After sharing our weekly “highs and lows” with a group at church, a well-meaning lady emphatically suggested I go to a certain person who “specializes in healing mental illness” and “cured her depression with prayer.” I thanked her for her concern but did not take down her details or look into it.

The problem sometimes is that we as Christians are so uncomfortable with discomfort that we no longer want to walk alongside real people or sit with the real issues that they’re dealing with – we want them to be healed overnight, be delivered from addiction overnight, be happy always, stop being sad, stop grieving. And so everyone walks around, pretending everything is fine, hiding our problems, ashamed of our own weakness, and we keep carrying burdens that we could simply lay at the foot of the cross.

Jesus never promised we would be free from sickness or suffering in this life – only that he would be with us through it all, and if we let him, he’d transform us to be more like him.

When we stop puffing ourselves up and simply come as we are: brokenness and all, that’s when healing and transformation begins. It’s what I love most about being married to Jesse: it reveals to me who I really am every day when I am at my most unlovable and he still loves and accepts me, much like God does.

I am still living with depression and anxiety, even after many years of being on medication, therapy, and, yes, even prayer. The only difference is: I have put my mental illness in its place – it is no longer my master, it does not define me, and I do not blame it for all my personal issues. In my therapy sessions, I am allowing God into many hidden parts of me that I hadn’t realized were even there, and working on confronting the things that are my responsibility to confront. It is a long, difficult, often frustrating journey, and probably one that will only end when my life does. I have been a follower of Christ for 17 years now, and there is still not a single day when I don’t need his forgiveness or help.

But in order to get there, I actually need to say “God, here’s something I can’t fix – please use it to change me to be more like Jesus.”

My prayer is that we stop looking for the world to change by means of power, riches, or even futile effort, and instead ask God to change our own hearts so that we are able to live and love like he does – because that’s what actually changes the world.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (Colossians 3:12-14)