A Season of Spiritual Dryness and Depression
In this short essay, I express what I have been learning as I navigate a season of spiritual dryness and depression.
My online accounts are online diaries, of sorts. They are a medium for me to bring beauty to a broken world.
Because of all of the wonderful things I’ve shared about God online, you may assume that my life has consisted solely of endless happiness. After all, I have an entire testimony that expresses how Christ changed my life. I literally have a post on here that shows a physical transformation that I’ve gone through as a result of His finding me.
But despite my intimacy with God, He is proving to me that the Christian journey is much more substantial than my singular moment of conversion. The Lord has put me into a season of life where He is permitting that I go through many difficult things—all of which are silent struggles that no one else can see. In that, He is also revealing to me that I’ve made an idol of my testimony, putting it above His ultimate power over my life. Even though my story is evidence of His grace, focusing only on my past causes me to put certain expectations on God. In reality, my soul should be completely abandoned to His will for me—even when His will means that I am plunged into darkness.
You see, God is teaching me that faith, ultimately, is a choice. Faith is not something that can solely be based on how one is feeling; this is because feelings are fickle. They change, and they are easily influenced by our passions. It is thus a grave misconception to believe that the Christian life is one that consists solely of the endless feeling of ecstasy—a misconception that I, probably more than anyone else, have had to unlearn.
Our culture paints a very happy, almost sickeningly positive view of the spiritual life that leaves individuals unprepared to deal with what is known as the “Dark Night of the Soul,” a phrase with origins in St. John of the Cross. The honest truth of this life is that Christians suffer a lot, and they feel great pain. The journey to Heaven is a long and arduous one, a fact that even the most beautiful testimonies lose sight of—including my own. We are faced with spiritual dryness, trials, and darkness—all of which are actually the refining fire of God’s love. St. Therese of Lisieux, my Patron Saint, has written beautifully on this subject. She wrote, “My dryness increased. Both Heaven and earth denied me consolation. Yet, though surrounded by the waters of tribulation which I sought so ardently, I was the happiest person in the world.”
So, through the long journey to Heaven, there is hope. There is hope that the pain will be redeemed in the presence of the Beatific Vision, transformed into something so utterly glorious that no human mind can conceive of it. During this life, we can unite our suffering with what Christ experienced on the Cross, giving us a sense of profound comfort—and even glimmers of true, authentic joy—as we face the agonies of this world.
Along these lines, I know that the Lord chooses me every single day, even when I fail to notice that His little gestures of love are not so little, after all. The same God who formed the stars in the universe is the Bridegroom of my soul. Nothing can ever change that—no feeling and no sin is strong enough to separate me from His love. His grace is absolutely magnificent, and because of that fact, I am making a renewed commitment to do my very best to make the choice to love Him every day of my life.
As I navigate all of my inner complexities, sins, and difficulties, God is beautifully showing me that there is incredible virtue and spiritual maturity to be found within these low points of life, which is why He allows me to experience them. So even when I look at the sky and feel silence, even as the waves of joy come and go, and even as I sink underneath the waters of my own dark nights—I remind myself that my destiny does not lie in the promises of this world. My destiny is somewhere else, somewhere beyond… somewhere intricately crafted for my soul, by the One who possesses galaxies in His eyes.
✞ ✨🌙
