You can’t shake yourself out of it.

Yes, I’ve said it before, but let me repeat it for the people in the back: Depression is not something you can smile your way out of. Yes, through counseling you can learn effective ways to work through the effects of depression. Yes, you might be able to fake your way through. Yes, you might even find coping mechanisms that will hide your pain.

All of those things do not cure depression, though. Depression might become harder for a season due to a number of factors, as it does in my life. Even if depression lets up, though, it will likely remain in the background. For those who struggle with clinical depression, it is often a life-long fight.

Todd Peperkorn in his excellent book I Trust When Dark My Road writes: (That link takes you to a free download of the book.)

There can be an end to depression. Or perhaps more accurately, you can come to understand depression as a part of you. I don’t mean in some sort of hospice sense that death is natural or anything like that. Suffering changes you, whether it is depression, death, persecution, or another form. It does change you. You may receive this change as a gift from our Lord who loves you and seeks to draw you closer to Him. Or you may look at it as a curse and a sign that God doesn’t really care. Suffering always creates in us a longing to be free of this earthly life and to join our Lord forever in heaven. This is good. It helps us to understand that this life is transitory, but the Word of the Lord endures forever.

One of the worst things a person can do is advise someone to just try and feel better. One definition I found on the internet reads:

I once tried to explain depression to someone as like if one day you gradually started to lose both your sense of taste and your ability to feel full. And you don’t know why, but now everything you eat tastes like mashed potatoes and nothing you eat is satisfying. You keep eating because you must eat to live, but the effort that it takes to prepare food is taxing and there is no pay off. You just know it will taste like mashed potatoes. You just know you will still be hungry. So you stop bothering with seasonings. Then you stop bothering to use the ingredients you used to like. Then you start to wonder what the point of eating is because there is no payoff. You still feel hungry and you’re sick of the taste and you don’t know if you will ever enjoy food again and you don’t know why this is happening.

If someone comes up to you in this scenario and says, “Well have you tried spicing your food? Using different ingredients? Eating foods you used to love?” It isn’t necessarily helpful because the reason you stopped doing all that in the first place is that everything… tasted… like… mashed… potatoes.

Telling someone to just try to be happy does the opposite of help. Depression is real, it is life-long, and it is not something you can shake yourself out of. If a person could escape depression that way, trust me, they would.

So, is that it, then? Am I condemning you to a life of mashed potatoes?

And you know what?

It’s not your job to erase the symptoms of this broken world from your life. It’s not your job to pretend to be happy. It’s not your job to pretend everything’s ok. It’s not your job to fix you.

It’s Jesus’s job.

And here now is the amazing thing: Jesus has lived in this broken world.

He loves you in your broken state.

He loves you when all you can taste is mashed potatoes and you’re ready to give up.

He loves you when your day is fine and no one would ever guess you struggle.

He loves you and paid for you long ago.

And your depression helps you look forward. A day is coming. A shining day is coming, when every symptom of sin will vanish. When the sky rolls back like a cloud, and Jesus descends and calls your name. And when you hear his voice, when you see his face, depression will never wrap its arms around your heart again.

I’d be willing to bet you’ll never taste mashed potatoes in heaven, either. At least, not in the sense that depression colors them. You’ll get the good mashed potatoes that will make you dance and sing for joy. And a whole lot better besides.

A feast awaits you.

This world is broken, and we cannot fix it. But Jesus has already bought you out of this world, and the time is coming when you will never look back again. And you will rejoice.