The phone rang and I was so nervous. We had called to beg for information about Tristan’s diagnosis. We knew the Mental Health facility was not allowed to reveal any information but we were asking anyway. Our son had just taken his own life, surely that counted for some mercy.
The psychiatrist was guarded when he came on the line but I only had one question. “What was wrong with my son? What was his diagnosis?”
Major Depressive Disorder
Depression? I was very confused.
“Can teenage depression manifest itself in anger and isolation?”
“Oh, yes.” was his answer.
And then it all made sense. Depression runs in my family so I had been on the lookout for it while all my kids were growing up. But I had been looking for the wrong thing: sadness and mourning. I had no idea anger and isolation were depression. Tristan never seemed sad. He was just unreachable.
He went from our sunshine boy who would happily run up to any kid in the park and play with them, to a monosyllabic teenage robot. I watched him slip away for 6 years, all the while begging God to show me what was wrong with my son.
I interviewed everyone I could think of: family doctor, therapist, pastor, youth pastor, Christian counselors, Lyme disease doctor, alternative health practitioners, and a child psychiatrist. Everybody said a version of, “Oh, nothing’s wrong. It’s just the teen years. Every teen goes through that.” So Tristan agreed to meet regularly with our youth pastor for discipleship.
But as his mom, I knew, I knew there was something. I wrote it on my Tristan prayer list and I begged for years for God to show me.
God did show me on Feb 11th. The problem was Tristan died on Feb. 8.
I had enough trust in God’s sovereignty to know He had His reasons for not revealing Tristan’s depression to me. After all, I had specifically prayed for that and He specifically did NOT allow me to know the answer. But what I found in the bible stunned me:
Job 12:14b “…if He shuts a man in, none can open.”
Job chapter 12 — He takes away the discernment of the elders and strips the counselors bare.
God didn’t just keep me from knowing. He also kept Tristan’s counselors from knowing. If I shut up a man, who can open him? The youth pastor Tristan met with had spent time on the frontlines, serving the broken homes and at-risk teens of the inner city. He had seen it all and if anyone could have detected a glimmer of anything not okay with Tristan, it was this youth pastor. But–God takes away the discerment of the elders and strips the counselors bare– this truth came to pass here.
Who am I to question God? There is nothing I could have done to reach Tristan. This gave me such peace to know my boy was in God’s hands, for HIS purposes. Not mine. And I see the Grace in God making sure I’d specifically made it a prayer list item so I could point to God NOT answering.
If we know that God created a blind man for His glory, and a crippled man for His glory, and a leprous man for His glory, and a paraplegic for His glory, should depression be exempt from that list?
When I feel sad about how depressed Tristan felt, all alone, I remember God knew every thought he had just like it says in Psalm 139 and he was not alone because God was with him.
This is Tristan’s reality in heaven RIGHT NOW: he is fully known and knows fully. God has revealed to Tristan His purpose for his life and that momentary light affliction has given way to an eternal weight of glory. I can’t wait to be with him again and listen to him tell what God did with his story.
Dear God, help me remember when I feel the heavy, crushing burden of Tristan’s old earthly sorrow that it was, in comparison, a momentary light affliction compared to what he’s experiencing now. Take away all my anguish for his pain on this earth because his pain is gone. Tristan is more alive than ever. Free. With You. The pain that was so great it made him end his life, is not even a consideration for him now. Help me not to consider it, or to replay it anymore, either. Save me from myself. Amen.
