Postpartum Depression and the Gospel

Scott and I had a rare evening where we were able to curl up on the couch and scroll through Netflix. We came across a sitcom that purported to be a funny, real look at the life of a new mom. For the first 15 or so minutes we both laughed at how relatable it was until a scene played out that I was not prepared for. The mom was desperate for a night out but unable to find care for her 2 month old so she attempted to bring her baby to her friend’s birthday party. It’s a disaster full of screaming, judgment and sleep deprivation on display. She gets on the bus to go home trying to hide her tears from those around her. She is mid-breakdown when she looks down to see her daughter staring at her. She smiles through the tears and snuggles her baby close, but the tears don’t stop and the hurt isn’t lifted.

I looked at my husband through my own tears and said “this moment is too real for me to watch”.

Rewind to December 6th, 2018 when God brought Selah into our lives. The indescribable joy I had when she was first placed on my chest was soon at odds with utter fear. My first two months of postpartum were marked by out-of-control anxiety and fear surrounding the wellbeing of my daughter. I struggled against intrusive thoughts about Selah dying constantly. It was debilitating, jolting me awake in the middle of the night stealing away the sleep I desperately needed and gripping me with full panic attacks that sent me spiraling. My inability to get my irrational anxiety under control by my own strength was the stepping stone into the fullness of postpartum depression. The first two months were the worst, but it didn’t end there.

8 months in and the anxiety and depression still remained unwelcomed counterparts and triumphant adversaries. 

Which is how I found myself sitting on our couch in tears as I watched this fictitious moment play out on the screen in front of me.

I knew what this character felt like. I never understood how a mother could be depressed after meeting her long-awaited child, until I held my own in tears over the fear of losing her. I loved her more deeply than I ever thought possible and it terrified me to think this little baby who held my heart could be taken away. I set up camp in the world of what ifs and imagined every worst case scenario, all the while laughing with her at park dates and singing her to sleep. The two didn’t make sense. And yet here I was.

I opened up to my husband and confessed how exhausted I was from fighting it all. I wasn’t strong enough to stand up against the anxious thoughts. I lost so often when the fog of depression appeared. I longed for protection against them and searched frantically for a refuge to guard me. But the refuges I looked for weren’t strong enough. I sought the refuge of my own efforts – easily destroyed. I sought the refuge of more “me time” – never enough. I sought the refuge of new checklists, new recipes, new meal plans, new family outings – every one of them breaking under the weight of my heart.  

So, as I laid in the ruins of another attempt at a self-made refuge, it became clear that I needed help. Through a series of God-ordained connections and the blessing of Skype, I started biblical counseling with an incredible sister in Christ that I cannot wait to meet in person one day in eternity.

In the months that I spent with her, she lovingly helped me peel away the façade of having it all together – a façade I had so carefully built to present to others - and helped me see the ugliness of the sin in my heart. She helped me come to terms with the fact that God allowed this intense season into my life to sanctify me and help me reflect him more and more. Yes, you read that right. God allowed my struggle with postpartum depression and anxiety into my life. He was not outside of it. He was not surprised by it. And above all, he is strong enough to help me through it.

Let me pause for clarification: Postpartum depression is REAL. It is not something to talk about lightly and certainly not something to sweep under a Pinterest perfect rug and ignore. Talk to someone, seek help – seriously, seek help! But what I’ve learned in my battle with this is that my postpartum depression and anxiety ultimately were symptoms of a much bigger problem. To be honest, this was not my first battle with anxiety or depression. The roots of both took hold of my heart long before Selah came along. When the rage of postpartum hormones flooded my body, they didn’t create a new problem out of thin air, they revealed a deeper heart issue.

In the midst of the storm, feeling overwhelmingly defeated by this trial, my sweet friend helped me see how flimsy my self-made refuges were and pointed me, instead, to the power of God’s word.

I saw in the Psalms that he has “kept count of my tossings,” and “put my tears in [his] bottle” (Psalm 56:8). He is with me always and is not blind or removed from my hardships. I saw him as the sustainer of all life when David says “Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them” (Psalm 139:16) and how David “lay down and slept; [he] woke again, for the Lord sustained [him]” (Psalm 3:5). These glorious truths became weapons against my anxious thoughts. They were power against the threat of fear and freedom from the pull of depression. Slowly but surely, I began to seek God as my refuge – and friends, he is strong enough to last the war.

The glorious hope of the gospel gives us a refuge that is strong enough to withstand the trials of this world. Period. God sent his Son to bear the weight of God’s wrath meant for us so that we might be saved and God’s name would be glorified. And until the day we are called home and sin is completely removed from our hearts, God has blessed us (yes, blessed us!) with trials as moments of grace that reveal sin in our hearts and point us back to him. We were never strong enough to save ourselves, not from our trials or in the work of salvation. But that’s where the gospel is the good news! Jesus IS strong enough. His refuge will not fail us. His work on the cross was once and for all. He has promised us his presence by sending his Spirit to dwell in us. He is with us through EVERY moment, from the mundane to the monumental.

I don’t write this as a victor who has won war. I write this as a soldier in the trenches. It is a daily battle to keep our eyes fixed on our Savior and seek him as our refuge rather than panicking and building our own flimsy refuge made up of weaker things.

But it’s a battle worth fighting.

I’ll leave you with the life verses I have decided to keep with me through the days to come. I pray that whatever trials God has brought into your life, you would see that you are not defined by them and you do not have to be enslaved by them. God is very present. He has not left you, no matter what circumstance might say. He loves you and is refining you. His desire is for you to reflect him more and more as he brings you closer to an eternity lived in perfect redemption.

Seek him friends. Find your refuge in him. In him you are safe. In him you are free.

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,

though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble at its swelling.” 

Psalm 46:1-3