After staring at the screen for a while, I just started typing. The intention to bring together the small steps that led me out of the pit of depression loomed, but I could not find the words. With so many parts to the struggle, how could I put it into just a few sentences? So, I just started typing. That’s when I realized the answer was in that activity – in starting. That’s how I got out of the pit. I started moving and eventually found myself climbing up the muddy walls. Small reaches brought me to the edge where I hung for a while wondering how to finally see what existed at ground level. I eventually brought one bruised and dirty knee over the edge, and then half my body was out and cajoling the rest of me to come with it. I lay at the edge and rested for a while, breathing in the fresh air and wondering what to do next.

The sunshine on my skin felt alien and the breeze over-stimulating. It had been a while since I’d been out of the stagnant muck and mire. In total transparency, I didn’t remember ever being there before. As I lay in the light, I realized I had a choice. I could move away from the pit and into a life created before I knew life (Psalm 139:16), or I could roll in the other direction and back into the pit. I knew that staying where I was wasn’t an option. I would either grow, or I would go back to the pit and rot. There was no in-between.

Creating a life that existed at the edge of the pit wouldn’t work, though I did lay there for a long time trying before I realized the truth about that in-between existence. I made many trips back into the pit in between dwelling for far too long at its edge before I understood it. I eventually realized that the only way to never return to the pit was to walk away from it. Living next to it, at the line of comfort or growth, really meant choosing to keep the pit as an option. The pit had to be filled in, and I had to walk away from it to truly be free from it. Yet, I had no idea what that meant. What I did know was that I could not stay where I was. So, I stood up on shaky legs, gripped reality with hands tired from gripping the edge, and took my first step away from the pit. (Hebrews 12:12-14)

A person never grows – never overcomes – until the pain of being where they are becomes greater than the pain of change. It’s so interesting to me that we can stay in a bad situation simply because it’s comfortable. In other words, the discomfort of change is too much for us to handle, and staying where we are is easier because we know how to do it – we know how to live in the unhealthy spaces of life. To be sure, though, growing and changing never really become easy. They never become comfortable. What I know for sure is that they begin and continue with taking a step – just one step.

For more on this journey, and hopefully encouragement for starting or continuing your own journey, please explore the Depression posts on Struggle to Victory.