A Light Extinguished Too Soon
Depression is a beast. Anxiety is a monster. Mental health is so misunderstood.
How can we do better?
How can we help the ones we love, who are consumed by the darkness, see light?
How can we sit with them in their darkest moments so that they can feel us?
Some walls have been built high and strong and feel unable to be penetrated and yet God is begging us to keep trying, to keep loving them, to keep reaching out, and yet we grow weary, and we grow in desperation. Sometimes we need to self-protect and put up some boundaries to keep our own heads above the water.
Where do we get the strength?
Where do we get the wisdom?
Where we get the courage?
How do we move through the pain, the guilt, what if‘s, the if only‘s?
Only God can help us in this out-of-control place. He does have the power and the authority to reach down and yet each one of us have a responsibility to reach up. He won’t force us. He gave us free will. He needs us to participate. He needs us to sit in the cave with the brokenhearted. He needs us to represent him. He needs us to not be afraid to sit in the suck. He also needs us to know that when we don’t have it in us to help the person in the darkness that it is ok. He will call others to try too. No one person is equipped to carry the full burden. It will take a team of loved ones who care and are doing their best and yet at the end of the day, the decision lies within the person sitting in a dark room with the lights off.
We do not need to teach. We do not need to make promises. We do not need to fix it. We just need to be with them when we are called.
They need to know they are not alone.
Whatever the monster they are facing, it is never bigger than Love. Love covers all and yet in a dark room, the Love needs to be allowed in. When one match is lit, the room accepts light. The person in the darkness must light that match.
When they screw up or when others have screwed them up, we can sit with them, and bring some matches. Sometimes that’s all we can do, and it is enough. If the one suffering doesn’t pick up the match, we cannot make them.
How do we stop the whispers in their ears that scream that they are a lost cause, that they are not worthy, that they are not loved, that they are not seen.
How can we love those that are so lost?
It seems simple but it’s very hard.
We sit, and we listen. Spend time with them, not telling them what to do, but listening to their suffering, even when they don’t use words. Just being present shows that we care. Just keep trying to the best of our ability. Keep our minds open to the God nudges that encourage us to reach out and take a match. At the end of the day, they must be the one to strike the match and light the candle.
We must accept the truth that we have no power to fix their suffering. We cannot allow the lie of responsibility to take over our thoughts. If the person suffering makes the decision that life is too hard, and they give up their fight, their mental illness has completed its journey. The same way, a cancer takes lives, so does a disease of the brain.
We are limited, but God is not.
We are human, and God understands.
You still love them, even when they can no longer spend time with us.
We still honor them, not by putting up walls of protection, but by loving, even better, by keeping our eyes open, and our ears listening.
Then they live on through us. Their purpose continues. Their suffering is complete but they live on in those who love them.
Everyone they leave behind now has a choice on how to proceed.
First just walk through the pain, sit in the suck because it hurts and it hurts deep.
Talk about it, do not hide your feelings.
As we get stronger, we must then ask ourselves, how can we honor the person we loved, the one we now miss? the one we carry with memories in our hearts?
RIP Jay, I’m a better person because I knew you. I promise to keep my eyes and ears open to keep your light shining. I’m going to start by buying a box full of matches!