To the Dark Winds

It's been windy all day. The wind has been shuddering at the roof and knocking over garbage cans and jangling the neighbour's windchimes nonstop. And when it gusts particularly hard, the wind shrieks around our door (which doesn't fit quite right in its spot). 

Right now it's making an angry whistly noise, and something definitely fell over outside - maybe our snowman sign, or the Christmas planters - but I can't complain because it's telling me a story.

I've had a very hard day. 

We've been home sick with a cold all week - Kachi had it first, and now I've got it - and we kept the other kids home too, waiting for Covid test results (negative, sweet mercy). And when we're at home, unwell, seeing entirely too much of each other and not enough of anyone else, depression camps out in my head.

I've posted before about my depression (here's a link to that post if you want to read it). In God's mercy, I find myself with more good days than bad, but I still fight it. Today was not a winning day. It was a battle, the whole way through. Today was a long and bleak reminder that, in spite of the relief and help I have from my meds and counseling, yeah, I do still have depression. And some days it hurts more than others. 

Before he went to bed tonight, Patrick and I watched an episode from a fantasy series we've been so eager to see. (We read the books ages ago.) There was a moment in tonight's episode where the band of protagonists is making their way through a mountain path, when they are attacked by the Dark Winds. The Dark Winds swirl and shriek around them, and each character hears the winds whisper accusations and pierce their own deepest fears. 

"You'll never be good enough. You were always going to fail," hears one. 

"Of course they'll never stay with you; they don't love you like you love them," hears another. 

"You are going to let everyone down," hears another.  And so on.

Once they are free of the Dark Winds, their leader reminds them to shake the whispers out of their thoughts, because they're lies.

And just then the wind wailed at our door and I laughed, because yes, God, I get it; I have been listening to the Dark Winds all day.  

And then God tells me the truth.

Jesus came to still the wind.

Jesus came to heal the hurting.

Jesus came to bear my burden.

In my depression, with dark winds shrieking lies that feel like truth, with my heart hurting and my soul weighed down, I hear his promise: I'm exactly who he came for.

Peace, he says, be still. 

Knowing that He sees me - that He cared enough to knock at my heart and my door with this heavy handed metaphor until I could not miss it - sets me free. 

No, I say to the Dark Winds: Jesus came.

At Christmas.
xo.