I felt like I was drowning. My baby was easy, but my normally stable emotions were raging. I didn’t know how cope with them or my life. With our first baby, I fell head over heels in love the instant I saw her. This time, I felt distant from my baby. Instead of the logic and attention to detail that usually characterized me, I was scatterbrained and forgetful. Nights were miserable, but days were no better. Even little things, like spilling a cup of water or the baby waking early from a nap, set off my anger.

This was not the idyllic postpartum I had worked so hard to prepare for.

I took vitamins, rested whenever I could, and spent spare moments attempting to feed my soul. But nothing helped. No matter what, the darkness was there, and the most suffocating part of it was the silence of God. While initially they had brought comfort, now Scripture didn’t seem to get through to me and prayer didn’t seem to get through to God, because His presence seemed even more distant and life kept getting harder.

An international move. Jet lag. The stomach flu. Chickenpox. Didn’t God understand I was already overwhelmed?

I knew postpartum depression was temporary, but I couldn’t imagine there was a light at the end of the tunnel, much less see it. Instead of postpartum bliss, I had suffering, and I had questions for God.

What was happening to me and why?

It was easy for me to overlook the magnitude of the changes in my life. My body had just grown and birthed a baby. Now it was working overtime to recover and feed my little girl, all while navigating the changes in my relationships with my older daughter and husband and a transoceanic move. Hormonal plummets and sleep deprivation meant that I constantly felt like my brain was about to explode. Life as I knew it was coming undone.   

The what was postpartum depression, and it was treatable.

But I still wanted to know why.

now I thirsted for His presence over the removal of my pain.

I didn’t know how or when I would be healed; I just knew I needed Him.

Where was God when I felt abandoned?

As the dust from our move settled, God opened my eyes to see how He had been with me all along. That presence didn’t look like what I was used to experiencing, but He was there.

God provided for me in my suffering with…

• Physical support such as meals and babysitting
• Friends I could reach out to—or who saw through my masks and helped me
• A husband who loved me no matter what I unloaded on him
• Songs to give my sorrows voice and books to explain what I felt
• Restraint to keep from acting on my raging emotions
• His grace to take stubborn people by the hand and guide us to where we should be (Psalm 73:21-24)
• guidance, help, and comfort from the Holy Spirit (John 14-16)

The light at the end of the tunnel came, with the help of counselors, targeted supplements from my doctor, and support from my husband. By the time our baby was a year old, my depression was over.

How did good ever come of my suffering?

But I found that even though I felt normal again, I wasn’t the same. Scars remain, but even more, my suffering shaped me and forged a new strength within me.

My suffering…

• changed the way I view God.
• changed the way I interact with others in pain.
• changed the way I love my children.
• gave me a hunger for God’s presence.  
• taught me that even when it seems impossible, God is always faithful and present.

God used my pain for good. That doesn’t mean that God likes what I went through, but that He is good and powerful enough to bring light to the darkest place, light that darkness will not overcome.

Depression caused me to lose hope. But it was just part of my story, and it wasn’t the end of it. God brought me into a better, truer story of redemption. The work He did in me in and through postpartum depression is a microcosm of that great Story of Scripture and His purposes for the world.

Prayerful Takeaways

• When God seems silent, prayer can seem impossible. We often feel like we can’t tell God about how we feel about Him, but Scripture shows us lament as a way to be brutally honest with God but still trust in Him to hear and act. To learn the language of lament, consider praying through your suffering with Psalms like Psalm 22, 42, and 43.
• Meditate on John 9:1-3. How does this inform how you view God and your suffering? How does it affect how you think about those suffering around you?
• Pray for mothers suffering with postpartum depression and other perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. Ask God to heal them, reveal His presence to them in their pain, and use their suffering to make them more like Christ.

Practical Takeaways

• God is present with believers through the Word and His Spirit, even when He feels distant or absent. How does this knowledge shape how you seek God and think about Him when He seems unresponsive?
• To understand more of how the Story of Scripture affects our lives, check out Even Better Than Eden by Nancy Guthrie.

If you are struggling with postpartum depression or other perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, please know that you are not alone and there is real, effective help for what you’re going through! Peruse this website for resources. Postpartum Support International (https://www.postpartum.net/) has a warmline, provider directory, and many other resources.