Horizons (Day 23 of Lent)

For nearly sixteen years, I suffered from depression.  Very rarely would I wake up in the morning and be excited about facing the day.  On top of that, I drank dangerously.  It was my way of combating the depression, even though the alcohol was causing much more damage.  Eventually, I lost the ability to stay away from alcohol, much less figure out what was wrong with my mind.  Some of the things I experienced with depression were:  feeling very lonely regardless of how many people were around, not being able to be grateful, feeling like my problems were constantly piling up on me with no way to fix them, and feeling an extreme sense of doom and hopelessness.  I was convinced that life would be this way forever.  I tried to train myself to be okay with it, and just to keep floating along trying not to hurt myself or anybody else in the process.  The alcohol problem became so bad that it kind of took my mind off the depression.  It turned out I had much bigger fish to fry.  If depression wasn't going to kill me, alcohol surely was.  God knows I had enough close calls with the late night drunk driving and the blackouts.  
I was in a place where I couldn't imagine life with or without alcohol or depression.  I was stuck.  I had nowhere to turn, no hope, and especially no outlook on life that provided any sense of satisfaction.  
In John chapter eight, Jesus talks about how we live based off of what we see and touch, but he doesn't live that way.  He says he's in touch with things beyond what we can grasp, things beyond our horizons.  In closing, he says the oft quoted line, "If you live this way, you'll experience the truth for yourself, and the truth will set you free."  He is talking to the Jews, referring to the near future when they will "raise the Son of Man and know."  The audience had no idea what was coming.  All their systems and laws and ways of doing things were based on the belief that hope had not arrived yet, that the Messiah was yet to come.  If they could just follow the law as closely as possible, they would be okay when the Messiah did come.  Jesus wanted so badly for them to open their eyes to the truth, but lets just face it.  All they had was his word up to this point.  But, Jesus was foretelling their future.  If we skip forward to Jesus on the cross and the resurrection, we find that many Jews finally found the truth.  They saw Jesus die.  They saw the empty tomb.  They were freed from binding themselves with endless laws and self-constraint.  
If the truth sets us free, then how do we get it?  
I haven't taken a drink or any other mind-altering substance in over three years, and I haven't dealt with depression in over two years.  Something caused these changes of events.  Something was at work.  Something set me free.  The problem is I can't see the inner workings of my mind, the physical and mental effects of alcohol on the body and brain, and I can't see what kind of spiritual behind the scenes work is going on.  But, the truth is, what was true for so many years is not true anymore.  It has been replaced with the truth that I never have to take another drink again, and I never have to face depression again.  I have been set free from a seemingly hopeless and binding state of mind, body, and spirit.  
What does believing in Jesus have to do with any of this?  For me, shame was the number one contributor to why I ever took a drink in the first place and to why my mind told me that I was a waste of flesh.  It wasn't until I got to the end of me, that the only thing I had left was to believe that shame wasn't supposed to be the driving force in life.  Freedom was supposed to be, but how was I to attain this freedom?  Honestly, I wish I could lay out the answer, but I think the answer was embedded in the mess of despair.  It wasn't until I got so hopeless and so shameful and so desperate that I found the answer.  It was grace.  Somehow, I got a glimpse of the possibility that my mind was against me, and that it had convinced me that God was an angry loan shark waiting to break my leg for all the bad stuff I'd done.  Jesus was a good story and that was about it.  
It wasn't until I heard stories from people I had never met, who weren't you're average churchgoing folks.  They were putting words to what I was feeling and experiencing.  They were telling my story.  They were giving me hope.  They were telling of a God who wasn't a loan shark, but a compassionate, loving, and inclusive God.  This opened my eyes.  How had I been so closed off to this concept?  At this retreat, on the final day, a man giving a talk on a Sunday morning invited everyone to "leave your fear in the woods."  I did just that.  I walked out into the woods, crying and pitiful, and for the first time told God I wasn't afraid of him anymore.  My truth changed.  I left that wilderness with a new lease on life.  I experienced a new way of thinking, which affected what I did - truth.  The way I believed started affecting the way that I saw, touched, heard, and tasted.  I was set free, I am set free, and I will continue to chase after freedom.