I can still remember the date on the calendar. November 18.
I was sitting in a white IKEA chair in the conference room of my coworking space in Atlanta. I’d just asked my friend Kim, who was working at the desk beside me, if she could pray for me because my mind felt scrambled that day with all kinds of anxious thoughts.
It was right after her prayer, her voice drifting into the background, when I felt this sharp pain start at the top of my head and move its way down my entire body. I still struggle to put words to that moment, but the best I can say is: it felt like sudden mental paralysis, like I was no longer in control of my brain.
The thing about depression is that it comes in all kinds of shapes and sizes. Some depression is situational. Some depression builds slowly and gradually with time. While mine felt like an instant onslaught in the moment, I eventually looked back to find there were warning signs I had been ignoring:
I’d been crying myself to sleep every night.
Isolating.
Refusing therapy.
Anxious thoughts I kept pushing down.
A loss of joy in tasks I used to love.
It all led up to a crash that one doctor told me she could have seen coming, like a freight train, from hundreds of miles away.
The next four months were a fight for my life. It was doctors and church services. It was ER visits and medications. It was psychiatrists and constant hand-holding. And all the while, we asked the question: Where is God in all of this?
Where is God in my depression?
Where is God in mental illness?
Where is God on the heavy days when it feels like the dark thoughts are winning?
All these years later, I know the answer to that question. I’ve lived it earnestly. So, if you’re in a similar dark woods, and you’re asking the same questions, let me tell you where I’ve seen God walking in the midst of depression.
HE’S IN COMMUNITY
People saved my life during that depression. They swooped in to sit with me. To hold my hand. To gently urge me to get more help. To talk, process, and pray. To make sure I wasn’t left alone. And that reality—the reality of someone having to be with me constantly— was humbling because I wanted to appear to have it all together on my own. I didn’t want to let people in.
But like the paralytic who allowed his friends to carry him to Jesus on a mat and claw through the roof to get to the healer, I had to be humble enough to let my community carry me. To comfort me. To hold me and speak life over me.
Depression taught me, firsthand, that life is meant to be lived in a surrounding chorus of “us” and “we.” We are wired to ask for help and to be helpers to one another, but your people can’t help you if you don’t tell them where you are on the map.
Speaking from much experience: It is not weak to ask for help or to tell someone, “Hey, I think I’m depressed. I’m scared.” It’s a wise act of maturity, and it opens a door for God to move through the hands and feet of others.
HE’S IN THE SEEKING
When I write ‘seeking,’ I mean putting one foot in front of the other, choosing small things on repeat. Doing the opposite of what depression tells you.
I’ve often had to tell myself: Depression is an unreliable narrator.
Depression wants you isolated. It wants you to stay in bed. It wants you to rot and scroll and definitely skip the nourishment that comes from choosing protein and fiber over Taco Bell.
I know that’s hard, and I would never suggest a complete overhaul of your lifestyle as a remedy when just putting on jeans feels hard, but here’s something smaller: in the midst of depression, my friend Chrisy taught me to track my “Little Victories.” She instructed me to take a piece of paper and write down every little task I manage to complete in a day. From brushing my hair to sitting with a single verse in the Bible. All the small. All the big.
“All of it counts,” she informed me. All of it is evidence that you are seeking and moving forward.
Maybe you are not moving at full capacity, but you are stepping out into the light. God is in those small faithful acts of seeking– in sitting in the sunshine, in the coffee date with a friend, in going to church. This is all victory.
When depression wants to keep you immobile, you can learn to slowly take back territory– one little victory at a time.
HE’S IN THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE
Part of your depression journey might be getting professional help, and there is absolutely no shame in that. I remember booking a doctor’s appointment, anxious about the decision to start medication. My mom and I had been volleying the question, “Where is God in all of this?” We weren’t feeling Him. We were trusting Him, but we weren’t feeling Him.
I remember walking away from that office with a prescription in hand, crying into the phone with my mom on the other end, “He was in there. I found Him. He was in the doctor’s office.”
I’d felt His presence so tangibly in such an unexpected place— in the tender care, in the kind questions, in the PA who took my vitals and even stopped for a moment to tell me squarely that God was in this pit with me.
I know the Church still carries a stigma around depression, therapy, and medication, but I believe we’re making bigger strides as we bring our stories out into the light.
I’ve found God in the waiting room of doctors’ offices, in the psychiatrists who listened to my concerns about medication, and in a small blue and green capsule I take every evening, not because I don’t believe God is all-powerful but because I believe modern medicine is a tool He uses to bring healing.
HE’S IN THE PROMISES
Much of my depression was dealing with a lot of confusion—a swirl of heavy thoughts, a thick fog that prevented me from thinking clearly. And I noticed a pattern emerging. As long as I believed that God was fighting for me and was on my side, I would slowly but steadily experience more light in my days. The moment my thinking would switch to doubt, to the fear that maybe God was causing the depression, I would stumble backwards– the darkness doubling down.
And then I discovered a verse that completely shifted my perspective. It became a touchpoint in my fight: I publicly proclaim bold promises. I do not whisper obscurities in some dark corner. (Isaiah 45:19)
There it was: God wasn’t the one mumbling doubt into my ear. He doesn’t speak in confusion. His language is promises.
For someone reading this, this is your sign to begin searching through the Bible for God's promises. Write them down. Speak them over you. Place them in spots where you can see them throughout your day.
Please note: this practice is not intended to replace professional help, but to serve as a supplemental rhythm that supports and strengthens your faith in the process.
You might struggle to believe these promises immediately, but with time and repetition, they will begin to override the doubts and fears.
Here are a few promises to start with:
Psalm 34:18
Psalm 23:4
John 14:27
The psalter in Psalm 42– a psalm classified as an honest prayer from a discouraged saint– writes,
The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime,
And in the night His song shall be with me. (Psalm 42:7-8)
Another beautiful promise to hold tight to.
God is not absent in your depression.
He commands love and kindness over all your days, not fear or darkness.
In the night, He covers you in song.
He proclaims bold promises over your life.
He is fighting for you.
You are coming through these dark woods. Yes, you are coming out of the woods.
