Introduction: Having experienced life’s roller coaster of emotions, the psalmist shares the sadness and the solution and I reflect upon my own rides with depression and recovery.
1. The Psalmist’s Sadness: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’”
Me: I, too, have felt verbal arrows flung at me from others who do not know God the way I do. How my souls thirsts for God’s protection.
The Psalmist’s Solution: “These things I remember as I pour out my soul: how I used to go with the multitude, leading the processions to the house of God, with shouts of joy and thanksgiving among the festive throng.”
Me: I, too, when suffering under other’s doubts remind myself to focus on God’s goodness to raise my spirits above the condemnation of my enemies. I join with others in joyful praise and worship.
2.The Psalmist’s Sadness: “Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?”
Me: In grade 11, I waved the white flag of surrender to my parents’ discipline after three years of teenage rebellion. However, at the defeat, I became depressed. Why can I not do what I want? Why can you not accept me as I am?
The Psalmist’s Solution: “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”
Me: If only I had accessed this solution to my teenage depression.
3.The Psalmist’s Sadness: “My soul is downcast within me.”
Me: At age 21, I spent the summer working out of town, away from the love of my life. Depression overcame me.
The Psalmist’s Solution: “I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon-from Mount Mizar.”
Me: If only I had turned to God, even while in the far away place, to receive His compassion and love.
4.The Psalmist’s Sadness: “Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.”
Me: After the birth of my second child, postpartum depression struck me like large waves crashing on the beach. The oft-repeated ad on TV and radio chanted, “I need a vacation,” but it did not matter if I needed a vacation because we could not afford it and my husband could not fathom the depths of the breakers engulfing me.
The Psalmist’s Solution: “By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me - a prayer to the God of my life.”
Me: If only I could have recognized God’s song in my life back then.
5.The Psalmist’s Sadness: “I say to God my Rock, “Why have you forgotten me? Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?” My bones suffer moral agony as my foes taunt me, saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?”
Me: I was about to turn 40 and became deeply depressed again: feeling useless, incapable of doing anything right or even accomplishing anything at all. Nevertheless, I was a Christian then – where was my God? I thought Christians were always happy.
The Psalmist’s Solution: “Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”
Me: Finally, I put my hope in God! I prayed, studied His Word, and sang songs of praise. Slowly, with medicine, counseling, others praying for me, and making time each week for creative projects, I climbed back to mental health. I praised my Savior and my God, for I knew then that He had not forsaken me.
Conclusion: The Psalmist’s practice of turning to God every time he felt discouraged, forgotten, or oppressed is one that I am actively following. Since that last bout of depression, turning to God is a regular activity for me in order to avoid sinking into despair again. At the slightest hint of a negative mood, I now turn to Scripture, listen to worship music and give thanks to God to help me lift up my heart and soul to Him. I focus on God, not my problems. The Psalmist’s pattern is now my pattern for maintaining mental and emotional health. Today, my emotions are less of a roller coaster and more of a ripple in a pond.
Lord, I pray for my readers who suffer from depression that, amongst their collection of coping habits, they will follow the Psalmist’s pattern of repeatedly turning to you, of putting their hope in you, and of praising you for being the God of their life. Lord, thank you that, as our souls thirst for you, you pour out your love upon us, quenching our every need. Amen.
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