Recently, I did an IG poll of how people are doing during Covid. Many responded with feeling hopeless, isolated, and depressed. People are overwhelmed, discouraged, and lacking a sense of purpose or excitement about the future.

I too was someone diagnosed with severe clinical depression and anxiety. This isolated season, being alone with my thoughts, often led me to spiral back into unhealthy thought patterns, I had once tasted freedom from. Life, as we know it has changed. In this season of loss and tried, we need extra doses of hope, extra doses of joy, and extra doses of encouragement.

As followers of Christ, self-pity, anxiety, and hopelessness doesn’t have to control us. No matter how bleak the news is, or what personal challenges you face, you can hold on to Jesus and the hope that he made possible.

Here are ways that gave me hope, that helped me in my own depression and anxiety, that I hope can help you:

1. Rediscovering purpose and passions in new ways

I love going out and meeting people. Something I could no longer do, to love those in my household well. I love meeting people because I love hearing stories, so I turned to watching documentaries. I still missed the face to face interaction; Life felt bland and purposeless. So I rediscover ways that I can feel 'myself’. I began to connect to organizations that are combating online sexual violence of women and children—researching and calling up NGOs, reigniting my passion for human trafficking and research. So, ask yourself why or what you enjoy doing, and then find new ways of doing that. The world is at your fingertips. Whether it be connecting with INGOs, refining your skills, or picking up old dreams, now is the time. Oh, by the way, almost always, things that fulfill you are things that is giving for others :) Who can you call or bless this week?

2. Being vulnerable and leaning in to friendships

Are you weary? Are you scared? Are you sad? In a time when we turn to Instagram feed and comment boxes more than we do to real conversation, we feel lonely and deprived. We need to be intentional in creating rhythms for our souls to be vulnerable—to speak our needs, to share deeply, and to listen to others. I started having more regular catchups with friends who knew me deeply and even a simple 5-minutes catch up call would make my day less lonely. Sometimes physical exhaustion too feels a lot like hopelessness. Take time to recharge and regroup. Alone or in community.

3. Making worship and prayer a daily habit

For whom shall we go to, for He has the Eternal Life. Regardless of your circumstances, declare God’s greatness, praise his goodness, and celebrate his faithfulness. For me, It look like reading hymnal every evening at the park, or playing my piano to worship God, or taking a solitude time with God as I bicycle down the roads. I began to cling to prayer as air is to my breath. It’s the only way I keep sane. Acknowledge the ways God is providing for you through your current season of life! When you do, hope will grow as your perspective on both the present and the future shifts toward him.

Instead of focusing solely on your losses, reframe them as opportunities for gratitude. Allow God to move you from lament to thanksgiving.We don’t know what challenges and changes may yet be before us, but whatever the future may hold, we can rest on the Rock with the psalmist: “The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my rock in whom I take refuge.” (Psalm 18:2)

I have learned to kiss the waves that have slammed me to the Rock of Ages. So to this cleft for me, we go.

Pray with me,

Almighty God,

To whom shall we go for you have the words of eternal life? We mark again this new beginnings. We present ourselves to you as living sacrifices.

Renew our minds that our love may abound more in depth of knowledge and insight. Renew our spirits that we might know you with faith that even surpasses knowledge.

Grant us the will to resist evil firmly, to stand up for truth courageously, and serve selflessly those for whom the world has little regard and less care.

And ground us deeply in your good news brought by your Son that we may proclaim it with great joy to the poor and to the poor in spirit, to captive hearts, to blind eyes, and those who are dying for the lack of good news.

We pray for beauty instead of ashes.The beauty of wisdom instead of mindlessness. The beauty of kindness instead of defensiveness. The beauty of justice instead of corruption.

We pray too for joy instead of mourning.

For gratitude where there is only grief; For hope where there is only despair; For restoration where there has been destruction; For reconciliation where there is estrangement.

And we pray for righteousness. We marvel at Your righteousness—Your beauty, Your wisdom, holiness, and goodness. And at Your righteousness towards us—Your patience, promise, friendship. Make us, your people, oaks of righteousness, whose branches of learnings, ministry, and service manifest in many thousand leaves , displayed together, Your splendor.

(Prayed by Todd Pickett at Biola Convocation 2020)

X,

Tamara