Every once in awhile I am blessed to have a desire to experience more of God.  Sometimes that desire is strong enough that I honestly (though naively) pray, "God, do whatever it takes to more fully conform me to the image of Christ and to fill me with more of You."

I love those moments.  It seems like being in touch with the deepest desire of my heart, and that is a gift.  I can pray that prayer and abandon myself to whatever may happen.  It feels so right.  And then I forget about it.

A day or so after I prayed that prayer a week or so ago I started feeling more depressed, more irritable, more closed in, more withdrawn, more tired.  What the heck?  What's going on, I wondered.  What's with me?  There is way too much good in my life to be depressed, if circumstances have anything to do with one's emotional well-being, I thought.  I really had forgotten what I had prayed, so this seemed to have no connection with anything, and, of course, that is frustrating because I'd really like to be able to do something about it!  Maybe if I know why, I can get out of it. (No control issues here!)

But something about this all felt familiar, like I'd experienced it before.  And it hit me - had I prayed for something that this could somehow be working to accomplish in me?  And I kind of remembered, looked back in my journal, and there is was in black and white: "God, whatever you need to more fully fulfill your life in me, please do it.  I am aware that I don't know what i am asking for.  Just help me to know that you can use anything, including any injustice, any blessing, anything to work your life in and out of me more fully."

Hmmm.  Much to my chagrin I do have to admit that depression has worked for me over the years.  I hate it but it has been helpful to me.  When I shared some of this with Velma this morning she reminded me that depression has the function of slowing us down, of bringing us down to the ground, of "grounding" us, in some important way. 

I resonate with that.  There are a lot of things that matter to me in life (some highly insignificant - like how fast my computer runs) and I tend to get caught up in those - nothing wrong with that - but I then tend to lose my connection with what I  believe is most important, underneath it all.  And that is the desire that my life in some way be used for loving, redemptive purposes in my relationships, and that I not need to control the agenda about how that happens.  That I can flow in the River and let happen what happens, engaging with it but not managing it.  That I not be working to create or build something that I have to maintain - I simply don't have the energy for maintenance anymore.  That I fully trust the love of God and live in it and out of it.  I can't do that without Love's initiative toward me, and that is the initiative I receive from God as He again works (using my depression) to ground me in what I most value.  Being poured out as wine seems much more freeing than trying to find wine to fill me and then protecting the little I have.

So I am grateful this morning to be in touch again with my heart's deepest desires, and I am looking forward to interacting with the people I encounter today.

I want to trust rest more fully in the awareness that the space between asking and receiving may not feel good and may feel like the opposite of what I am asking for.  But I believe God is good, that He listens, and that He cannot give but good gifts to his children, even though they most of the time don't have a clue about a picture big enough to understand it as good.

"God I just don't relish the idea of needing to be brought low in order to receive the good you have in mind for me.  But since many of my highs, if I pay attention, have in them a sense of being false, frail, or transitory, maybe I can continue to open my heart to whatever means you use to bring me Life. So be it, I guess."

I work with individuals, couples, and families to identify the ways of life and death in their lives and help uncover the motivation to choose that which leads to life, whether it be through counseling or spiritual direction.  - Sheldon Swartz, MA/LMFT