Depression - Part 3

The time from when Geoff was diagnosed (to be weeks or months from Addison's Disease) until we moved to Salt Lake (a period of five years), we call our "Wilderness Years". We left the comforts of "home" by putting it all in storage and venturing to France for a year of convalescence. From there we moved in with his amazing parents to continue nurturing Geoff's health. I won't go into details about the difficulties of those five years, but I was far more like Laman and Lemuel. I was resisting God's plan for us. I was so ungrateful; God's hand was in all aspects of my life daily and I didn't notice. I complained. I was critical of the people around me and my circumstances. I had zero perspective. I was self-absorbed. I felt a lot of pride. I was in despair. All of this led me to darkness.

Around the time I was reading in 1 Nephi I was going to the temple weekly. I was pondering about what God expects of me. He expects that we have pure and holy thoughts (which lead to pure and holy action). I decide to make a list of all of the pure and holy thoughts or actions I could think of from the scriptures, and along side it I listed their opposites, or impure and unholy thoughts/actions. This was very insightful for me.

PURE & HOLY THOUGHTS/ACTIONS          IMPURE & UNHOLY THOUGHTS/ACTIONS

Gratitude, appreciation                                            Ingratitude
Honest                                                                      Dishonest, deceptive
Virtuous, modest, chaste                                          Immodest, immoral, crude, sexy
Benevolent, kind                                                      Irritable, mean-spirited
Good works, service                                                Seeks only own comforts/welfare
Hope                                                                         Despair, discouragement
Endure                                                                      Quit, complain
Seek praiseworthy in others                                     Criticize, find fault, judge unrighteously
Diligent, focused, disciplined, responsible              Slothful, lazy, distracted, waste time, procrastinate
Love                                                                         Hate
Forgive                                                                     Hold grudge, unforgiving, resentful
Patient, suffereth long                                              Impatient, frustration
Meek, gentle, calm, submissive                               Overbearing, controlling, loud, impulsive
Selfless                                                                      Selfish
Humility, repentant                                                   Pride, self-centered, boastful, show-off, rely on
                                                                                  self, jealousy
Generous, consecrated                                              Greedy, envy, covetous, materialistic, seek riches
Faith, trust in God, optimism                                    Doubtful, disbelieving, wary, untrusting, fearful,
                                                                                  pessimism/negative thinking
Compassion, empathy                                               Disregard for other's needs/wants, unaware
Organized, order                                                       Disorganized, scattered, tardy, chaotic
Careful, thoughtful                                                    Light-minded, light-speech, careless
Self-reliant, provident living, motivated,                  Impulsive, entitled, unmotivated, lack of initiative                                                                     initiative
Steward of physical body                                          Thoughtless about food, sleep, exercise, stress
                                                                                   management
Steward over God's creations                                    Litter, wasteful
Integrity, true
Loyal                                                                         Disloyal

At church one Sunday, during this same period of time, we read a quote that astonished me.

“There is a line of demarcation well defined between the Lord’s territory and the devil’s territory. If you will stay on the Lord’s side of the line you will be under his influence and will have no desire to do wrong; but if you cross to the devil’s side of that line one inch you are in the tempter’s power and if he is successful, you will not be able to think or even reason properly because you will have lost the Spirit of the Lord.” George Albert Smith

I immediately saw the connection between the list of pure and holy practices and impure and unholy practices. If we do not CHOOSE light, we are in Satan's power.

How can you know you are in the Satan's power?  Feeling darkness, despair and discouragement.  Feeling like you are captive, in bondage.  Feeling confused and frustrated in life.  Feeling like it is hard to make right choices, disempowered.  Feeling anxiety.

When we have the companionship of the Holy Ghost we feel hope, love, light and freedom.  We feel power, and a desire to do what is right.  We feel strength from God, even when things are hard in our lives. (Doc. & Cov. 11:12-13; Galatians 5:22-23, 25-26)

So how do we keep the Spirit?  How do we stay on the Lord’s side?  How do we constantly feel light in our lives? We are watchful every hour for the adversary’s attempts to ensnare us (and he IS sneaky).  We meaningfully study our scriptures and sincerely pray and commune with God daily.  We express gratitude and repent of all of our shortcomings daily.  We pray for the Savior’s grace, daily, to make us more than we are.  We go to the temple regularly.  We serve others.  We listen to hymns or conference addresses, or in some way fill our minds constantly with light and truth.  We eat in a way that gives us energy and clarity (the adversary tries to dull us with what we put in our bodies).

It is important for us to realize that unless we “yield to the…Spirit” the natural man in each of us will be our default thought, feeling and action.  Those natural inclinations are against God.  Unless we use our agency to choose God, and invite the Spirit into our lives, and “become a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord", we will be in the adversary’s power.  

Even with all of this effort we will occasionally find ourselves feeling darkness or discouragement. We then will notice we haven't been diligent and we quickly repent and plead for the return of the Spirit, and the Savior's grace to help us. We are empowered by knowing how we got there, and what to do to return to light. Light and darkness cannot exist in the same place. Light can be dim, though. We can invite the amount of light we want in our lives. We have agency to choose it. We are not helpless or victims. We can choose light. The more we do, the more power we gain to choose more light.

Most importantly, God delivers us from bondage. Sometimes it takes years, maybe for some a lifetime, but in the end he will deliver us. All of us.