Related articles - Depression and Loneliness
Those who have never lost a spouse to death are unable to fully understand the emptiness and heartache that are a part of being a widow. A friend who lost her husband recently told me that she feels rejected by her friends who are couples. She goes to church alone, sits alone, cooks, sleeps and eats by herself. There’s no one to talk to except herself. Vacations by herself, without her husband to appreciate the beautiful seascape or to even disagree with, have become pointless. She confessed to me that every moment of her life is affected by her intense loneliness.
Depression is a natural consequence of loneliness. When we are depressed, everything seems to be grey, as if the world were constantly enshrouded in a thick black cloud. I love the verse in the ancient book of Job that says: Men do not see the light, which is bright in the clouds; but the wind has passed and cleared them. Job, who had just gone through a devastating loss of his family and fortune, was empathizing with those who were enveloped in dark clouds of grief, but at the same time was looking forward in faith to the wind that would one day blow across his horizon and reveal the then hidden blue sky.
Obviously, the writer of that proverb had never had the privilege that most of us have had of taking off in a Boeing 747 on a dark and dismal clouded day. Up, up we fly, above the earth into the thick black clouds. Then as we rise to over thirty thousand feet, the plane we are in suddenly climbs out of the bank of drizzling shadows into a dazzling blue ceiling of sky. The sun glistens on the snow-white billows below. It’s a gloriously bright day after all! From the perspective of those down below, it really is a dark and depressing day, yet all the while above the clouds the sun has not ceased shining. The good and healthy process of mourning is like the wind that God uses to gradually blow the clouds away – we will see the sunshine again!
Depression is normal and understandable, but there will come a moment when the darkness of night turns into morning again. You may feel like it’s going to be dark for the rest of your life, but your good friends are there to encourage and remind you that the sunrise will eventually come. For some, the clouds roll away quickly while for others it may take longer. It is at those times that it’s valuable to have a family of faith around you, to hold your hand when you feel it’s too dark to see and to point out to you the tiny cracks in the clouds where the sun is peeking through. It will do you well to also be anchored to our transcendent God through the season of depression. Then your faith will see what is invisible to human sight. It will help you look past the grey clouds and help connect your hand to the outstretched hand of your loving Father.
