The Great Physician
I have known God to be a great physician.
I have seen His healing hand at work as he brought me from the brink of utter despair to a place of hope and unbridled joy.
I see His healing hand at work even now in my life as I battle eating problems, side effects from medication, and exhaustion.
Sometimes he chooses to heal our physical ailments and other times he allows physical ailments to heal our sin-sick souls. I have experienced both of these types of healing and am grateful for both. God has been healing my depression and using my setbacks and other related struggles to heal my soul.
I’m still processing those five dark years of struggle that I underwent upon first getting married. Slowly, God has been revealing to me how He worked in and through me during that time. I am starting to see some of His purposes in allowing me to experience such suffering. I am also beginning to feel grateful to Him for allowing me to walk through it. This gratitude has taken many years to develop.
As I start processing those years of depression and anxiety, I can see several ways in which God, in His infinite wisdom and grace, clearly and abundantly provided for me. God’s hand is unmistakable in my story of healing. I have been able to identify 5 significant ways in which God faithfully provided for me during my depression. Today I’m going to share these 5 ways with you.
I caution you to use great wisdom and discernment as you read. These are the 5 ways that God chose to heal me from my depression. I do encourage you to adopt some of these practices in your own life if you are experiencing a season of depression and/or anxiety as you see fit. But please keep in mind: I am not a doctor or a licensed therapist and I do not guarantee any particular outcome should you adopt some or all of these practices. With that being said, please use your judgement and consider these things prayerfully.
God’s Provision During Depression
1. A Good Support System
Depression is not a disease that can be fought alone and in secret – although that’s how I would’ve liked to have fought it. More than any other time in my life I needed to heavily lean on others. I needed the support, love, prayers, and practical help of others to sustain me and keep me going.
God provided for me by bringing people into my life and equipping them to meet my needs during my time of suffering. He did this through my husband, who learned how to be extraordinarily faithful and self-sacrificing in the midst of very trying circumstances. He did this through my mother who was able to empathize in a way no one else could because she had walked the very same road. He did this through my father, who struggled as a doctor to see his daughter so sick, but persisted in finding me just the right psychiatrist to meet my needs. He did this through my church, who prayed fervently for me and welcomed me into their midst without judgement.
You might not have such a team of people surrounding you at this point in your life. My prayer for you is that you would find such a team. Finding this team takes courage and vulnerability. Know friend, that today there is at least one person who is praying that you will have the courage and vulnerability required to reach out and find the right support to help you on your journey toward healing.
2. The Right Medical Treatment
Depression can be a very controversial topic in the Christian church. There are many people who see depression not as a physical disease but solely as a spiritual one. These people would advise you that the best course of action to fight off this disease would be to strengthen your faith in the Lord.
While I am convinced that true and full healing from depression requires faith in the Lord, depression is also a physical disease that needs treatment from a doctor. It took me 5 years, countless doctors, a number of different therapists, and dozens of medicine combinations for me to begin to feel better. But God provided! After years of searching I found a great doctor who prescribed a treatment plan that was just right for me.
God can provide this for you too. But again, finding the right medical treatment will take bravery and persistence on your part. But don’t give up! There are good doctors and therapists out there who are ready to meet you where you are and see you through this dark time.
3. An Attitude of Gratitude
After God provided the right doctor and I started on the right treatment plan, He used my sister-in-law to provide for me in an unexpected way. My sister-in-law gave me a book for Christmas that she thought might speak to me in the midst of my struggle. The book was Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts.
I thanked her for the gift, but was skeptical. I wasn’t sure any book could help. But as I made my way through the pages, God began to teach me what he had taught Ann: that everything is grace and there is always something to be thankful for. I began making my own list of 1,000 gifts that God had given me. As God began to reveal to me just how abundantly he had provided for me, even in the middle of despair, I began to find something I thought I had lost. I began to find joy.
When we train our eyes to see God’s grace all around us, we begin to experience joy. This is something that you friend, yes, even you, can experience in the middle of deep depression.
4. Structure and Routine
For most of the time that I struggled with depression, holding down a steady full-time job was an impossibility. But once I started on my treatment plan, and learned to have a grateful heart, God provided just the right job at just the right time.
I applied for and accepted a teaching position at a small Christian school in my home town. I was very nervous to start. I had had to leave my previous teaching position because of the high-stress nature of the job and had been unable to faithfully hold a steady job since then. But God was so very faithful. He provided me with a small, sweet class of well-behaved second graders, a low-stress curriculum and evaluation system, and a team of Christian men and women to come around and encourage me. I began to thrive in my work in a way I never had before.
What helped me thrive the most was the structure and routine of my teaching job. I had to get out of bed in the morning, I did not have a choice. I had to stick to the schedule I had planned for the sake of my students, no matter how I was feeling. I had to keep up with my schoolwork, or I wouldn’t be prepared for the next day. Calling in sick when I was feeling down turned out to be more work than pushing through my emotions and going in. And I always benefited from pushing through. This kind of rigid structure and routine helped me to see that I could endure hard work when I needed to. It proved to me that choosing to do the hard thing in spite of how I felt always benefited me. It showed me that a little bit of initial suffering can turn into a joyful and productive day.
I wouldn’t have been able to consider taking a job like this had I not had an encouraging support team and been on a good treatment plan. God’s perfect timing provided this job right when I needed it and because of that I was able to thrive. There will come a point on your depression journey where you will need to push yourself a little bit to do hard things that will lead to great joy. When that time comes, put into place those structures and routines that will push you a little bit out of your comfort zone and help you experience the joy that comes from accomplishing hard things.
5. A Greater Understanding of the Gospel
I said above that depression is a physical disease and not just a spiritual one. But the spiritual component cannot be ignored. My depression ultimately stemmed from lies I believed about God, myself, and the good news of the gospel.
Before I struggled with depression, I found my worth in my good works. And by the grace of God, I was able to accomplish some good things. I was well known and liked in my church. I graduated from high school and college with honors. I had a reputation of being a “good Christian girl” and I was happy with that reputation. I was an obedient daughter, a kind friend, and a model student. I had a good Christian boyfriend who loved me and doted upon me. I felt good about my life, my accomplishments, and the image I had created for myself.
And then God did the most gracious thing He could’ve done for me: He let me fail. As I failed my self-worth plummeted. I wasn’t able to be a model employee, I was a miserable failure as a wife, and I couldn’t even meet my basic needs on a daily basis. I had no real purpose, no motivation to do anything, and no idea how to pick up the pieces. My reputation was tarnishing and it affected how I viewed myself and my worth as a person.
Why do I say this failing was part of God’s grace to me? Because for the first time, I was able to see myself as I truly am: A terrible sinner in need of an tremendous savior. This correct view of myself took a long time to develop. It wasn’t until after I started my treatment plan, learned to give thanks, and started my teaching job that I began to see how I needed the gospel to change my view of myself.
Because the truth is, I am a terrible sinner. I can’t be defined by my good works because my good works are as filthy rags in God’s eyes (Isaiah 64:6). I can’t let my value as a human being be based on the good things I do because the bad things I do will always outnumber the good things I do.
But praise God, he sent Jesus!
Jesus, who did all the good work in my place.
Jesus, who was able to live the perfect life I could not live.
Jesus, who died in my place, taking the penalty for all of my sin .
Sweet, victorious Jesus who rose again from the dead conquering sin and death.
When Christ did this, he cleansed me from my sin and clothed me in His righteousness. So when the God of the universe looks at me he sees Jesus and counts me as perfect because of Him. And His opinion of me is the only opinion that has ever mattered.
When I finally embraced this truth and saw that my worth was not tied to what I have done but what Christ has done for me, I found profound rest for my depression-weary soul. I stopped striving for unattainable perfection and a sparkling reputation. I repented, accepted God’s forgiveness, and found peace in the fact that God is still, even now, saving me from my sin. This understanding of the gospel has brought with it the blessed assurance that my heart is ever and always, through profound depression and tremendous joy, being transformed to look more like Christ’s.
Persevere in Faith
If, today, you find yourself in the middle of profound depression, take heart! Our God is THE great physician and He WILL provide for you in the middle of your despair. The way He provides for and teaches you may look different from the way He provided for me. But I encourage you, above all else, to persevere in your faith. Seek out those who can love and support you, find a good caring doctor to treat your ailment, choose to be grateful, put structures and routines in place to help you do hard things, and most importantly lean heavily on Jesus and what He has done for you out of His great love for you.
“Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”
– Hebrews 10:22-23