This year has basically sucked so far. Our first post of 2011 was one of sadness, and this one will be too, just a different sadness. The past 2 1/2 weeks have thrown us crisis after crisis, but most is not my story to share, so I will attempt to convey my heart of grief for you.
Depression has swooped down and cast its dark shadow over our lives, and brought its friends despair and emptiness with it. I feel like the child in the photo above. This is a daring analogy, but it's my blog.
I am helpless in life right now. My problems are exposed for the world to see and I am a mess. "Help" is every where, but I can't communicate how to receive it. The baby in the photo, who we walked by while filming a music video in a Kenyan slum, has those things in common with me. I walked by this baby. I didn't pick him up and love on him, or take the trash he was eating away and offer something nourishing, or clothe him or comfort him in anyway. We walked right by, accepting that this is how life is for him, but took time to take a photo. Hopeless, despairing.
This photo has been haunting me for the past 3 weeks. I found it in Phil's phone when gathering photos to take to him while he was in the hospital. I feel such shame and guilt for not helping this child, but more so, I'm drenched with despair at the reality that there is nothing I can do to better his circumstance. This photo represents depression for me right now, and reflects how I feel in our current situation.
Depression is dark. I hate it. I am suffering from situational depression, but my Phil has the dark, pit of the stomach - no light at the end of the tunnel- depression, and my heart is breaking knowing he is also suffering like this baby. My only hope and my only strength right now is from my God. I know He's taking care of this baby in Kenya, and my comfort is that He is holding Phil.
Oddly enough, "Everything" by Life House, is playing on Phil's Pandora channel right now as I write this. If you listen to that song while looking at this photo, you will cry. Like a baby. Like I am now.
