Transition

One of the most difficult transitions I ever faced was living through, and recovering from, a depression. It was the summer of 1977, just short of my 30th birthday. I had to quit my job. I had to give up my apartment. My brothers moved me home to live with my parents. Every day I got up wishing for the day to be over.

The doctors tried first this medication, then that one; there weren’t that many to choose from back then. I went to the day program at McLean’s where I participated in activities more appropriate for a second grader - reading aloud, cutting pictures out of magazines and pasting them on to blank pieces of paper. It was an ordeal to decide which picture to cut out.

I wasn’t much of a churchgoer at the time. If I thought about God at all back then, it was to feel rejected by Him, angry at Him, discarded by Him.

And then, one day the anxiety came down just a fraction of a notch. Another day, I had one less cigarette than the day before. Tiny, incremental changes began to happen - something tasted good; I noticed the sky was blue. Slowly, oh so slowly, I was beginning to get better. By September I had a new job. In the fall I was able to move into a new apartment.

And so, looking back, I think that God was there during this awful transition. He was there in my parents, in my doctors, in one or two really close friends who kept in touch when I couldn’t bear to see anyone. He was there in the sun that rose every morning and set every night. He was there, even though I thought He had abandoned me. The irony is that it wasn’t really my faith in God that got me through; it was His faith in me. He refused to let go of me, even when I wanted to say “enough.” I got to the bottom of the barrel, where there was nothing left but God. He hung on to me and brought me back into the world.

Nandy Black