I ran into one that I didn't want to see last week.  I pretended like I hadn't seem him.  Then, I saw him again, bumped into him actually.  I had been avoiding him, doing a fast turn around everytime I caught a glimpse of him; being extremely cautious to not make eye contact. 

He ignored all my efforts and quickly grabbed my elbow.  He has the waxiest way of saying "heelllooo-you-again"......   

I had just walked away last week.  A little shaky, a little unnerved that he had found me again when I wanted to see him least, but last week I just walked away. 

This week, not so lucky.  He barged into my bedroom as  I'm laying in bed with my window partially open, listening to the geese, and he shows up again.  I am barely able to raise up my voice, barely able to make solid movement, but I tell him to get out.  I tell him I don't want to ever associate with him again.  I tell him to leave. 

He pulls up a chair and said "I don't think you have that kind of control.  I'm here to stay a bit".

And I weep, and weep because I know he is partially right.  

Depression  just walked right on in and sat right down.  Uninvited.  Avoided.  Spurned.  And yet he looks at me like I am an old friend.

I kind of wondered if he would be *lurking* - especially after my "Elijah and the prophets of Baal moment" last week - I mean that was incredibly good news.  It was the heaviest of weights lifted off of me - not that I'm done with this cancer, not that I am healed yet, not that this will not be a hard road still to come - but it was the first solid, hard, tangible hope we had touched, since say, three days before Christmas....or even the year before that just trying to figure out why I was feeling so poorly.   

But I have lived long enough to know his antics and I start peeking around every "Elijah high-moment", preparing myself - steeling myself - because that is when he loves to jump in the driver's seat and invite himself to "a little piece of karen".  Your highest peak, your highest hope, your highest win - and he lurks and waits; he knows after every peak there is a valley and he just waits and takes you over. 

That's why I love the Bible so......  My Scripture reading this past year has been a little out of the 'normal' sequence - I read Exodus like four times, then Genesis; then skipped to my favorite prophet - Jeremiah, then Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, John, Hebrews, Matthew again and now I am plopped in the stories of pre-present-and post David. 

I am listening to them being read aloud to me on a little computer that I can download Scripture to - I cannot for the life of me read more than a paragraph most days and have it make sense in my brain - so I am listening, and it is awesome.  Always, always, the odd stories catch my ear -- David making his first wife Michal come back to him when she had married someone else - there's a lot of things that don't make sense in our culture but were totally right in theirs.  And many times totally right according to Torah.  

But when God gave the Bible, He didn't just tell you about the heights - but He gave you the depths as well.  He told the whole story, which I think especially is kind of brave as I write now, because if I were Saul I would be saying things like "oh PLEASE -- I had a moment of weakness -- can you just not write that one down???"  

He wrote most all of them down.  Sarai laughing.  Noah getting drunk.  Rachel sitting on stolen idols.  Moses the murderer.  It's all in there and it is not your epic story that you read today where your hero falters at times, but is mostly always right, it's a story of how it really, really goes.  And yet it is somehow God's story. 

I know that this, my "depths", is chemically induced in many ways.  I know it can linger and latch on if I let it, or even if I don't at times. 


I fell asleep last night with David and Abner and Joab.  Oh David, the naked, unashamed dancer in the street - aka David the mighty warrior - aka David the doer-of-the-Word-of-God.  

When I woke up, the stealthy, calculating demon of depression was in my room.  I felt my heart symptoms of depression - the tightening.  The hardening.  The letting go of hope.  I'm tired of the low-platelet-lethargy.  I'm tired of not seeing my loved ones.  I'm tired of the toll this is taking on Scott.  I'm tired and after "tired" comes a little dose of "bitterness of heart". 

And I didn't want that.  I know how this ensnares you and how difficult it is to get out of the trappers net.   

My ear then woke up and somehow I was listening to this: 

And the word of the LORD came to him: “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 

He replied, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God Almighty. The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword. I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too.”

The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”

   

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. 

After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake.  

After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. 

And after the fire came a gentle whisper.  

When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.

   

Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 

I am no Elijah.  If you have ever met a truly evil Jezebel who has nothing but hurt and heartache and ruin planned for your life, you will admire him as much as I do and realize what a mighty man of God he was.  

So I do not "claim" this passage of Scripture because I could stand and do all that Elijah did.  I don't claim that because I think I am right up there with some of God's best.  But I do know that God spoke to me through that - nay, whispered that to me.  To me.   

Through fire, and earthquakes and financial loss, and wild winds that can shatter rocks taking you to where you have never been nor want to go -- I hear a gentle whisper -- and I pull my cloak up over my face and walk to the mouth of the cave and hear:

"What are you doing here, Karen?" 

I have taken this out of context, but the idea is that there is work yet to do. 

What are you doing here, Karen?