Depression Math

by Alecia Klauk
(Chapin, SC)

"No one would notice, and fewer would care."

Ever felt that way? Here are some possible scenarios where you might (fill in the blank with the above):

"If something bad happened to me, __________________"
"If I just left here, ____________________"
"If I'm upset, hurt, angry, etc, ___________________"
"If I ever really needed something, ___________________"
(The doosey) "If I just died, ___________________"

It's irrational, completely and thoroughly irrational. One of my favorite lines from an old TV show is, "Don't call me irrational. You KNOW that makes me crazy!"

It doesn't make sense. Logically, we know it's not true. In our sense of reason, we know it can't be. Even the math doesn't add up: it is impossible for there to be a number fewer than none.

But it FEELS true.

My brilliant mother heard my not so brilliant comment and dubbed it "depression math." I didn't make a lot of sense in that moment, but she did.

Hummmm ... depression math.
Despondency calculations.
Despair-filled figuring.

When our souls are screaming, there is no logic that can pierce the tough armor the pain creates. It wraps around our minds with an impenetrable force that dares entry.

Why do we do that? I don't think we particularly want to be irrational. Unreachable. Unable to be reasoned with. When we hurt, we want a remedy. But we resist it, or at least we feel powerless to do anything else. Why?

There's ironically enough a very calculated reason. Pain is in the gut. Logic is in the mind. And they do not speak the same language.

Imagine a high powered business negotiation. The stakes are tremendous, and the impact of the merger will be broad and deep. There are many details to work through. The legal definition of a contract revolves around the idea of a meeting of the minds, and the two parties must agree on reasoned settlement.

Ok. Now imagine ... one party speaks fluent French and the other, nothing but a remote Tibetan dialect.

How far would they get? What kind of individual pieces would make the whole of the agreement? Could there be any agreement? What would the final outcome look like? Would either side be truly satisfied with the result?

That scenario is quite similar when we are in the heat of pain's crucible and logic tries to enter. It's really not that we want to be convinced that nobody likes and everybody hates us so we'll just go eat worms. It is more a feeling of being trapped than outright rejection, rebellion, or even just pedestrian subbornness.

But yet we have a choice. We do not think we do in that place, but we do. I think that perhaps this is at least part of what it means to love our God with our mind. We must choose to allow logic, which at its core is an expression of irrefutable truth, to penetrate.

And here's the comfort for our tired hearts in the midst of having something more to do: we have a Holy Translator. The Spirit of the Living God can inject Himself into our minds and allow us to understand truth ... in our hearts. He is the Only One who can make the million mile trek from our heads to our hearts and make the incomprehensible make some sense, and more feel sensible.

In sauntering our heads to our hearts, He is the only way we can feel truth. We can know truth with our own logic, in our own mind. But we need Him to work in order to feel truth in our feeble hearts.

We receive truth by belief, and it eventually lodges deep in the soul. We start in the mind and end up in the heart.

Let's flesh this out a bit ...

Through the Spirit-equipped choice to believe that God's Word is true and relevant and applicable to me,

"No one loves me!" is challenged by "I have loved you with an everlasting love." (Jeremiah 31:3)

"There is no hope -- there is no purpose in this!" loses power with "I have not brought you here to hurt you, but to give you a hope and a purpose." (Jeremiah 29:11)

"I am alone!" is weakened by "And surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:20)

"I am totally lost, unfindable, unreachable!" cannot stand against "I am able to save to the uttermost." (Hebrews 7:25)

"No one can or will help me!" is rocked by "Do not fear, I am with you. Do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." (Isaiah 41:10)

This is what raw belief looks like: allowing truth to travel to our hearts by going through our minds first. We believe with emotions, yes, but we make choices in our mind. And one of the deepest choices of the Christian walk is of course salvation initially, but then, day by day, moment by moment to choose to believe.

Are there not days when we must choose to love our spouse? Our children? Our family? Our friends? The warm fuzzies chill at times, and we lean on the choices we made long ago: to love, to stand, to stick. We count on those decisions when our emotions fade. We have to do the same with our God.

Belief happens in the mind first. And belief may be the highest and best form of obedience. We often want to feel like obeying before we obey, but God will often not give the emotions we want UNTIL we obey. All over Scripture, obedience precedes blessing.

Watch what Jesus does with this, His desire for us to believe and the comfort that will follow that choice:

When Lazarus died, Martha was in the midst of great grief. He was her brother, and they were very close. She was also close friends, personal friends, with the One she knew could fix it. She was in tremendous, blinding, reasonably irrational pain. Look carefully at what Jesus asks her, before He does anything to "fix it:"

"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"

Jesus reveals to Martha, specifically and personally, His identity: THE Resurrection and THE Life. He slices through her pain to reveal Himself, as He will often do. He invites her to know Him in her pain. And He asks her for one thing: belief. He wants her to trust Him, to allow His truth to penetrate her seared heart. He wants her to BELIEVE. The emotions would follow, especially after the miracle of Lazarus' resurrection, but Jesus wanted her to obey in her mind first. He asks her to believe Him.

And that too is what we are called to. Depression math does not add up. But the calculations of the Spirit are trustworthy and true. We can rely on what He says, what He promises, what He's done to prove His love for us, and allow that to dictate our emotions.

And in a great twist of belief, it feels good to believe. Maybe at first, it feels risky, exposed, vulnerable. But the longer we walk with Jesus, the more we realize the irrationality of distrust, and the easier it becomes to hear the Holy Translator speak once more.

I like Jesus Math better than depression math. His makes sense. And His is laced with love. His asks me to believe but promises peace. That choice is clear, and easier than 1+1.