Hope is your birthright

How I've been fighting depression recently - Part 1

This is Part 1 of a story about how God is equipping me with new tools to battle my depression. It’s worth reading this before moving on to Part 2 here.

My mom had been telling me to read it for years. Honestly, when you have a Master’s degree in English Literature & Creative Writing, everyone is always telling you to read something. I have a reading list that I will never catch up on, made worse by the fact that I read slowly, which feels like a betrayal of my “brand” (it’s dumb, but sometimes humans feel dumb things).

Often, when I get a book recommendation, I’ll casually brush it off with an “I’ll add it to my list,” knowing that in reality, it probably won’t make it to my shelf because I’ll forget or get distracted or just decide that it’s not the right book for me. But other times, a book title embeds itself in my brain. Despite myself, I really do add it to my list, even if I have no intention of reading it.

I think that sometimes, the Spirit marks our thoughts with a book title. No, I’m convinced of this. I truly believe that there are certain books that God places in front of us exactly when we need them, and if they’re introduced to us before the time is right, He truly does “add them to our list” for later. There have been 3 distinct occasions when I pick up a book that I’ve always meant to read, and it speaks exactly to the season I’m in, drawing me closer to my Maker and giving me a clear place of valued existence in the cosmic order of things.

And in this season, that book has been The Hiding Place.

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I first tried to start reading Corrie Ten Boom’s famous Holocaust survival story while on the plane to Seattle back in August. Something in me had been gnawing at the fringes of this book for weeks. I’d known about it for years but had avoided it because I embody the grief of war stories in a way that alters my mood for days. When you struggle with depression, the last thing you want is to add to your sadness – no matter how noble or real the story may be. I’d read bits and pieces of this book over the years, but I hadn’t felt the courage to take it on in its entirety until days before I boarded that plane.

Then I ended up seated right in front of the flight attendants’ galley, and even with headphones, I couldn’t drown out the sound of the gossiping attendants talking about how much money so-and-so had won in her recent divorce. I put the book away, promising God that I would pick it up again at the best opportunity.

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That opportunity came a few days after getting home to England. Following two whirlwind weeks of work and play and joy and grief, I came back exhausted and anxious. I was anxious about returning to my sick dog – a situation which has marked the last year of my life and, in many ways, set the tone for my work here on Substack. I was anxious about facing the reality that my body has been letting me down for far too long, and the only chance at healing is going to involve a real fight on my end. I was anxious to once again, after two weeks in a house full of beautiful friends and laughing kids, sit in the mire of my own loneliness.

And my fears were met with confirmation. Three days after getting home, Humphrey’s behavioural symptoms worsened so badly that I wasn’t actually sure if we could endure this season for much longer. I’d lay in bed, weeping as my husband left for work, terrified of my empty house and the unpredictable dog I’d face.

I’ve said this in previous essays, but there is a flavour of depression in which you are not at all suicidal: you simply wish you weren’t alive. This distinction is important. There is no ideation. I don’t dream of taking my life. I don’t assume that my loved ones would be better off if I wasn’t here¹. I simply don’t fear the idea of a fatal car accident like I should.

My heart echoed the words of Job:

Why is life given to a man
 whose way is hidden,
 whom God has hedged in?
Job 3:23

In every way, I have felt as though my way is hidden from me – as though God has “hedged me in.” Through loneliness. Through a chronically sick dog. Through an isolated town. Through a slow-to-build writing career. Through a struggling bank account. Through trauma from my previous work place. Through re-emerging trauma from years ago.

My circumstances and my perceived failures this year have been the “hedges” entrapping me in a cycle of despair, and two weeks away in the U.S. only served to magnify the cycle upon my return.

I wasn’t suicidal – but I also didn’t want to be alive anymore.

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Laying in bed, scrolling Substack, I spotted a note by Katie Donohue Tona sharing her recent experience of rebuking spiritual oppression. It’s hard for me, sometimes, to take in these stories after having recently extricated myself from a coercive relationship where knowledge of spiritual warfare was weaponised against me. But Katie’s heart and writing is so sincere, and her words shone a light into my heart. I was reminded of the truth which I always so proudly preach in my own writing: our God empowers us with agency and dignity.

There are so many moments when I am ignorant to my own victimhood. I don’t actively embrace the mentality of a victim, but I passively allow it to take up space in my heart.² I do this, quite simply, because I fail to recognise that my spirit is a warrior on a battlefield – which means there are other spirits across the enemy line. It astounds me that as someone who hosts a C.S. Lewis podcast covering The Screwtape Letters, I still need reminding of this (thank you, Katie, for being the messenger).

So the first thing I did after reading Katie’s note was claim back the power instilled in me by the same Spirit which raised Christ from the dead. I spoke out loud (I believe there is power in the audible tongue) and rebuked the spirits of despair and hopelessness which had been taking up space in my thoughts for far too long. Thoughts which twisted and yielded to the false narrative that my future is bleak and riddled with suffering. I cried out to God in lament of my grief, and I repented for the fact that I had been forfeiting my birthright: hope.

It feels important that I pause and make a finite distinction here: I did not repent of my sadness, only of my failure to claim the hope that has been won for me. I do not believe depression is entirely the work of the enemy, neither do I believe that it is entirely our fault. As usual, I think that the truth lies somewhere in the middle: we have agency to fight for healing and sometimes there are spirits at work that exist to oppress us. Needless to say, your depression is not a sin from which you need to repent. What I am saying is that you have the same birthright that I have as a child of God. You can claim hope in this promise amidst the spirit of despair:

[You] are longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called [your] God, for he has prepared a city for [you].
Hebrews 11:16

Sometimes claiming the hope of eternity – the hope of belonging to a good God and being designed for a better place than this – looks like struggling with depression and speaking out against the spirit of despair.

The words don’t need to be fancy or liturgical or profound. They simply need to be true. Claim the truth of who you are in Christ. Claim the truth of your power, by His Spirit, to rebuke the spirits who are warring for your clarity and health and joy. I really mean it when I say this doesn’t have to be fancy. Just speak the words. Let yourself hear the truth of them. And let the light of God’s love for you flood your heart.

I lay in bed, tears flooding down my face (but hey, I cry a lot), as I did just this, and within moments, I felt a physical weight lift from the room. Something had indeed been lingering around me, and with a simple word from my mouth, by the authority granted to me by God Almighty, that “thing” was suddenly… just… gone.

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I started picking up my Kindle again in the evenings, finding myself glued to Corrie Ten Boom’s story. For a week, I’d exchange bed time scrolling for reading. For a week, I felt a kindredness to this woman, like she was a shaman guiding me towards some spiritual truth I had yet to learn. I revelled in this new atmosphere bereft of the spiritual oppression that had plagued me for months. My sadness had not gone, but my hope had returned. And for that week, hope looked, quite practically, like curling up and reading a book.

Everything that God had been doing inside me culminated on one sunny September morning. I came downstairs to golden light streaming through the window. I curled up with a hot drink and my Kindle, and to my astonishment, Humphrey curled up next to me and slept. And slept. And slept. For four hours, he slept (something I’ve never seen him do), and through that brief “parting of the seas,” my heart cracked open to The Hiding Place.

Words cannot even begin to describe how humbled I was to read the words of a woman whose faith endured the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp. This story is an embodiment of the true hope that Christians have beyond any other group of people: eternal victory, eternal joy, eternal gladness that outshines even the darkest times in history.

And the biggest thing that I couldn’t shake as I worked my way through the final chapters was this:

“Fleas!” I cried. “Betsie, the place is swarming with them! […] Betsie, how can we live in such a place?”
“Show us. Show us how.”
It was said so matter of factly it took me a second to realise she was praying. More and more the distinction between prayer and the rest of life seemed to be vanishing for Betsie.
“Corrie!” she said excitedly. “He’s given us the answer! Before we asked, as He always does! In the Bible this morning. Where was it? Read that part again!”
[…]
“Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus—”
“That’s it, Corrie! That’s His answer. ‘Give thanks in all circumstances!’ That’s what we can do. We can start right now to thank God for every single thing about this new barracks!”
[…]
“Thank you,” Betsie went on serenely, “for the fleas and for—”
The fleas! This was too much. “Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea.”
“Give thanks in all circumstances,” she quoted. “It doesn't say, 'in pleasant circumstances.' Fleas are part of this place where God has put us.”
And so we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong.
- The Hiding Place, Corrie Ten Boom

Corrie and her sister Betsie went on to hold nightly Bible studies within their flea-infested bunkhouse in a Nazi concentration camp (with a Bible that had been miraculously smuggled into the camp without detection); and many women came to Christ, through that time of utter suffering, by virtue of those Bible studies. But after weeks of wondering why the Nazis had never entered the bunk to disrupt their gathering, it came to light that the soldiers patrolling would not enter that specific bunkhouse – for fear of getting bitten by fleas.

And thus began the closest, most joyous weeks of all the time in Ravensbruck. Side by side, in the sanctuary of God’s fleas, Betsie and I ministered the Word of God to all in the room.

I couldn’t hold back the sobs as my heart broke apart in the best possible way and God’s invitation flooded every cell in my body. The invitation was an extension of the hope I’m called to: to live a life of gratitude. A life truly giving thanks in all circumstances, finding my own “sanctuary of God’s fleas.”

Days before this glorious September morning, I don’t know if I could have seen myself doing much more than going through the motions of gratitude – speaking prayers of thanks yet struggling to mean them – but as I finished the final page of Corrie Ten Boom’s blessed book, I knew that the authority of the Spirit who raised Christ from the dead was, once again, at work within me.

More on this story next week.

All my love,

P.S. God has been reminding me how deeply important it is that we share our testimonies with one another. The Hiding Place has been such a conduit to renew my intimacy with Him, and it’s further increased my passion for seeing aspiring Christian authors answer God’s call to write a book about what He has done in their life. This is why I’ve been developing a writing course for the last year, designed specifically for those who want to write a book about their story, but they just don’t know where to start. It’s launching in January, and you can join the waitlist here to be the first to find out more. Your story is so deeply important – it could revolutionise someone’s faith the way Corrie’s story has revolutionised mine. So if you’d like some practical tools to help you get going, I’d love for you to join us for Pick Up Your Sword in January.

1. If that’s you, please stop reading this right now and call someone you love, because I promise they love you too, and they want you here. Please also reach out to a trusted pastor, friend, your doctor, or even the HR department at your work, who should be able to point you towards helpful resources in your country. If you are in crisis, please Google “suicide crisis hotlines” to find a number for your area. In the UK, I recommend Samaritans.

2. I’m always cautious about discussing victimhood in the context of depression. Please hear me when I say that I am not shaming anyone who suffers with depression, nor am I calling them inherent victims. Depression comes in so many forms, and when there is a chemical imbalance or a cocktail of trauma, then medication and therapy are valid and necessary graces to help you heal. All I am saying is that we have a part to play in our own journey of healing, and sometimes, without realising it, we take a backseat on that journey.