She's got "the depression"

My sister called to say her Wii Fit was asking for me. Said it hadn't seen me in a while. Maybe that's because the last time I got on, it groaned, "Oh," and said I had a fitness age of about eighty. Jan also wanted to know where my blog post was.

I admitted last week I had a case of the D's--discouragement, despair, disillusionment, doubt, diets, death...Well, I wasn't that bad; mostly I had "the discouragement" (a term borrowed from an elderly, perfectly coiffed woman I met at the dentist office who said her sister had "the depression"). 

It came out of nowhere, a simple remark by a person whose opinion I valued. I determined to persevere through the fog of mental ennui that settled on me and sucked my thoughts out. But as so often happens, one bad thing led to another.

The corner of my front tooth broke (maybe grit your teeth and buckle up isn't such good advice). It wasn't too noticeable so I decided to postpone fixing it until I had caught up on my bills. A few nights later, after I brushed, flossed, spit, and rinsed, I looked in the mirror and stared at the big space where the corner of my other front tooth had been a minute before.

It's hard to ignore two broken front teeth, besides, my daughter was coming to visit with a friend she wanted us to meet. Not wanting to look as if I'd left my shotgun in a cabin back in the 'holler,' I promptly called my dentist.

"The discouragement" was gaining on two fronts--mental and physical. Early one morning, I curled up on the couch with my Bible. A verse, so random and so seemingly unrelated to my situation, parked itself like a mighty boulder in front of my broken-down defense.

The exiled Jews were rebuilding their destroyed temple, but their adversaries were trying to stop them. The adversaries tattled to the king who was unaware of a decree issued by a previous king, which gave the Jews both permission and provision to build. The current king issued a search in the archives where the treasures were stored and there in a fortress, a scroll was found.--Ezra 6:2

I'm not sure why this knocked the dis off and left me with courage. I think because it speaks of hope, of unexpected possibilities, of things never filed away and forgotten by the KING.