Living with Depression: Finding God in the Darkness

It’s not easy to put my battle with depression into words. It’s an issue that has spanned most of my life, manifesting in childhood but fully surfacing in my teenage years. Yet, as much as that darkness has threatened to overwhelm me, it has also become the place where I’ve come to know God most intimately. In many ways, I’ve learned to embrace the “dark nights” as a space where God’s presence reveals itself in ways that are impossible in the light.

As a child, I never labeled my experiences as depression. I only knew that I wanted to escape from what felt like a harsh reality—a father’s abuse, the painful weight of feeling unseen and unvalued. It wasn’t until high school that I started recognizing my emotional and mental turmoil as something deeper. Still, it would take years before I truly understood that this wasn’t just a phase I needed to get over but a cross I’d be carrying throughout my life.

As a teen, I didn’t know how to handle the deep void I felt inside. At one point, my depression became so severe that I decided to end my life I swallowed a dangerous number of prescription pills and waited to die.

In the midst of an overdose, when my heart felt like it was going to explode, I cried out to God,
“Please don’t let me die.” And I heard something—I’m convinced it was God—say, “Kenn, I’m not going to let you die. After all, what would happen to your mother?” In that moment, I felt what can only be described as hell—a taste of absolute separation from God. Then everything went white. I survived that night, but the pain I was carrying didn’t go away.

But something did change after that night. Even in the worst moments, I began to believe that there was a purpose in my suffering. That night became one of many turning points in my life, not because everything got better, but because I started to see the light shining through the cracks of my brokenness.

There are moments in life that pierce through the haze of routine and despair, searing themselves into your memory with undeniable clarity. Another such moment came during my college years, at a time when I was caught in the grip of depression and drugs and was spiraling deeper into the void. I had just returned home from a night fueled by drugs, the artificial high fading into the numbing darkness that followed. My body was exhausted, my mind racing, and my soul felt hollow.

In an effort to shake myself out of the stupor, I filled the sink in my bathroom with cold water and splashed it onto my face. It didn’t help. I looked up, meeting my own eyes in the mirror for what felt like the first time in ages. And in that instant, I saw myself—really saw myself—and was overcome with shock and shame. My reflection stared back at me, hollowed out and unrecognizable. I then felt the same feeling of separation I had felt during my suicide attempt when I was a teenager. I fell to the floor, my heart pounding with the weight of what I had become.

Then came the revelation—not from my mind but from somewhere beyond me. A clear, unmistakable voice broke through the chaos: “Continue on this path, Kenn, and you will be dead in a year. Or get up off this floor and strive to become the honorable man you know you can be.” Those words reverberated through me like a shockwave. They were not condemning but challenging, filled with both truth and hope. For the first time in a long time, I believed that change was possible. I knew I was at a crossroads. I could let the darkness consume me entirely, or I could take that first trembling step toward the light, toward becoming the man I was created to be.

I didn’t have all the answers that night, but I knew I had been given a choice. That moment in front of the mirror wasn’t just about seeing my reflection—it was about seeing my soul, laid bare before God. It was a moment of grace, a divine whisper in the depths of my despair. And it was the beginning of my long journey home.

A few months after I started going back to church and I began hearing something I couldn’t fully grasp: “God loves you.” People would say it in homilies, in prayers, and in casual conversations. But how could that be true? After all, I had spent so much of my life running from Him, rejecting His presence, and burying myself in self-destruction. Yet, no matter how much I doubted it, one truth remained: God hadn’t let me die. Maybe—just maybe—He really did love me.

Around that time, I remembered the old saying that the eyes are the mirror to the soul. My earlier experience of looking into my own eyes in the bathroom mirror had been a pivotal moment, one where I saw the brokenness in my soul laid bare. That memory stayed with me, haunting me yet drawing me closer to something greater. So, one night, I decided to do something simple yet profoundly vulnerable. Before going to bed, I stood in front of the mirror, looked deeply into my own eyes, and prayed: “Lord, let me see myself as You see me.”

At first, it felt strange and uncomfortable. I didn’t feel worthy to ask God for anything, let alone to see myself through His eyes. But I kept at it. Night after night, I would look into my own eyes—those windows to my soul—and pray that same prayer. “Lord, let me see myself as You see me.” Most nights, I felt nothing but awkwardness and doubt. But something inside me told me to keep going.

About six months later, something shifted. It’s hard to put into words what happened, but for a brief moment that felt like forever, I understood. It wasn’t an understanding that came from my mind but from my very soul. I felt God’s love for me—pure, overwhelming, unconditional love. It wasn’t based on anything I had done or could ever do; it simply was. For that moment, I saw myself not as broken or unworthy but as beloved.

That moment changed everything. It wasn’t that my depression disappeared or that all my struggles magically resolved, but I knew from that point forward that God’s love was real, and it was for me. That truth has been the foundation of my life ever since. I’ve spent every day since trying to honor that love—not perfectly, not without missteps, but with the certainty that I am held in the arms of a God who sees me as I truly am and loves me anyway.

My depression, I’ve come to realize, is not something that can be fully “cured” in this life. It’s not something I’ll simply wake up one day and find has disappeared. But I’ve also learned that depression can be redeemed by God. It’s a burden, yes, but it’s also a tool that God uses to draw me closer to Him. Some of my depression is the result of my own choices and actions, and some is simply the consequence of living in a fallen world. Either way, it has taught me to lean into Christ’s love in a way I never could have imagined.

This brings me to one of the deepest and most profound aspects of my faith: the darkness of God. When I speak of darkness, I’m not referring to evil, but to the mystery of God’s love. Hans Urs von Balthasar speaks of the “dazzling darkness of God’s triune love,” a concept he took from St. Gregory of Nyssa, that resonates deeply with me. God created both light and dark, and it is in the dark that we often encounter the fullness of His mystery.

That might sound strange but hear me out…

St. Gregory of Nyssa’s mystical theology has been a cornerstone of my faith journey, especially in coping with depression. His vision of the spiritual ascent as a journey into the “dazzling darkness” of God resonates deeply with my experience of navigating the complexities of depression and finding God in what seems like an impenetrable void. For Gregory, darkness is not merely an absence of light but the very place where God’s infinite mystery and love are most profoundly encountered.

St. Gregory’s “The Life of Moses” outlines a spiritual progression through three stages: light, cloud, and finally, darkness. This journey mirrors the Christian life, where we begin with the light of initial faith, move through the cloud of mystery as we grow, and ultimately encounter God in the darkness—a space so filled with divine presence that it overwhelms our senses and understanding.

When I reflect on my struggles with depression, I see parallels with Gregory’s insights. Depression often feels like entering an oppressive darkness, a place where God seems distant, and hope feels elusive. But Gregory’s theology offers a life altering perspective: this darkness is not a void; it is the dazzling presence of God, a space where we come face-to-face with His infinite mystery. As Gregory writes, “This is the true knowledge of what is sought; this is the seeing that consists in not seeing, because that which is sought transcends all knowledge”.

Depression has taught me that the journey into God’s darkness requires letting go of the need to understand and control. It is a surrender to mystery, trusting that God’s love is present even when it feels hidden. Gregory’s idea that darkness is a place of both incomprehensibility and intimacy has been a source of hope. In my darkest moments, I’ve felt that God’s presence was beyond my grasp—not because He was absent, but because He was so profoundly present that my limited understanding could not contain Him.

Depression often isolates and alienates, but Christ bridges that gap. He is the light that guides us
into the darkness, not to abandon us but to transform us. Gregory’s insight that Christ’s presence
is both dazzling and veiled in the darkness has helped me see depression not as an obstacle but as a path to deeper intimacy with God. His description of the “dazzling darkness” echoes the wordsof Christ: “What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs” (Matthew 10:27). The darkness is not the end of the story; it is the place where God speaks most intimately, preparing us to carry His light into the world.

As I’ve grown older, I’ve become more comfortable with the mystery of God. When I was
younger, I wanted answers for everything. But now, I see that some things are beyond
understanding. This is the story of Adam and Eve—the temptation to know what God knows.
But that knowledge leads to destruction. God, in His wisdom, gives us the gift of not knowing,
the gift of trusting in His plan, even when we can’t see it. This is the heart of my faith: embracing the mystery, trusting in God’s love, and finding Him even in the darkest night.

To anyone reading this who feels abandoned by God or who wonders if their suffering has any
purpose, I want to say this: You are not alone. Christ saw you, felt your pain, and carried it with
Him on the cross. Your suffering, no matter how deep or seemingly pointless, has meaning
because God can redeem it. Reach out.