Get Your Dose of Spiritual Vitamin D, with Gretchen Ronnevik

Are you in a season of winter that never seems to end? Whether you’re wrestling with a chronic sense of discouragement or you’re simply ready for a new season to begin, find hope from God’s Word in this Grounded episode with Gretchen Ronnevik.

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Episode Notes:

Ragged: Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritually Exhausted by Gretchen Ronnevik

“Provisions of Winter” Revive Our Hearts Weekend podcast episode

“Eclipses: When Darkness Seems to Overwhelm the Light” season of The Deep Well with Erin Davis podcast

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Dannah Gresh: Whether we're in for more cold or not. Here's why we think this episode will speak to you. We all face seasons of winter blues, fatigue, anxiety, depression can set in, and we can just feel blah.

Erin Davis: Yeah, blah, right. In fact, many people wrestle with this, this time of year. Feeling down in the dumps or the blues or the blondes, whatever you want to call it. The doctors have coined the term Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Dannah: Yeah, appropriately abbreviated as SAD. We know some of you live in warm, sunny climates. Please send Erin and me speaking invitations. We will say “yes.”

Erin: Yes, we would love to come. 

Dannah: We would come for cheap. Just get us there. Some of you don't live in a beautiful climate, like me. I've been taking lots of vitamin D to get me through this long very cold Pennsylvania winter. It just gets so dark. And if you don't know, vitamin D, which helps regulate your mood, is created by your eyes’ ability to see sunlight. So when there's not a lot of sunlight, we're gonna feel a little bit less energetic. 

For the record, that vitamin D really does help. I'm a girl who knows. But we want to use this phenomenon of the winter blues to talk about the hope God's Word gives whenever we get in those funks.

Erin: Yeah. Gretchen Ronnevik will join us in just a minute. She's here to give you a dose of spiritual vitamin D to get you through those blocks. And listen, we count on you to share Grounded. All my friends are probably tired of hearing about it. It's time for you to tell your friends, because you probably have some friends who have the winter blues and could use this episode. So hit that share button. Text it out to your friend group or just somebody that the Lord lays on your heart. 

But before we hear from Gretchen, we need our resident ray of sunshine. I call her that a lot. She really is such a ray of sunshine to the Grounded team. Portia Collins is in the house. Portia, what's the good news today?

Good News: The Blessing of a Church

Portia Collins: Good morning. All right, so we're gonna start here, “Mental Health Needs to be Talked About.” That's the headline of an article from the pastor of Calvary Fellowship in West Hartford, Connecticut, with the pandemic causing a secondary epidemic, and that is a dramatic increase in anxiety and depression. This pastor decided to do something about it. 

His church featured an eight-week discussion on mental health. He led the congregation and visitors through a study on the life of Elijah, to draw from the Prophet's life to demonstrate that everyone struggles with times of emotional unwellness. His goal was to remove the stigma associated with the way these past two years have impacted our moods and emotions. 

He wanted to invite people to seek solutions . . . where? In God's Word. Check this quote out, “These are divided times we're living in, said the pastor, and with the pandemic, so many people are angry about something, frustrated about something. The more we're going through alone—emotionally, mentally, spiritually—the harder it is.” 

The pastor shared this disclaimer that he was not trying to replace professionals who can help those with needs, but wanted to provide a biblical framework. I love this Christian community to talk about a real need. The church had completed this study and based on the photos on their Facebook page, it was packed guys—get this—every Saturday morning for eight weeks. People want biblical solutions to their depression. And you know, the good news tucked inside this story is pretty simple. They're talking about depression, the conversation is happening in the church. And praise God for that, especially since King David sure did his share of writing about it. We think this lines up with Scripture. 

And I guess there's a kind of second piece of good news here. And that is people were drawn to the body of Christ through this eight-week course. 

We want to invite you to talk about your challenges with mental health. Don't bottle it up or keep silent. There's no shame in whatever emotional struggle you're facing. Let it draw you to the Lord and His people.

Erin: And there's a third piece of good news in the mix, and that's your Tiger cardigan, Portia. That thing is amazing. 

Portia: Thank you. 

Grounded in the Word: Ps. 74:16–17

Erin: I love it. Hey, flip from silly to serious. My church actually has been addressing suicide in recent weeks. There has been quite a swell of people talking about what's going on in their own lives. There really is power in dragging things into the light. 

So, maybe it isn't the winters that give you that give you the season that shows up on your calendar at all. Many people struggle with anxiety and depression during the holidays or a certain holiday or maybe a season of loneliness because you've switched jobs or switch communities. It can even be busy seasons, which feels counterintuitive. At the Davis house it is basketball season, which means that our weekends are really full. I get the blues after too many weeks of that because it separates me from my friendships. 

So, my dose of hope for you in any season of sorrow, when you're just in a funk, and you feel like you can't snap out of it comes from Psalms, of course, which is a great place for us to turn when we're feeling the doldrums Psalm chapter 74. Verses 16 through 17. Let me read it to you. 

Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter.

Here's your line to underline friends, you have made summer and winter. Here's an idea that is so simple, but it's also so powerful. God is a four-season God. The days are His; the night is His. The summer is His; the winter is His. He's no less our king when we are facing prolonged seasons of sorrow than he is when we are in prolonged seasons of rejoicing. 

Now today, winter is starting to wind down here in Missouri where we live even though Punxsutawney Phil says we're supposed to get more winter. And the prediction unfortunately is for another winter storm to come. But I'm starting to see evidence of spring. And here is the biggest evidence I'm seeing. These lovelies have started arriving in my mailbox every day—you farmers know what these are. These are seed catalogs. I cannot get enough of them. They don't start showing up until it is time for us to start thinking about our gardens, which means gardening season, spring, is not far away. 

I live on a farm, and I have a big garden. And here's a lesson that God uses my garden to teach me every single year: He is at work during the long dark seasons. Every year after the last harvest, I fill my garden with spinach seeds. It's a process called overwintering. And that's because spinach replaces the nitrates that plants like tomatoes and green beans take for my soil every year. Turnips also replaces the nitrates but frankly, I don't like turnips, so I overwinter with spinach. So last year when I was done harvesting, I filled the garden with spinach and nothing happens. 

For months, I look out my window and my garden just looks like an ugly scar on the face of the earth. There's no green, there's no plants, there's no growth, or so it seems. But those spinach seeds they're lying in wait. The first few warm days of spring they will burst up from the ground with the yummiest deep green leaves. 

And every year as I watch that process, God uses the winter months to show me that he uses the winter to prepare me for growth. Not just my spinach sleep. So listen to Psalm 74:16 through 17 Again, yours is the day. 

Yours is the day, yours also the night;
you have established the heavenly lights and the sun.
You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth;
you have made summer and winter.

After I harvest that overwintered spinach, I till the soil. It all gets tilled up to provide a place for more fruit. And the truth is God is at work in the day; God is at work in the night. God is at work in the summer; God is at work in the winter. God is at work in your seasons of great joy, and God is at work in your seasons of great suffering. For the follower of Jesus, that all gets tilled in the soil of our hearts to produce fruitfulness. 

And while it's true, the summers of our soul may feel better than the winters of our soul. It's not true that the summers are necessarily better for us. God's using all of it. 

So, if you look at your life right now, and it just looks bare, like my garden does this morning, here's hope: Once again, God is a four-seasons God, and He uses all seasons to produce fruit in us. That is probably even better than that spinach that I can't wait to eat. Portia.

Portia: Oh, you know what? You have some of the most incredible illustrations. You know how to make it plain. That was great. So, thank you so much.

Erin: They all come from the farm. The farm helps so much.

Portia: I know. You gotta make me a farm girl, because even though I live in the country, I am not a farm girl at all.

Erin: I will try. 

Portia: Well, y'all know that? Surprisingly, although I am the resident ray of sunshine, and I'm typically bubbly, I'm also someone who struggles with seasons of depression. There are seasons of depression. But I've learned this just because I am down in the dumps, it doesn't mean that I don't have hope, eternal hope. In fact, it's during those low seasons that cause me to cry out to God all the more. So, if you are discouraged today or like me, someone who has a pattern of getting the blues, then I encourage you to listen to this short video of Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. She’s sharing the one thing your discouraged heart needs to hear most.

Video

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: It is our humanness. The Lord Jesus experienced very human emotions. It's not sinful to weep. It's not sinful to be in distress. David strengthened and encouraged himself physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, in every way. He strengthened himself in the Lord. 

He turned to God, first, before human counselors, human helpers, human means of support. And God was available to David in that distressful moment, even though David had probably been out of God's will in the first place by being allied with the Philistines. It was probably a lapse of faith on David's part that led him to run away to the Philistines, but God was merciful. 

God was available to David when he turned to the Lord to strengthen himself in God. All through the Scripture we see that God is the true, ultimate, and perfect source of encouragement. Whenever we need it, for whatever reasons, whatever other people around us may be doing, God is the God of encouragement.

Dannah: What a sweet and simple reminder from Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth. We are going to go to God right now. We're going to get grounded with God's people. Our guest this morning is Gretchen Ronnevik. She's a prolific writer. You'll find her thoughts in places like the Gospel Coalition website.

She's gonna help us take these winter seasons of blues to the spiritual disciplines, which of them apply and can help us. I think it's probably worth noting that Gretchen has in her writing admitted that she knows all about the mental slug of February and March, and she knows about it very acutely. Gretchen, welcome to Grounded.

Gretchen Ronnevik: Thank you for having me.

Dannah: Hey, tell me what do you mean by mental slug? And how is it that you're so acutely familiar with it?

Gretchen: Well, this winter has been especially difficult. I live in Minnesota on a farm; my husband farms full time. This winter has just been rough. We have had so many days below zero, and it's just not fun to go outside. This year, more than any other, I've been on top of the vitamin D. I bought myself a therapy lamp. It's just the slug of it all. 

I'm a homeschool mom. And so, I'm just home all day with the kids. It can be hard to reconcile my faith and how I want it to look like, and at the same time, I'm not feeling what I wish I was feeling all the time.

Dannah: Yeah. Yeah, I felt some of those days this winter. We've had a really dark, really cold winter. This year, we're talking negative temperatures, we feel the negative temperatures, not actual negative temperatures, and lots of darkness. I’m right there with you. 

I know that one of the reasons you started writing about this is because there was a time when you realized that you had to be more strategic about handling the seasons of winter blues and sluggishness. You were doing all the right things that Christian women do. But you were feeling extreme exhaustion. Can you take us back to that time when you first realized you needed to handle this differently? What was going on in your life that cued you in?

Gretchen: Actually, it was a car accident about seven or eight years ago. It kind of left me with chronic pain—dealing with pain on a regular basis—which led to dealing with anxiety on a regular basis. It kind of triggers everything. 

Dannah: Yeah.

Gretchen: I had a lot of help from my church and from my family. It was hard to accept help from others. I remember praying one day. I'd gone through the physical therapy, and I was getting all of the help, and I was starting to get better. I prayed this prayer, “Lord, don't worry, I'm getting better. I'm not going to need You so much in the future. I'm getting myself together.” 

And that really struck me that my goal in my mind for my spiritual life was to be independent of God, or do my spiritual disciplines in a way where I was not really accepting my own need and recognizing my need. 

Dannah: Wow. 

Gretchen: So, I've learned especially with the spiritual disciplines, one of the big keys is to recognize my deep need as something that God is not afraid of. I'm not gonna be too needy for Him. And He's actually wanting to get me to the place where I'm like, “I've got nothing. I need You more than anything. And He is more than willing to meet me in that place.”

Dannah: You have touched on a really big nerve in female Christianity, because I feel like we have a problem with our neediness. You said you didn't want to have the help from others, and you didn't want to have the help from God. And He actually is our helper, a very present help in times of trouble. That is part of His character. He wants to help us. He created us in the Body to need one another. 

We talk a lot at Revive Our Hearts about the one another's of Scripture, how dependent we are on one another: to meet one another's needs, help one another, forgive one another, encourage one another. Why do you think it is? Why do you think it is that women struggle so much with being uncomfortable with being needy and needing help?

Gretchen: I think where we're wanting to get our acceptance from being good enough, in some way or the other, especially when it comes to spiritual disciplines. I can be very hard on myself because I know the importance of being in the Word. I know the importance of praying. 

It can very easily go into a performance-driven thing in a Christian life. When we recognize our need, then we can really ask God for anything. “God, can You help me with this? Can You remind me? Can You prick my conscience? Can You send me a friend? Can You know all of these things?” I also think it might just be culturally here in America, we tend to view our faith very individual focused. 

And so, when we're looking at our spiritual disciplines, we're really only seeing it through me and Jesus. 

But He has given us the Church. He has given us a pastor in a preacher and shepherd and the one anothers. I remember one time I had just gone through such a dry spell of not reading the Word, and I felt so guilty about it. I finally reached out to a friend and I said, “I don't even know where to start. I don't know which book I should study next. I don't know. I just feel really guilty.”

She copied and pasted what she had read that day into the text stream. And so, I read her text with Scripture in it. And she said, “Well, droughts over. You’re back in the Word now.” And it was giving it to me. She didn't say, “Well, shame on you for being in such a dry spell.” She's like, “You're hungry for the Word. I have it right here. I will put it in front of your face.” And just the way that we can support one another, so that we know that we're not alone. God has not placed us in this Christian life alone.

Dannah: Yeah. So, you are saying that the spiritual disciplines and experiencing those spiritual disciplines—the Word, and you haven't mentioned it yet, but I'm going to assume prayer with others—has helped you with the winter blues. Is that right?

Gretchen: Yep. Yep.

Dannah: So, can I ask a question? I'm going to kind of get asked a devil's advocate question. Isn't it kind of counterintuitive to a woman who's struggling with the blues? I mean, you just said a moment ago, you reached out to a friend because you're like, I can't do that, when I can't do the disciplines on my own. Is it counterintuitive to say to that woman who's struggling, “Well, you just need to pray and read your Bible more?”

Gretchen: Yeah, I think we can very easily judge others who are struggling. It's something I would like us to get better at, to come around and support one another. 

And also understand what we're fixing our eyes on. Hebrews 12 talks about fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. I love that idea, that He's the one who authored our faith, He is the one who is perfecting our faith. So often we look to ourselves to be the source of that, all of that and say, “Okay, I have to get myself together so that God will reach me,” instead of saying, “Lord, I need your help.” And so doing that to each other, then of instead of saying, “Okay, you need to get your act together.” It's saying, “Let's fix our eyes on Jesus and in making sure we have that theology right, as we're encouraging one another.”

Dannah: I love that that's some serious spiritual vitamin D for us. What's that? Tell us that passage of Scripture again so that we can be encouraged by it? What's the reference?

Gretchen: Hebrews 12:2. 

Dannah: Hebrews 12:2 Fix your eyes on Jesus, sister. 

Now, I want to say we're not saying that if you're struggling with chronic medically diagnosed, depression that reading your Bible and praying is the only thing you need to do. You may need some professional help. You may need a doctor or a therapist. There's no shame in that. I've needed those things myself a time or two. But I've also found that the spiritual disciplines are a really big part of a comprehensive plan for me to get on top of my emotions. Looking at Jesus instead of the dark skies outside has been a really important part of it. 

Gretchen, thank you for being with us today. I'm so grateful.

Gretchen: Thank you for having me.

Dannah: Gretchen Ronnevik is the author of Ragged: Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritually Exhausted. You want a copy of this book. She will encourage you so much in these pages as she has fought her battle of the blues and pain and anxiety with the Word and the spiritual disciplines she's going to coach you through. We will drop a link to that book in today's comments. 

Erin and Portia, tell us: do you have any tools for us to get a little bit deeper into this topic today?

Erin: We do, but first we get to hear from Robyn McKelvy. She is standing by.

Dannah: Oh, how can I forget Robyn? My job—I even have a Post-it note here.

Erin: Okay, read it. What’s the Post-it note say? 

Dannah: It says, “Introduce Robyn after the interview.” And it says that Robyn’s gonna tell us about how to minister to someone who's experiencing the winter blues.

Erin: Okay, Robyn, take it away. We’ve got you.

Robyn McKelvy: I have a very close personal example of this. I found out that normally the CDC says over 94% of people don't get enough vitamin D from their food. And so, my husband, he is an avid outdoors person. I mean, he loves the sunlight. 

So, to stay inside during the winter months, that's just not his cup of tea. Let me tell you what my husband does. He begins raising the windows around the house so that he can air out the house and just to make it brighter. There's only one problem with that for the rest of the family. The sun may be bright outside, but the windchill is still below zero. 

So, everybody else was walking around the house freezing. I understand that sun exposure produces vitamin D naturally, but I had to find a different way to bring sun to this man, because he was about to freeze me out of this house. 

So, the Lord has just given me some creative ways to do this. That's because God is good all the time. But one of the things that I got for him is called a happy light. It's a sun light. I know I'm blinding you guys, but some people really have a need for sun. So, this is something in this time and season where we can buy these kinds of lights for those that need the sun during the winter months. 

Another thing that's so fun and creative to do is throw a summer party inside. Put a blanket on the floor. Cook you some hot dogs. Roast them, even if you have to have them over your stove over the burners on your stove, but have fun. 

I think another very important thing is that we keep having conversations with those that we love that may suffer with depression. Talk about the things that God has blessed them with. Remember to remind them of all of the good stuff that's in their lives in the midst of these dreary winter months. Keep reminding them that summer's coming. 

Another thing that we need to do is, we need to turn off the TV and turn up the praise. Play songs that make your heart happy. If your heart is happy, then you have the ability to make others happy. So, turn on the praise and then send those praise songs by text, by email, by Spotify, however, to the person whose day you want to brighten. 

Another thing that's important, I think, is we need to have more parties. Make their favorite meal. Be vitamin D by celebrating this person with the winter blues, just because. And then Psalm 30:11 and 12 tells us this. It says, 

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
you have loosed my sackcloth
and clothed me with gladness,
that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

I think that's so important that we become this vitamin D for the person dealing with the winter blues. But don't just serve them vitamin D, serve them this with the side of caring, serve them with a side of compassion, and serve them every day with a sign of love. Because 1 John 4:7–8 says this,

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

And that's what our thoughts need.

Erin: One of the things I love most about you as you just love your people through it, whatever it is they're going through. You love them through it. Hot dog party, I’m coming for you. Sunday, Jason and I are gonna be snowbirds. But until then, we can't move to the Caribbean every year. We actually have a happy light at our house, too. And something that's been a godsend to me this year is, I've taken a walk every day of 2022. No matter the weather, no matter the temperature, just moving my body has helped so much. 

So, we need things to help us. We need each other to help us. We need tools to help us ground ourselves in God's truth. Whenever seasons of the doldrums or winter hit, we've got two podcast recommendations for you. Maybe listen to them in your earbuds while you're taking a walk today. 

The first is a Revive Our HeartsWeekend podcast called “Provisions of Winter.” Our own Dannah Gresh hosts the best of the best Revive Our Hearts podcast every weekend. This one is on the lessons we can learn from winter weather, winter storms, and even those winter seasons of the soul. Hint, they might be parables like my spinach. So we're going to drop the link to make it easy for you to find that podcast episode.

Portia: Absolutely. And we want to recommend The Deep Well season from who Erin which, like I said, if you don't know, this is a podcast that is packed with so much good teaching from our sweet Erin. The newest season is called “Eclipses: When the Darkness Seems to Overwhelm the Light.” So, Erin, tell us a little bit what is that season about?

Erin: Well, I trace places in the Bible. We start in Genesis, we end in Revelation, and lots of stops along the way. But those places in Scripture where it seemed like the darkness was going to win, but in fact, the light pushed back. I developed it during a season of the blahs in my own life.

Dannah: Come delight is a fact. 

Erin: You girls are my vitamin D every Monday. Let’s wake with hope together next week on Grounded.

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