So here it is. another blog. I’d like to say how lucky are you but honestly? This blog post is coming from a place of genuine heartbreak and sadness. I’d love to tell you exactly why it is that I feel so miserable; that the dark clouds are looming over my head and it feels like it’s going to start raining down on me any minute now. I’d love to explain the aching in my legs and my arms, despite having done very little the last few days, and I’d love to write reams and reams about why I can’t really concentrate on much and the world is being seen through some seriously grey and gloom-tinted glasses.
I’m sitting here listening to my music and there’s this one song just going over and over. For the older readers (not that much older, I promise) you’ll notice that this song isn’t by Tyler Hilton but actually someone else, but he does this gorgeous cover, so… ANYWAY. Here are the lyrics:
I ain’t missin’ you at all
Since you’ve been gone… Away
I ain’t missin’ you
No matter what my friends say
I ain’t missin’ you
Since you’ve been gone… Away
I ain’t missing you
Yeah, no matter what your friends say
– Missing You
The premise of the song, from what I can grasp, is that this guy quite clearly is missing this other person, but he’s acting so macho about it and so cover-uppy about it that the whole thing is just an act. All a simple and total act. I’m sitting here, and I’m listening. I’m thinking over the words because it’s too much energy to do much else, and writing this blog is helping me process it I guess, but regardless – I can somehow connect with this song. I’ve always been weirdly connected to music, like within the first few seconds of a song and I just know if it’ll mean anything – and this song just does. I sit there when I’m sad and the songs come to mind, know what I mean? It’s like they can somehow draw the sadness out of me and make it a sort of tangible mess in front of me, or you know, in my ears.
Anyway. So I’m sitting there thinking this song is depression. I’m just sitting there thinking of all things passed and all things that have come and gone in my life, and how crappy and ridiculous some of those things have been. How some of the hurts and deep pains in my life resurface in these times of intense sadness, when the deep darkness sets in and all I hear and see and smell and taste is depression. It’s what it’s like, just heavy – a deep, heavy loneliness. And, like the guy in the song, as much as I pretend it’s not there or that whatever has happened didn’t bother me, it’s like a moment of realisation where the depression allows me to have the space to realise it’s upset me. Know what I mean?
The trouble is, I haven’t been giving any of this stuff to Jesus recently. I’ve been avoiding it and putting it away – and now that I’m in this sadness it’s like He’s nudging me a little letting me know it’s been there all a long. Almost a ‘I told you so’ moment, but way more gracious and nowhere near as irritating, I mean, come on, it’s JESUS! I forget so often that He already KNOWS what’s going on, I don’t need these moments of depressed realisation when the whole world is blown out of proportion and those gloomy glasses are propped back onto my face. It’s just not the way, guys. This is in no way a perfect post, I’m surprised if you’re still with me at all, really. But if you are, humour me. I’m nearly there, promise.
In Revelation 21 we see this beautiful promises from God. We’re told he will wipe every tear from our eyes, and that there will be no more sadness, pain, death, crying. So essentially, all of the badness and sin and grief in the world will be gone. And that renewal and that reawakening of the world as it should have always been can only come from a perfect and loving and GOOD God. But I read these verses, and I see depression all over the page. I see that my depression will be wiped away – taken away, removed and OUT of my life. Forever.
Now, I like the sound of that.
The thing I love about this translation is the work ‘making’. Being the cheeky theology student I am, translation fascinates me a little! Just had look in case you were wondering, the NIV has it put like this. And I love this wording, because the word ‘making’ suggests a process. That perhaps it’s already starting, it’s already in the process of being remade. That my depression is in the process of being wiped away from my life and I am in the process of being healed. You with me? I know that I won’t be healed overnight. Not because God can’t do that, I know all too well that he can, but I also know in some strange way I’m learning through this – even those missing you moments when I pretend there’s nothing on my mind or the most recent bit of drama hasn’t got to me at all. Jesus has it all covered. The cross was the start of making things new. It was the start of renewal, the start of beginning anew. Praise Jesus.
And the best bit of it all? No matter how far I go, how far I try to run from Him, He always catches up with me, and He’s always there ready to hold me and catch me whenever I fall. Pretty good, eh?
In the words of Hillsong, “this is our God”
Peace and blessings x
annieanais: 