Rising Above Depression: A Sacred Climb Back to Light

There are days when the weight is not something you can see —

but you feel it like a cloak over your spirit,

a hush in your heartbeat,

a dimming of the once-bright world around you.

Depression is often not sadness — it’s numbness.

It’s the absence of feeling, or the overwhelm of too much unprocessed feeling.

It’s the fog that makes meaning feel unreachable,

even when life is technically “fine.”

Depression doesn’t always cry out loud.

Sometimes, it’s silent.

Sometimes, it just… sits beside you,

and you forget when it arrived.

But there comes a moment —

a sacred flicker —

when you realize:

“I am still here.”

And that is the moment you begin to rise.

Rising doesn’t mean leaping.

It means lifting your face one inch toward the sky.

It means breathing — not to fix, but just to feel.

It means opening a window.

Drinking a glass of water.

Letting the sun touch your skin and say, “You’re not alone.”

You rise by noticing:

• The bird that keeps singing

• The memory that still warms you

• The tear that finally falls, and frees you

• The prayer you whisper when you don’t even know what to say

Depression says “stay down.”

But your soul remembers the rhythm of rising.

Rising is not loud.

It is not perfect.

It does not always come with joy.

Sometimes it comes with stillness.

With surrender.

With the quietest yes to God:

“I don’t have to understand everything.

But I know I was not made to disappear.”

And so you rise…

Not because you’re fixed.

Not because the past is erased.

But because there is light still waiting to hold you.

And because God — even in silence —

has never stopped believing in your return.

Let this be your whisper today:

“I am not broken. I am in between

Each breath is a step. Each step is enough.

And even in this valley, I am held.”

Light a candle.

Read one line of a book that once stirred you.

Touch something soft.

Write down three things you still love.

Place a flower in water.

Hum a song without words.

These are seeds —

and joy will grow again.

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you.”

— Rumi

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

— John 1:5