Most dogs like to chase cars. But there’s a dog in our neighborhood who has turned chasing vehicles into a full-scale Olympic event. We call him “Tripod” because he has only three legs. Please do not give a sympathetic sigh for Tripod. He was born with three legs and has a ragingly fabulous sense of self-esteem. He has absolutely no idea he’s handicapped. If he looked in a mirror, I believe he would see a reflection of a pit bull on steroids. Tripod could outrun any canine in the state, as well as most vehicles that cross his path. Terrorizing innocent drivers makes his day.

The first few times the jet-black dog charged straight into the path of my car, I screamed in fear of slamming into him and rendering him a two-legged creature. What it took me a while to understand, though, was his crafty, smug psyche. He has no intention of being hit. At the exact moment of a potential fur-flying demise, he veers out of danger with a glimmer of smiling white teeth. Not once has Mr. T been grazed by the hundreds of tires he’s targeted.

Recently Tripod came straight at me. With determination, I kept my eyes focused, stayed on high alert, and refused to slow down. “I know what you’re about and I’m not playing this game,” I muttered. His bark is far worse than his bite—the apparent onslaught holds little resolve. In the end, Tripod is the coward.

Checking my rearview mirror, however, I noticed an innocent driver behind me. I admit I had to laugh—the scene behind me was like something out of a movie. Tripod must have drooled with excitement as new prey approached. The driver did what all first-timers do. Trying to avoid the crazed three-legged dog, the car swerved from one lane to the other, apparently traumatized… as with all first encounters of the Tripod kind.

This jet-black dog comes out of nowhere, unannounced, and tries with all his might to throw people off track. Literally, physically—and most definitely psychologically—the mad dog attempts to land someone in a ditch.

Depression is very much like Mr. Tripod.

It comes like a black monster at those of us who suffer from its threats. Depression takes most of us by utter surprise.

Like a crazed dog, depression can wreck our lives. The symptoms are uniquely similar: quiet, stillness—disrupted by a bark so loud, so frightening, it shuts out sanity and hope. Depression’s lies send adrenaline-laden toxic fear rushing through the healthiest of hearts.

We might be thrown off course for a time.

Yet help is here.

Depression does not define us.

We have access to help in every area, help that’s three-pronged just like Mr. Tripod: Physical, emotional, and spiritual healing is waiting to be drawn in as balm for the hopeless, despairing soul.

Made by Him, Made for Him

There is so much we were not created to know!

We were made to walk in a garden, full of grace and truth, breezes blowing, hand-in-hand in relationship with the Creator of the universe, without shame, fear, or despair.

“In the beginning” we were made as God’s children to live in harmony, protected by a Father who can deal with good and evil and everything in between.

Man and woman were made in the image of God, with one major exception.

We were not made to understand evil. We were not equipped to go head-to-head with the Tripods of this world.

Tragically, Adam and Eve opened Pandora’s box. They were instructed to indulge in the fruit of every tree in Eden except the tree of “good and evil.” God wasn’t playing games. He so loved them that He was looking out for them as a parent does a child. Man and woman were not wired to comprehend good and evil.

This particular tree bore fruit only God could handle. He alone can wrestle down the devil and fight battles we cannot understand. Humans fail miserably in this arena. God has been rescuing us ever since we barrelled into scenes we weren’t written into.

Humans were created to love, laugh, and enjoy good things as innocent children before our Creator. We were given access to all the beauty this world has to offer. Love, marriage, food, endless variations of nature, breathtakingly simple moments of rest, silence; the laughter of our children, stunningly delightful animals; the possessions of the earth have all been our inheritance from the beginning of time.

Emotionally, physically, and spiritually we were not wired to deal with rape, disease, injustice, torment, prejudice, divorce, terrorism…or depression!

We were created for a garden. Although the original Garden was corrupted, God has made a way back to Him, to His protection and healing through the gift of His Son. A new garden waits for us, bought by the blood of Christ.

It took the death of God’s heart to break new ground.

The original dream refuses to die.

Loved by Him

I cannot quite get over the image from the movie The Passion of the Christ in which Mary interacts with her beaten, bloodied son. For a moment, He falls to the ground, and Mary finds the courage to rush to His side. The love-stained eyes of Jesus look into his mother’s, and He speaks the prophetic words from Isaiah, “Behold, mother, I make all things new.” Wrapped up in this promise, spoken through the broken teeth of a face barely recognizable, we hear in his pain the echo of every child’s plea: “Mother, look at me! Look what I can do!” And He breaks our hearts.

I’ve suffered with clinical depression for more than ten years now and am convinced more than ever that I will not allow depression to come roaring into my soul again like Tripod on steroids.

Too much was given by Christ Jesus for me to give up.

Too much was overcome for me to be overcome.

Yes, there is a new garden to be fully realized, a time when depression will be down for the count and truly out.

Today, God isn’t offended by the broken heart.

His love is all about hope in the most dire, ugly, and dark places.

God’s love showed up for me in the prayers of friends, godly advice, and medication from skilled doctors’ observations. Love, truth, and pieces of hope pulled me out of the pit at the end of my ladder. In sharing my journey and the experiences of others who have successfully made it through this challenge, I know the Lord God will meet you wherever you are.

Depression has been defeated.

Embrace the defeat!

Reach out and hold onto the ladder of God’s truth and provision that will lead you up into the light.

A new garden is waiting.

This seems a cheerful world when I view it from this fair garden…But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out…you know very well what I would see; brigands on the high road, pirates on the seas, in the amphitheatres men murdered to please the applauding crowds…

Yet in spite of it, I have found a quiet and holy people They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people…are Christians.

ST. CYPRIAN
writing to his friend Donatus (third century)

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Excerpted from A Ladder Out of Depression by Bonnie Keen. Copyright © 2005 by Harvest House Publishers. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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