Praise the Lord for my despair

Since my second child was born I have been on medication for depression and anxiety. Two months ago my doctor thought I could try and ween myself off the medication since I was well outside the postpartum period and no longer breastfeeding. Long story short, my anxiety started creeping back in and was followed by symptoms of clinical depression. The stresses of being a mom was becoming too overwhelming and I just couldn't cope. The negative thoughts started popping like I just can't handle this... I can't do this anymore...


I became more on edge and more irrational. My perceptions of things were terribly off. I felt despair. During all this I tried to offer it up. During moments of anxiety, I imagined Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane sweating blood. I tried to unite my suffering to His. At bedtime, I would thank Him for my despair. He wasn't the cause of it but I wanted to give Him praise for any good that would come out of it. I knew He was letting me hang by a thread and letting me exercise my faith during my troubled mental state. I read Padre Pio: A Man of Hope and saw how physically, spiritually and emotionally painful his life had been. He suffered from the stigmata for 50 years and had many ailments. He was regularly attacked by demons and he was accused of all kinds of things by those in the very Church he loved and served. Through it all, he prayed and even asked for the suffering so that he could alleviate the suffering of others. He sacrificed himself and constantly offered himself up for the reparations of sinners. He did this in humility and agonizing pain. He would sometimes beg the Lord to take him out of this earthly life. But he knew from a vision with the Lord that he would suffer for 50 more years since the day his stigmata appeared on his hands and feet and then he would finally go home to Jesus. The Lord kept His promise and St. Pio died September 23, 1968 which was 3 days after his 50th anniversary since receiving the visible stigmata.

He couldn't bear the suffering of others so he took on their suffering and was Jesus's instrument in miraculously healing so many people who were dying, seriously ill, blind, deaf, paralyzed ect. The number of miracles performed through Padre Pio when he had his earthly life is astounding.

My spirits were always lifted every night when I would read the Bible and then the life of Padre Pio. It took me out of myself and my smallness. For a moment I would separate myself from the despair that enveloped me in my own self pity and think how Padre Pio rarely felt sorry for himself. He had peace knowing he was serving Jesus in the battle for souls and ultimately that's all he wanted so nothing else mattered. The thought popped in my mind that I was on this earth to serve my children and get them to heaven. They are not here for my happiness. I'm here for theirs.

As things started to get bleaker and bleaker, I finally gave up and decided to get back on my medication. In some ways I felt defeated and thought I should allow the despair to go on for longer but then, on the radio, I heard Fr. Corapi say that Jesus hands out the crosses and not to make your own. Plus, I wasn't handling my duties as a mom and wife very well.

The good that came out of my bouts with depression have yielded some small fruit. When a friend was suffering from it herself, I was able to get to her level and connect to her. I understood what she was going through. I knew the dark closed in world she was in and how paralyzing it can be. For friends that saw me go through it, it helped them understand the world of someone they love who is going through the same thing. I myself have witnessed how faithful our Lord is for others that are suffering and completely depended on Him. I've seen a friend struggle through her divorce and feel the fear of so much uncertainty. But her dependence on Jesus has yielded much fruit. She experienced much joy and peace during this turbulent time and He held out on some of her prayers in the beginning only to reveal bigger and better plans for her. When we let Him, He uses these difficult times for our greater benefit.

For myself, He is making me exercise my trust in Him. And He's helping me to put my selfish needs aside more often. I have a long way to go but when we lean heavily on Jesus, He can form us into what we're meant to be and ultimately the goal is to love like Jesus loves. Love without anxiety or selfishness or expectation. Love in the way that St. Paul preached in 1 Corinthians 13:4.

But to get to this point we will suffer. Jesus uses the analogy of childbirth before His passion saying the pain is worth it in the end because someone or something new is born. In His case, that we may have eternal life in Him. In my case, I've died a little more to myself and only time will tell if I serve Him the way He wants me to.