I find myself these days living in the graceful grays between the black and white spaces of life; living between the creative tension of the small hope within and the hopeless despair trying to suffocate it.
Severe depression in and of itself is hard to describe. And that would be true if it were the only reality I was dealing with…but life goes on regardless of the circumstances that blur and taint it. And God is an ever-present Reality whether I can sense it or not; for the truth supersedes the thick darkness hanging over my heart.
How do I describe the feeling of waking up daily feeling like either there is a wet blanket tight around my head or that it is like taking a gasping breath under water suddenly realizing my lungs are filling with liquid suffocation? I’m not sure I am competent enough to describe it more than I just did. Some days, I am barely able to ‘live’ with it much less describe it.
But during times like these, God’s grace is not always pretty or clean, much like life, but it is always beautiful. God’s grace rarely comes in the rigidity of our black or white world. Grace is a “both/and” kind of gift more than an “either/or” experience. Grace is like ‘pure gray’ – seemingly neutral but a mixture of the “either/or” of black and white that paint and taint our lives. Grace just happens, much like gray, in between the cracks and crannies of life, seeping deep into it.
And today I’m living in the graceful grays under the unbearable weight of darkness and the lightness of God’s grace. Somewhere in-between is a space and place where the goodness of God dwells, like an untapped well. I know this, it’s just that these days seeing and experiencing that holy space is a chore when the eyes of my soul are blurred while groping in the dark for God’s grace.
I pray that God’s grace finds me this day, like a soft warm blanket on a crisp Autumn day. I pray this for all of you as well.
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