So, I was already exhausted when a bomb fell in my personal
life last February and by August I was my darkest place.
I’m sure your mind is running with all the possible sordid details, but my facts are likely the same for most of you.
Life gets exhausting.
Disappointments, loss, and failures pile up, some bigger than others, and some simply are the last straw.
The arm of the flesh fails us—both our own, and others’.
Marriage is hard, children are hard—being a fallen human being is hard.
Your body falls apart, everything makes you tired.
The suffering of family and friends and even of strangers is immense and overwhelming.
The weight of childhood baggage gets heavy.
You hit 40, and your friends and family start losing their faith, children, jobs, marriages, hope, and what you thought life was going to be is firmly replaced by what it is.
I watched my 93 year old grandma die after 12 years of corrosive dementia and (having written her practical, yet often sad biography). I’m left with the sense, “Is that all there is?”
I wondered if I really wanted eternal glory, eternal progression, even eternal family. I coveted a bit the born-again heaven where I could just sing praise all day.
But really, I just wanted to be alone, and I wanted to nap.
I’m sure your mind is running with all the possible sordid details, but my facts are likely the same for most of you.
Life gets exhausting.
Disappointments, loss, and failures pile up, some bigger than others, and some simply are the last straw.
The arm of the flesh fails us—both our own, and others’.
Marriage is hard, children are hard—being a fallen human being is hard.
Your body falls apart, everything makes you tired.
The suffering of family and friends and even of strangers is immense and overwhelming.
The weight of childhood baggage gets heavy.
You hit 40, and your friends and family start losing their faith, children, jobs, marriages, hope, and what you thought life was going to be is firmly replaced by what it is.
I watched my 93 year old grandma die after 12 years of corrosive dementia and (having written her practical, yet often sad biography). I’m left with the sense, “Is that all there is?”
I wondered if I really wanted eternal glory, eternal progression, even eternal family. I coveted a bit the born-again heaven where I could just sing praise all day.
But really, I just wanted to be alone, and I wanted to nap.
So yes, a raging midlife crisis.
And yes, I’ll admit there is a big blanket of chronic lifelong depression laid over all this, but as my sweet, equally lifelong depressed husband always says, “It’s not depression, it’s seeing things clearly.”
(So you can imagine how rosy things are around our house.)
So yes, the dark is there to see. But there is also light, which I started to
see in September.
NEXT: PART IV: THE LIGHT
Post by Valerie Wise Christensen.
Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life
NEXT: PART IV: THE LIGHT
Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life
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