To Hope or Not to Hope?

To hope, or not to hope? That is the question. (My apologies to William Shakespeare.) I wrote a recent blog post about “Hope and Change”, and after it was posted, I asked my husband Eric for his feedback. His one comment was, “What if you have hope and no change happens?” Eric has been fighting major depression all of his adult life, so I would say his life experience with depression is one of tentative hope, without having experienced the full healing change he is hoping for.

I made a vow to Eric on our wedding day to walk with him in sickness and in health, whether poor or rich, and in laughter and weeping, so we are yoked together in this fight. I can’t always understand the emotional trauma he lives with on a daily basis, but I can understand that it is a daily battle and I can commit to walking through it with him as best as I am able.

Depression, by its nature, makes “hoping” difficult. There is no magic pill to take to make it go away (and stay away), and the human will is not strong enough to power through it every day for years on end. You can’t just tell a depressed person to “snap out of it!”

I believe God yoked us together so that I could have hope for him. Early on in our marriage, I struggled with how to live with a depressed husband, and I prayed often with the Psalmist David:

Psalm 13 (paraphrased)

1 O LORD, how long will you forget Eric? Forever?
How long will you look the other way?
2 How long must Eric struggle with anguish in his soul,
with sorrow in his heart every day?
How long will his enemy, depression, have the upper hand?

3 Turn and answer Eric, O LORD my God!
Restore the sparkle to his eyes, or I will die.
4 Don’t let his enemies gloat, saying, “We have defeated him!”
Don’t let them rejoice at his downfall.

5 But I trust in your unfailing love.
I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
6 I will sing to the LORD
because he is good to me.

Eric may find it difficult at times to proclaim Psalm 13:5-6 and to trust that God is good to him. I choose to hope and trust in God's unfailing love, and I will sing to the LORD because he is good to us!

To hope, or not to hope? That is the question. My answer is to hope.