A pretty bad poem

I wrote this yesterday during Chapel at the school where I work. I've been trying to fight off the beginnings of depression which seems to want to build a nest in my heart.

Actually, I'm not sure what to do with it. Do I let it come, deal with it, like a wave passing over me? or do I try to fight it off, finally going down screaming, thrashing, exhausted? So here it goes...

Unwelcome Companion

The darkness arrives

clandestinely.

It creeps.

It crawls;

sneaks silently.

The heaviness steps in

unwelcomed.

Wipes its feet

Hangs its hat

Too accustomed.

The ink spot makes

its home in my chest.

Just above the heart-

a hole

an emptiness

eating me from within.

I want to scream

but cold fingers

close

tightly

around my throat.

Hope seems so far away.

A place I'll never see,

An unattainable goal.

I stare into the abyss

That hole

in my soul.

I want to see something

some flicker

some spark

But the abyss

(cursed darkness)

refuses to stare back.

It is nirvana--

the emptiness I hate--

the heavy weight

holding me down

Handcuffing me to my fears

Binding me to the clandestine darkness.

Despair.

But then... then I did go to chapel. And though it took a while for the principal to get around to the message, when it finally came it was exactly what I needed to hear.
"There is a race set before you, and it is unique. We don't know what the obstacles will be, but we do know that they are tough. But God puts them there for a reason, and He will provide the strength for us to get around or through. Our race, be it with diabetes or cancer or a dead brother or depression, is designed so that our lives bring maximum glory to God."

So, God knows me. God knows what I can handle and what I can't. And he's given me recurrent depression as a thorn in my flesh, so that I am reminded that I can't do anything on my own. All we do is for His glory, for His praise. And HE is the one on whom we depend to make it through those times.