Arise and Eat.
A Snapshot of my Depression: Late Summer 2010
I was laying in my childhood bedroom in my parents’ house, staring up at the starburst patterns of my popcorn ceiling. It was the middle of the night…or more accurately, early morning, some time around 4am. I had taken to sleeping during the day so that I could minimize how much energy I had to expend to fake being “fine.” My dad usually woke up to get ready for work around 4:30am so I tried to fall asleep before he would notice me awake. On this particular night, there was a loud thunderstorm brewing outside. It hadn’t started raining, but I could see the flashes of lightning illuminating my inspection of the popcorn ceiling.
I was so tired, but I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts were too loud. I had spent my hours overnight trying to distract myself with movies and TV shows—anything to fill the vacant void that awaited me when everything around me was still. In that void, the voices had nothing to drown them out. You are such a waste of space. All you do is lay around all day being a burden on your family. You failed at school. You’re a bad friend who hasn’t talked to your friends in months. You’re a bad sister because you missed your sister’s high school graduation and now, she’s getting ready to leave for college and you can’t do anything to help her. You’re a bad daughter because you don’t want to spend time with your family. You’re good for nothing. It would be better if you didn’t exist.
The flashes of lightning seemed to thrust the knife of each thought further into my exhausted heart. They built on top of one another until it felt like they were roaring in my ears. I curled up into a ball on my side, made myself as small as possible, and wept. A big, fat, snotty mess with sobs that racked my whole frame, though I tried to muffle the sound. I wish I could die, I thought. It would make everything easier. This is too much. Living is too hard. I can’t be the person I want to be, much less who anyone else needs me to be. It would be better if there was no more me.
As my tears were streaming down my face, I realized I heard the rain falling outside my room. The lightning flashes were revealing the shadows of the rain rivulets rushing down the window. It felt as if God were weeping with me. Somehow, I could feel His arms around me, His sobs matching my own. I cried all the harder. I know I shouldn’t feel like this, Lord, I prayed, but I don’t know what to do.
At some point in the night, while the rain and thunder persisted, I cried myself to sleep. It wasn’t the only time of my life where I would feel like ending my life, but it was the first.
Our first Biblical example of depression comes from the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19. We will return to the background of this story to discover the reasons behind Elijah’s depression in this case, but today, we are going to focus on how God’s response to Elijah’s depression demonstrates His character. For you, especially if you are struggling with depression today, God does not have a hollow message of “Cheer up.” In fact, what God asks of Elijah is much more practical and attainable for someone weighed down by depression. God gives us a prescription, a pattern, and a purpose for His way of treating depression: Sleep. Arise. Eat. And repeat. Let’s read our passage for today:
“Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.” So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. There he went into a cave and spent the night.
And the word of the Lord came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?””
This passage shows us what man’s prescription for depression often is: escaping, isolating, and giving up. We see this clearly in Elijah’s response to his own feelings: He runs. He’s on the move, away from his servant, away from civilization, into isolation in the wilderness. Once alone, he collapses. All movement stops; he gives in to his depression and sits down to pray. Maybe you can relate to Elijah’s prayer here: “I have had enough! LORD, take my life.” Yet Elijah does not immediately act on these feelings of despair. He was so tired that he asked God to take his life rather than trying to take his own, so he lays down and goes to sleep. So Elijah responds to depression in 3 ways: running away, isolating, and giving up in despair.
I’ve found that this response is typical when I struggle with depression. I try to escape my feelings. I isolate myself from those who care about me. And eventually, I succumb to the weight of despair that doesn’t believe anything will change. When I struggle with depression, every single task seems like monumental work, all the way down to getting out of my bed to use the bathroom or to get something to eat. So, when I was first struggling with depression and had to drop out of college, I didn’t do much getting out of bed or eating. Looking back, I can see the build-up of that exhaustion from pushing myself through all the normal everyday requirements of a functioning college student while inwardly struggling with depression. But that exhaustion also felt like so much more than what should’ve been normal. It was a suffocating weight that never lifted. At the time, I didn’t want to admit that I was depressed. I just got mad at myself for not being able to do what I used to do so easily. It only really clicked for me on that day when I had finally had enough. I was too tired. Everything was too hard. Those suicidal thoughts finally clued me in to what was really going on. I was depressed. When the weight of that despair hit me, I went to bed. I slept and woke up only to realize nothing had changed. So, I slept some more. In some ways, I am grateful for that exhaustion because I was too tired to act on those suicidal thoughts of wishing I didn’t exist.
Perhaps your depression or that of your loved one manifested differently. Maybe you had trouble sleeping instead. Or maybe you noticed early on that this was depression. Maybe you did act on those suicidal thoughts and have made an attempt on your life before. Although depression symptoms manifest differently for everyone, here is what God wants you to know: That suffocating and insurmountable weight of depression is a real feeling. It is valid. And you are not alone in having it. However, God knows that our own solutions for depression will never be enough. Under the weight of depression, it is easy to give up the basic tasks of taking care of ourselves. Maybe you’re too busy sleeping to eat regular meals. Or you find yourself overeating on junk food to numb the pain. Maybe it is too much work to get a shower, to brush your teeth, even to get out of bed. But God has a different prescription for depression: Sleep. Arise. Eat.
Look at vv. 5-6. How amazing that before addressing any of Elijah’s feelings, God lets Elijah rest. He saw Elijah’s weariness and had compassion on him. Scripture says that God has made us, and He knows that we are dust (Psalm 103:14). He knows the limitations of our physical bodies, and of Elijah’s body specifically. God would never ask us to make a journey without first giving us the strength that our body needed to make it to the destination.
At the height of my depression, I was sleeping for 12+ hours every night, but I would wake up feeling so weary. I don’t think the sleep was ever really enough because depression is so loud on the inside, even when I was trying to sleep. Every single task involves so much struggle. Every conversation is so taxing, having to redirect my mind to focus on the person in front of me while trying not to be sucked into the vortex of despair and self-hatred going on in the background. God sees the weight we carry through each day, and He longs to give us rest. In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says, “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”
God knows when we need rest, but also that that rest has to have limits. There are times when we need to get up and eat and take care of our physical needs. So He commands Elijah, “Get up and eat.” God provides the food that Elijah needed, not in a feast, but rather, bread and water—food and drink that sustains and strengthens. Not a bag of potato chips and a soda. But life-giving bread from the Bread of Life and a jug of water from His living water (cf. John 6:35; 7:27-39). When God says to get up and eat, it doesn’t have to be anything fancy or labor-intensive. (My lack of cooking abilities praises the Lord for this!) God just wants us to take care of our needs. In His compassion, He knows that this might be all we can manage on some days. I call this doing the “bread and water” version of self-care. When you get up to brush your teeth, it doesn’t have to be a full, deep clean with flossing and a mouthwash. Brushing your teeth for one minute still gives you one-minute cleaner teeth. When you get up to shower, maybe it’s just to clean the worst, sweaty areas. Maybe it’s just to wash your hair. Whatever you are able to do to take care of your physical body, that’s obedience to God’s command to arise and eat. Next time, we will return to this passage to see God’s pattern and God’s purpose for this prescription for depression.
