GPBC Blog

As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday. Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance. (Psalm 42:1-5, KJV)

The first week of January, I marked the start of my seventh straight year fighting depression. There was no New Year’s party. No vows. No resolutions. I made no plans but one: I decided to take a hike in the midwinter gloom around one of my favorite spots: Oxbow Regional Park.

I had the place to myself, of course. There aren’t many who find hiking in the woods on a dark, cold, and wet morning particularly life-giving. There were times I wondered to myself why I was out there listening to the chill wind roar in the trees and the swollen, muddy Sandy River snarl and gurgle at me. I wondered why I wanted to be more alone. But, there’s something indiscernibly healing in seeking God in a storm.

After wandering the well-worn trails for a while, I decided to do a little bushwhacking. I found a spot way off trail along a thickly wooded anabranch that had long ago dried up. I set up my tarp against a fallen log. I hunkered down in my makeshift shelter, listening to the rain, pensively minding my own business, sipping coffee, nibbling snacks, and letting the bitterness soak through my clothing.

Suddenly, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. Inscrutable panic and melancholy threatened to swallow me up again. My warm mug nearly slipped from my hands as a shadow, damp and vaguely menacing, pushed the ferns aside to my left. It froze, invisible to everyone in the world but me.

I breathed again when I saw that a young buck had snuck up on me. For ages and ages, we locked eyes, and I could tell he was trying to work something out in his mind. What that was, I have no idea. It felt like we were struggling to understand one another in that moment but we lacked the language, separated by alien key signatures and a lifetime of unique sadnesses, perhaps. So, we stared, waiting for the other to move along.

The deer eventually had better things to do. Finally moving, he musically snorted (and I tried to respond in my own flat harmony). With one final glance over his shoulder, he stepped away, disappearing into the underbrush.

I smiled.

An hour later, my toes were cramping. It was time to keep moving. I packed up my little campsite and pushed my way back to the path. I wandered on trails that I had for decades traveled until my feet brought me back to the car.

As I meandered, the Lord revealed no new thing about my enduringly overcast mood. No prophecy. No command. Yet, one more time, He did let me know that He was with me, quietly, compassionately staring into my wilderness soul. He reminded me that He was still with me in that midwinter rainstorm. Still, He, Elohim, can put a smile on my face. He reminded me that there also was with me a great multitude of brothers and sisters—blindly bumping into each other, perhaps—and, together, we make hopeful music in the house of God.