Being and Doing

A few weeks ago, someone spoke to me of huge struggles in their life. In the same conversation, they expressed uncertainty about whether to pursue a particular activity, or to let it go to create more space. One phrase really struck me: "If I don't... then I won't be anything. I'll just be a human being and nothing else." What a clear example of wrestling with the deep need for significance.

It's always a privilege when others open up. Through this, and my own experience, I see that whilst not an 'excuse,' deep struggles may explain a lot about unreasonable or irrational behaviour.

As referred to in my previous post, I've recently been battling with depression. It was never a secret, but I guess it felt difficult and risky to put much detail 'out there.' Emerging from the darkness, I have more tools for mental well-being, greater compassion for others, and I'd like to think less need for approval.  In now sharing this, I have no illusion of having 'made it,' and it's good to call important truths to mind again.

On darker days, I could only woodenly go through the motions of everyday tasks. Despite functioning in all sorts of ways, I felt lethargic, un-motivated, and weak. Here's an extract from a journal entry (written as a prayer):

      "This is a strange part of a strange season. I have not

      been writing much in here, and I have not been engaging

      with the Bible in ways that are most familiar, but somehow

      You [God] are very near. Somehow, in these days of

      in-between-ness, the big questions that my heart has

      been asking are stilled. I suppose I'm living 'one day at a

      time' like never before, because I'm sooo unsure of how I

      will be in the morning...

      It's strange, and beautiful, this awareness that if all that I

      do, and am associated with, was to be demolished by 

      incapacity, I would still be me. Undiminished. I think I

      see—although the prospect of treading it out would be

      deeply disturbing to imagine—that all of my purpose is

      not constitutive of who I am. I am YOURS, and that really,

      truly, is enough."

At other times, I couldn't find words. I have (naturally!) no record of this part, but I remember feeling unable to express myself to God, and at some point sensing that that doesn't need to reduce me either. I saw that I can rest my whole, inexpressible everything in God who knows and understands me completely.

Then came numbness. I wondered whether it was the medication kicking in. I found relief from the exhausting, sinky sadness in which endless tears had brought no respite, but I didn't want to be emotionless. One evening, as I was driving, my heart cried out to God for help. "I can't do it; I can't fight this battle! I don't even know how I feel." And the divine assurance came, clear and embracing: "You don't have to fight. You are Mine." I wept soft, thankful tears for the rest of the way home.

Over time I realised what God had been showing me: if I could do nothing at all, say or articulate nothing at all, and even feel nothing at all ever again, I'd still be me, and I'd still be God's. I needed to know this truth, not just factually, but by experience. To some, it might seem too obvious to acknowledge, or so hypothetical as to not really mean anything. In those dark days, though, it was powerfully affirming.

Now much healthier in my mind, that assurance remains embedded in me. So I can navigate great achievement in some areas alongside frustrated effort in others, and emerge unscathed by both. Oh sure, my feelings can vary, and it's not that I don't react at all to recognition or resistance, but I've a very, very safe landing place.

There's a saying that the internet doesn't seem to reliably attribute: "We are human beings, not human doings." I'm so thankful that no success or failure, prominence or obscurity, nothing that I can or can't do defines who I am. And how I pray that my doing will increasingly flow from this deep security—of being safely and wonderfully God's—and consequently offer grace and kindness to those that I encounter.⬦

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