Jesus said He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, so everything he said must have something to do with his desire that we experience real Life (that which is deeply and eternally satisfying), including him advising people to love their enemies. 

I am to love that which I experience as being against me. Grrrrrrr!  That not only doesn't seem possible; it also doesn't seem smart!

Maybe we need to work with our ideas of what it means to love. First of all, it doesn't mean to like.  We can love what we do not like.  How so?

Love first of all means to fully accept someone or something as it is, not as we would like it to be.  Makes sense, doesn't it?  If at some level inside us we are resisting another or a situation, we are making that out to be our enemy - we are fostering division, encouraging polarity, and are likely to behave in a way that causes further separation - the opposite of what love is meant to do.

This hit home to me during one of those times I was "hating" my depressed feelings.  "My life would be so much better if I didn't have to deal with this depression," I would think.  And since it is natural to hate that which seems to interfere with one's life, I hated my depression - I was against it. 

Sure enough.  The more I hated it, the more it went away!  Yeah, right.  Just kidding, of course. What we hate that needs to be accepted gets stronger, not weaker.

In  Wrestling with Grace Robert C. Morris writes about his experience of applying the "love your enemy" to his depression and the effects that had on him.  He found that when he accepted his depression and began thinking of it as having a hidden message for him that if he paid attention well enough he could hear and benefit from, his depression moved from being his enemy to being his friend - it was for him.

Of course in our desire to avoid pain we tend to want to get rid of symptoms rather than hear what they are trying to say to us and how we may attend to what they are trying to get us to pay attention to.  Once when I was reading Psalm 139:7,8 a light came on: "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there." (italics mine)

Aha!  Instead of trying to "get out of this" I am to recognize that the Spirit of God is actually in it.  When I saw that, I immediately relaxed and let myself down into it as deep as it was.  I hadn't seen my depression as something that invites me to God - I thought it took me away from God and my true self.

I still struggle with depressing feelings but much of the time my approach is different than it had been.  Now I am more likely to let myself down into it and invite God to be there with me.  Actually, I think it's probably the other way around.  God is already there and invites me down to join Him.  And somehow, in that dark place, being together with Him is first of all restful, then life-giving and empowering.  I find myself coming out.  Kind of like resurrecting without needing to pull myself up and out.

Whoa!  This is getting way too long.  I might continue this theme next week and think of how it applies to people we see as our "enemies." 

Oh, and by the way, please don't judge yourself for any reason when you are depressed. (That's like telling a bird with two broken wings that it should be able to fly!)  But let the reality of it motivate you to reach out and do something about it.  That may include getting on some medication as well as being open to any ways of living/believing that might make anyone depressed!

"God, I forget that 'darkness is as light to you" and so I try to avoid it.  I hate the dark, where I feel bad, alone, and can't see. It seems like an enemy. Will you help me to remember that you are in the darkest of places, and that you are perfectly comfortable there? And would you work on me in such a way that I'm more willing to join you in those places so that I can live?  Thanks. Amen"