A Tale of Three Easters

On seeing the goodness of God

This piece contains mention of suicidal ideation. If you struggle with depression and have thoughts of harming yourself, please reach out to a medical professional. If you’re in the United States, you can dial 988 to be connected with someone who can help.

Easter 2019

I am in a lodge at Timberline Knolls with around 29 other women, receiving treatment for depression. I am hundreds of miles away from my family and friends. Though I had made progress during the 2 weeks I had been at Timberline Knolls, in the days leading up to Easter my suicidal thoughts were so intense that I was put on what was essentially suicide watch: I was not allowed to leave the lodge for groups or meals, was checked on in 5 minute intervals, and had to sleep in a common area. At any other time I would have been humiliated by the fact that I could not even have privacy while sleeping, but that that point a lot of my time was spent trying to figure out ways to die. I had little energy left to care what others thought about me, and it didn’t matter anyway since the other women there were also more than a little familiar with suicidal ideation. Easter came, and I was not allowed to go to church offsite with the other residents but instead remained behind with those who didn’t want to go to church. I hated myself that day and hated that depression was keeping me from worshipping with other believers.

Easter is one of my favorite days of the year. Celebrating the risen Christ with my fellow believers fills me with joy, and I love the songs we sing to mark Jesus’ defeat of sin and death. Even in the pit of depression I was in during those dark years, I knew my Redeemer lived, and I knew more than anything that I needed Him to help me keep living. Not being at church that Sunday stung, but the Lord was kind to me even in my sadness. That evening in the lodge, a few of the other residents who knew how much I wanted to be at church that morning organized their own little worship service. One woman read Scripture and summarized that morning’s message, another played her guitar and led us in songs, and then we prayed together. It was sweet, poignant, and deeply affecting. It was not the Easter I wanted, but God met me in the darkness and used those other women to remind me that even when hope seems lost, He shows up.

Easter 2021

For weeks leading up to Easter I had been trying to keep suicidal thoughts at bay. I had adopted a series of measures to keep myself safe: I increased visits with my therapist; I stopped driving myself around and instead had others take me places, for fear of what I would do if I were behind the wheel; I had my husband put all of my meds in a box with a combination lock that only he had the code to; I limited the time I spent alone. But no efforts I made could assuage the inner pain I felt and the desire I had to escape it. I had a near-constant refrain in my head: “Just make it to Easter.” I don’t know what I thought would happen on Easter; did I imagine God would instantly heal my mind and rescue me from my distorted thoughts?

Easter came, and while I did in fact make it to that day and celebrated with my church family, my mind and heart were not truly in it. No instant healing arrived. All the colors of spring—in the sky, in the dresses of my girls, in the flowers—were nothing but gray to my heart. The very next day, I checked myself into a psychiatric hospital for the fourth time. Were it not for my husband and daughters, I wouldn’t have even bothered. I had never felt so hopeless. What was wrong with me, that I couldn’t seem to dig myself out of this hole? How was I in this same spot yet again? Why wasn’t God answering my prayers for deliverance? Even if I had mostly stopped believing He was hearing me, I knew there were others praying for me, too. Surely He was hearing them! The perceived silence, coupled with my own turmoil, was too much to bear. I spent two weeks in the hospital, followed by several more weeks of outpatient treatments that involved my husband driving me to and from Memphis. I missed a month of work.

Gradually, ever so slowly, color began to return back to my life. It didn’t happen in an instant. It didn’t happen when I wanted it to or how I wanted it to. But God in His kindness once again reminded me that He always shows up.

Easter 2024

Yesterday, I gathered in a crowded church, flanked by my husband and daughters, all of us dressed in our Easter best. With tears in my eyes and joy in my heart, I sang, “Because He lives, I can face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know He holds the future, and life is worth the living, just because He lives!” I sang as one who has lived the truth of those words. I haven’t always felt like life was worth living, and there might come a time when I feel that way again. But feelings lie. What doesn’t lie is an empty tomb. What doesn’t lie is my Jesus, my Savior who rose from the grave and conquered death and sin and hell so that I could live forever with Him.

Photo by Pisit Heng on Unsplash

Depression stole a lot of things from me, but one thing it gave me: unshakeable belief in the love and goodness of God. My life, while currently free from depression, is not free from pain, but no matter what my future brings, I know that God will love me and carry me through it. I know what David meant in Psalm 27:4 when he declared, “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!” We don’t have to wait for heaven to see God’s goodness at work. He is working here and now in our midst, in ways big and small.

God opened that tomb over 2,000 years ago, and He is still in the business of resurrection today. He resurrected me. He can resurrect you. He will one day make every sad thing come untrue¹. Until then, we can live with the confident assurance that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.²”

Let it be so. Come, Lord Jesus.

1. J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

2. Romans 8:38-39