winter was going to have much less sunlight that usual, I had no idea why I was depressed or if it would ever end. My only desire each day was to go to bed and stay there. I longed to simply be unconscious. I had no pleasure in anything (except eating sugar and, thankfully, running/walking).
I struggled to go to work, and to think clearly about my tasks, and to concentrate long enough to complete them. All day I thought about my bed, and each night I went to bed earlier and earlier, because there was nothing I was interested in doing except sleeping.
In March, we traveled to Colorado where we planned to spend two months on a speaking tour in churches. I eagerly looked forward to being in my home state, which boasts 300 days of sunshine a year. I also had learned about my medication-complication and adjusted that accordingly.
However, spring had not yet come to Colorado Springs when we arrived. Having been gone more than 18 months, I had forgotten how brown and dry and desert-like the city is in winter. There was no color anywhere. It was so ugly and depressing.
I was walking one day, in early April, in my parents' neighborhood, praying to God about my depression and longing for some kind of change. I noticed that buds were starting to appear on the trees and bushes. The brown branches were becoming a bright green. Flowers were poking up from the soil in people's yards. Everywhere, I saw the signs of life and spring. As clear as if someone were standing next to me, I heard the words in my mind, "I can do the same for you."
I knew in that instant that God had spoken to me, and He was giving me a promise that this difficult season in my life would pass, and I would experience new life. I was filled with awe and wonder at this very unusually clear message from God. His voice to me is often much more subtle.
I clung onto that promise for weeks until my depression ended. And I continue to remember that encounter with the living God who sometimes, for His own wise and good reasons, allows suffering, yet promises and gives new life, new creation, in His own perfect timing.
I also take comfort in the fact that our God is a God who has chosen to suffer, to experience hurt and heartache and loss and grief because He chooses to be in relationship with fallen humans who continually hurt and reject Him. And thus, he suffers with us when we suffer, and does not leave us. When I suffer, I realize I am not suffering alone. I know that going through that winter of depression has made me a more empathetic person, and also has helped me learn a bit better how to face and push through suffering, rather than try to run away from the pain or ignore it.
As the trees and flowers are again blooming here in Manchester after another long, sometimes dreary winter, I am reminded of that day in Colorado when God spoke His promise to me, and delivered. I know I can trust God, and I know He is with me.
-- Gina
Several years ago, when we lived in Germany, the country's meteorologists reported that due to historically rainy weather patterns, they had recorded the darkest winter since they'd been keeping such measures of sunlight. As someone who is afflicted with mild seasonal depression when I lack consistent exposure to sunshine, this made for an awful winter. It was unfortunate that at the same time, I was using a new migraine-prevention medication that I did not realize had depression as a side effect.
For the first time in my life, I experienced what clinical depression feels like. Since I didn't realize it was medication-related, or that the winter was going to have much less sunlight that usual, I had no idea why I was depressed or if it would ever end. My only desire each day was to go to bed and stay there. I longed to simply be unconscious. I had no pleasure in anything (except eating sugar and, thankfully, running/walking).
I struggled to go to work, and to think clearly about my tasks, and to concentrate long enough to complete them. All day I thought about my bed, and each night I went to bed earlier and earlier, because there was nothing I was interested in doing except sleeping.
In March, we traveled to Colorado where we planned to spend two months on a speaking tour in churches. I eagerly looked forward to being in my home state, which boasts 300 days of sunshine a year. I also had learned about my medication-complication and adjusted that accordingly.
However, spring had not yet come to Colorado Springs when we arrived. Having been gone more than 18 months, I had forgotten how brown and dry and desert-like the city is in winter. There was no color anywhere. It was so ugly and depressing.
I was walking one day, in early April, in my parents' neighborhood, praying to God about my depression and longing for some kind of change. I noticed that buds were starting to appear on the trees and bushes. The brown branches were becoming a bright green. Flowers were poking up from the soil in people's yards. Everywhere, I saw the signs of life and spring. As clear as if someone were standing next to me, I heard the words in my mind, "I can do the same for you."
I knew in that instant that God had spoken to me, and He was giving me a promise that this difficult season in my life would pass, and I would experience new life. I was filled with awe and wonder at this very unusually clear message from God. His voice to me is often much more subtle.
I clung onto that promise for weeks until my depression ended. And I continue to remember that encounter with the living God who sometimes, for His own wise and good reasons, allows suffering, yet promises and gives new life, new creation, in His own perfect timing.
I also take comfort in the fact that our God is a God who has chosen to suffer, to experience hurt and heartache and loss and grief because He chooses to be in relationship with fallen humans who continually hurt and reject Him. And thus, he suffers with us when we suffer, and does not leave us. When I suffer, I realize I am not suffering alone. I know that going through that winter of depression has made me a more empathetic person, and also has helped me learn a bit better how to face and push through suffering, rather than try to run away from the pain or ignore it.
As the trees and flowers are again blooming here in Manchester after another long, sometimes dreary winter, I am reminded of that day in Colorado when God spoke His promise to me, and delivered. I know I can trust God, and I know He is with me.
-- Gina
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