"I'm fine."

Recently, I shared a post on Facebook that appeared on a page I follow. The post was a series of simple, yet clever comic panes depicting how depression can affect an individual.

As someone who has been diagnosed with depression, I honestly thought nothing of it until I received a few, for lack of a softer word, shocking messages from friends reacting to the post. The consensus was that something must have happened, that something was wrong with me.

Although I cherish the concern, the truth is that I am perfectly fine. I am perfectly fine, and I am struggling with depression.

Yes, the "and" was intentional.

I guess, since I've dealt with it for so long, understanding how depression works is something I take for granted. It's human nature to seek the source of our problems with the hopes of solving them, and therein lies the fundamental issue with the concept.

As hard as it may be to grasp, chronic depression doesn't derive from tragedy. Nothing has to "happen" for it to take over.

That's not to say there aren't triggers that can be the cause. But, in general, searching for causation is a dead end, and I think that's what frustrates people who don't commonly struggle with it. Unfortunately, depression is just as difficult to explain as it is to comprehend, which is why the instinctive response it to hide it.

Depression is like an ache that creeps into our bones and roots itself in the marrow. It resides in the hollow places within us that we can't explain. It echoes in our heads like white noise drowning out logic. Depression is physical and it's mental. It can last seconds, or it can last days. The hardest part about depression is that even those of us who have it really don't understand it.

"What's wrong?" is a vastly intimidating question to someone with depression because, while we are well aware that "I don't know" isn't a socially acceptable response, it is, in most cases, all we have to offer.

As a Christian, things become further complicated for me when trying to get others to understand. "You just need to give it to God" is a favorite response followed closely by "Have you tried praying about it?" Yes, I have tried praying (quite a bit) about it, and after beating myself up over it for a long time, I've come to the conclusion that my depression has no correlation whatsoever to my faith or lack thereof.

In other words, Christians who struggle with depression are not any less of a child of God than those who don't, and if someone tells you otherwise, punch them in the face. Don't really do that...well, only if you want to.

But in all seriousness, that theology is twisted and baseless and set me back quite a bit in my personal struggles. 1 Peter 5:6-7 says, "Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, for he cares for you."

I must've missed the part where God said, "Humble yourselves, therefore, that ye may be without sadness, anxiety, fear, and/or any combination of the three forever and ever. Amen."

I don't know what scripture everyone else is reading, but "Your anxiety" sounds a lot like God is acknowledging that you will struggle. He didn't intend for depression to be exclusive to non-believers, and He certainly didn't promise immunity from the hardships of life. Don't get me wrong; there is, indeed, power in prayer, and I have, without question, felt the relief and peace of spirit because of that.

However, to insinuate that something as overarching and common as depression is an indication of a lack of faith in God is simply ignorant.

As difficult as that is to believe for those of us who frequently experience it, there's no shame in seeking help. The best medicine is, truthfully, just talking it out, whether that's with God in prayer or with a doctor or friends and family.

There is no pot of gold at the end of a monochromatic rainbow awaiting discovery, no cure in a laboratory somewhere. We're simply wired to be sad sometimes. And as weird as it is, that's okay.

Just realize that there's not something inherently wrong with you, and if you're lucky enough to never have experienced depression, understand that being there for someone who is struggling is the absolute greatest thing you can do for them.

For such a complicated thing like depression, the solution is beautifully simple.

We just need love.

Grownup

When I was younger, my brother and I shared a bunk bed. Rather than a place for sleeping, the bed usually served as a jungle gym, a rocket ship, or one of many other scenarios that we imaginatively created.

Despite mom and dad's constant warnings against playing on the top bunk, the thought of climbing that bright red metal ladder was, more often than not, too tempting to resist. The top offered so many exciting experiences like pretending to "walk" on the ceiling, dangling our action figures perilously over the edge of the "cliff," and, of course, jumping to the floor below.

Nevertheless, our parents insisted that we were to never play on the top bunk "unless an adult was in the room."

One evening, when my Aunt Stephanie was visiting, my brother and I seized the opportunity to lure her into our room and begin playing on the top bunk. Her presence, we assumed, made playing up top fair game. Before long, my mom came in, hand on hip and eyebrows raised, "What are you two doing?"

"Aunt Steffy's a dote!" I responded in our defense.

If only it were that simple. If only my childlike definition of adulthood were the whole picture. If only adulthood were marked simply by the fact that you surpassed a certain age threshold.

But adulthood is far more complicated and difficult and unlike anything I've ever had to do.

Being an adult is working full-time and taking night classes and laughing when people say things like "when you have free time." Being an adult is going to Walmart at two in the morning to get your wife cough medicine. It's sitting up with her into the early hours of the morning laughing and crying and discussing the future as unsettling as it may be.

Being an adult is missing your best friend's birthday party because you have to work and you can't afford to lose the hours. It's having a panic attack in the driveway because you're so overwhelmed with stress that you can't bring yourself to go inside.

Being an adult is saying "I'm doing well" when people ask how you are, although it couldn't be further from the truth.

Being an adult is finding out that you're going to be a father, that you're going to have a child when you secretly still feel like a child yourself.

I wish it could be as simple as I once imagined it to be. I wish my childhood perception of being an "a dote" aligned with what I now have come to understand as true adulthood, but it's not.

Growing up, I was told in school, at church, at home...everywhere that I was bring prepped to make that headstrong leap into adulthood. Looking back, I realize how misguided that notion is.

Adulthood isn't a state of mind or a chronological place in your timeline. It's a choice to set difficult goals and achieve them, to swallow the stress and the anger and the sadness and grow more than you ever thought you could, work harder than you ever thought you could, and become more than you ever thought you could be.

Growing up is hard, hard stuff. But it's worth it.

A New Endeavor

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."

Ecclesiastes 3:1

Molly and I have undergone a pretty intense "season" of change these past months. We're talking riding-a-wild-stallion-bareback-through-a-minefield intense season of change.

Besides getting married (which short of giving your life to Jesus, is just about the most world-altering thing you'll ever experience), we became first-time homebuyers. And no, rumor mill, mommy and daddy didn't buy it for us. We did, indeed, purchase the house with, wait for it, our own money.

Lately, our priority list consists of figuring out what's on our priority list. Friends have turned on us, goals that were once important to us have been put on the backburner, and to top it all off, we both recently just left our jobs on less-than-ideal terms with our previous employer.

On the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale (a life unit scale regarded by the medical community as the best predictor for stress-related illness), marriage, loss of friends or loved ones, purchasing a home, and changing jobs are all among the top 20 most stressful events that can happen to an individual. Believe me when I tell you, we didn't need a group of psychologists to tell us that. We've felt the effects of every last "life unit" from each of those events.

But you know what the psychologists didn't bank on? They didn't factor in an awesome God coaching us through it all. And you know what else? We're hanging in there, and we're doing a pretty dang good job of it.

Despite the months of searching, despite a lender committing mortgage fraud and causing our first contract to fall through, despite saving every last penny we could only to turn around and spend a nauseating amount of money on a down payment, God allowed us to walk away with the keys to a beautiful, affordable home.

Despite having my integrity questioned by a corrupt workplace full of "cookie cutter Christians," despite raising money to help people in need only to find out they were blowing it on new cars and vacations, despite serving faithfully with leadership I could never fully trust, God provided me with a new, better paying job that provides enough for Molly to go back to school. God has taken away our misery and replaced it with happiness and more time together as a family.

And despite being told, time and again, how we were moving too fast, despite being told that getting married young was a bad decision, despite being told (literally) that "you will most likely not make it," despite the naysayers, the doubters, the "friends" waiting and hoping for us to fail, God has taken care of us. God is taking care of us. God is growing us. God is with us.

That's all I could ever ask or hope for, to know that my God has my back regardless of what anyone else, friend, coworker, boss, family member, or otherwise have to say about it.

Change is defined by Webster's Dictionary simply as "to become different."

Through it all, that's what Molly and I have done. That's what we're continuing to do. Heck, being different is what God calls us to do. When seasons of change come, it isn't easy by any vastly exaggerated stretch of the imagination. Staying where we are may be easier, remaining stagnant may feel safer, but God's will is so much better, so much more rewarding than any risk we could ever encounter.

Whether we want to admit it or not, when life demands change, when God demands change, it must be unprejudiced and wholehearted. We can't always plan for it. Sometimes, change takes whatever it is you thought you knew or understood and throws it in your face, demeans you. Sometimes, change holds you down and forces you to rethink your priorities, forces you to come to grips with the fact that things simply cannot stay the same.

And we aren't staying the same, we won't stay the same. If that means leaving behind a bad job or friends who won't grow up, so be it. But every new day is a gift from God, a new endeavor that we have to choose to take on, to adapt and grow with.

Don't waste it.