wrestling with God

What I thought were the winter blues turned into spring sads and have not dissipated even under the summer sun. All that to say- we have spent the last eight months sparring with my depression, and it is not getting better. Grappling with my Bipolar diagnosis has, in some ways, made it worse; my therapist calls it the grieving period, but I have been grieving for months now, and this is just another grief to process, another hand pulling me below the surface, another hiccup as I struggle to breathe.

There’s a story in Genesis about Jacob wrestling with God. The New International Version reads, “So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.” The man goes on to ask Jacob to let him go, but Jacob refuses: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” The conversation continues, with the man demanding to know Jacob’s name and Jacob, the son who deceived his own father and brother, finally admits who he is. The man then blesses him and says, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” Jacob, now called Israel- which means “God fights”- leaves the encounter with a limp and with a blessing, both due to his stubborn perseverance[1].

Lacking psychological language and armed mostly with Biblical stories, I turned to this one as an explanation for trauma. Mental illness and the external circumstances that triggered it feel like an unending wrestling match with something greater than myself; this story reminds me not to let go, even when my body is tired and sore and broken, because leaving with a limp and a blessing is so much better than leaving defeated. It is the most honest of mirrors, showing my past and my present and my future and all of my jagged edges. It is an accusation of my heart toward God- for allowing me to drift in this aching darkness- and it is an encouragement to hold tightly to Them, because if we are still wrestling than the darkness has not won.

I have no curses for God, but I do have anger. I believe that if God is God, then She is big enough to field my anger. If God is more than a man, my sharp edges only serve to pierce the holes in His hands.

With bipolar, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. This is not situational depression or anxiety. It will not go away with age or circumstance. Bipolar- this unpredictable mental roller coaster- is a part of me. I am still wrestling with it and with God and trying to find the blessing. Reality is this: you cannot cure bipolar. I will always be unwell. I cannot fix this. It is the witching hour and I don’t know if daybreak will ever come, but, against the urge of every tired bone in my body, I wrestle.

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[1] This is the prophetic Naming Story of Israel, a people that would go on to struggle for much of their existence on this earth and yet still hold a sacred connection to God. (This isn’t a statement about the Statehood of Israel or Palestine). See: Genesis 32:22-32