You will have days when you will want to pretend. However some things can’t be explained away so easily. Jesus calls His disciples to reality and clear truth. He calls us to a certain faith.

Depression isolates and separates. That is what it does best. I will lock myself up, weeks at a time in my loft, and I’ll never venture out. I can’t explain it, but when I do the grocery store it becomes a weird carnival, and I awkwardly walk its aisles. It’s a bad place for a “meltdown.”

Intensifying this, some time ago I lost my driver’s license. I was having “absence seizures” where I blacked out at the wheel. After a couple of accidents, and totaling my car, my license was revoked. So now I don’t drive. It’s the ‘right thing’ but definitely inconvenient.

The epilepsy also escalates the depression. So, at times, you pretend everything is ok, even when it decidedly is not. It’s called “coping” by some. But I’m not sure pretending is going to work.

I have the Word which comforts me in this. I also know of Jesus’ intense love for me. I don’t know if I’ll break out of this isolation, but I quit trying to predict the future. I try to take it a day at a time.

Depression is very hard to manage; but mishandling it is far worse (I’ve done both).

But even when it “blows-up-in-my-face” I know the Lord’s grace. Pretending that nothing is wrong (it is) blocks me from stepping into that grace. And it is exactly what I need. Desperately.

I want to encourage you today. The hard times make you strong. It may not seem that way now, but we must believe this is true.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

1 Corinthians 1:3-4, NASB

Depression is what happens when we can’t construct a future, today. But I know who holds the future. I choose to trust Him. He comforts me in this affliction, very well.

your brother, Bryan