The Joy that Conquers Depression | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: The Joy that Conquers Depression | Previous Challenge Entry
By Carla Eckhorst
12/12/17
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The Joy that Conquers Depression (Non-Fiction)

The very word “Joy” sounds pleasant to my ears and writing about it seems a particularly wonderful task. It’s the emotion I want and value most and the one I long to share with those I love. It seems to me that when I am “in joy” I am in my natural element. When I am filled with joy I feel like I have so much to give and my openness and the very life in me know no limits. It’s when I want to jubilantly tell the whole world that “in His presence is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11) indeed, I am the living proof of it.

I ask myself, how come I feel like I have a special affinity to joy, as if it is my field of expertise? This is especially interesting when I consider that depression – the ultimate lack of joy - is the problem I have been afflicted with most of my life. Heaviness, discouragement, and a darkness which could be called death, seemed my daily experience. Lifeless thoughts, a sense of indifference, the inability to shake off a cold grip that kept my emotions as well as my body frozen and sickly. You might ask, who am I to even begin to talk about joy?

And yet, it appears to me that being familiar with the deepest of misery, I am therefore qualified to recognise the joy that is the antidote to it. It is a joy that is more than the delight about, say, having won a sporting match, seeing your loved ones succeed at something, overcoming a challenge, more even than feeling loved and appreciated by others. Maybe it is because the more intense and unrelenting my misery the more sensitive I become to recognising the light, the more willing to bypass the world’s distractions and embrace the experience of being soothed by that which I consider the most high.

Scripture says, “Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10 NLT). The joy of the Lord is unlike what we settle for in this earth, it is independent of circumstances, is above and beyond the changing conditions and happenings we see. Nothing necessarily needs to change, but seen through the eyes of joy, there is abundance of beauty and reasons for gratitude everywhere. And as with the “peace of God that passes understanding” (Philippians 4:7) there is no logical reason for this joy either, it defies human reasoning. And yet it is all-pervading, inside and all around. It is dependable enough to share it and give it away and it causes me to step out and be courageous where in the past I might have held back, fearfully. Most importantly, it lifts me up, brings me up to a higher level of perceiving and functioning.

You may wonder how can this joy of the Lord be someone’s “strength”, when the maintenance of their mental health is their greatest struggle? I do believe that where we are the weakest God can show himself the strongest. I can confirm from own experience in more than one area that where I can do nothing in my own strength I am more likely to be receptive to the grace of God. And where our need causes us to depend on His grace, it is here that we can have the greatest breakthrough, again and again.

And so I can say with perfect conviction that joy, rather than being elusive and impossible for me to attain, is in fact my strength, my speciality, my favourite, the emotion that allows me to feel one hundred percent at home in my Father’s presence.

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