Living with leviathan
Dragons that refuse to be slain
The Redbud Hyphen is a literary magazine written by women from diverse backgrounds who are part of the Redbud Writers Guild. The following piece is the first essay for our focus on Dragons in the Bible. Read more here about our exploration of the themes for 2026, which we will share this year through creative and reflective writing.
By: Jean L. Neely, PhD
We live in such a can-do culture, and triumphalist tendencies often seep into our faith and church spaces as well.
So it can feel like we’re doing something wrong if we can’t manage to defeat the dragons in our lives. But there are so many dragons that aren’t easy to defeat or flee.
Sometimes the dragons reside in our bodies—things like cancer or chronic illness. There are monstrous griefs that swallow you whole, things I can only imagine but that so many people have to face, like losing a child… like war landing on your street… There are the dragons of brutal systems that devour people alive…
In my own life, depression has been the ever-present leviathan, with its sidekick, the dragon of anxiety. Sometimes these monsters yield a bit to medication, but never completely. They’ll soften and sleep for a bit, but they’re always there. Occasionally, their buddy mania will burst in for a fun but invariably disruptive visit.
I don’t believe that outright defeat of these monsters is impossible for God, but God hasn’t swooped in to slay my dragons or enabled me to escape them completely. I’ve had to learn to live with them.
It used to feel more painful to live with my dragons, partly because for many years I couldn’t help thinking God might be upset or constantly exasperated with me for not being able to defeat them.
Some of us have to walk through fire after fire, or dwell for long seasons in the abyss with the beasts of the deep ever present. For any of you who’ve also found it difficult to trust in God’s mercy as you face undefeated dragons, I wanted to offer some encouragement and suggestions. (These are things that were so tough for me to do for myself until recently.)
Be kind to yourself —Try not to blame or reject yourself for things outside your control. With mental suffering, it can be particularly easy to blame and shame ourselves for struggling. Try to acknowledge and face your challenges without beating yourself up.
Give yourself permission to rest— I used to believe that I wasn’t allowed to rest as long as depression was in my life, that I had to be in constant battle, every hour of every day, as long as the beast was still there. I thought doing otherwise would mean I was lazy or lacking faith. Living like that is exhausting. You are allowed to be 100% human. We do have our own work to do in learning to live well with daily dragons, but it’s OK to be tired and take a break.
Give yourself credit for the small wins —Don’t dismiss your efforts in the little things. We can consider making it through the day as a win. Sometimes just getting out of bed is a win. Try not to compare yourself with others. (This gets me all the time—the performance and comparison trap!) The fact that you’re not giving up is a win. Don’t assume total defeat just because you haven’t managed to slay the dragons. Learning how to live with them still breathing down your neck is a solid win. Learning how to swim with leviathan can become a kind of gift- you might gain a tolerance for certain pressures and slowly grow new muscles for survival in the depths.
Trust that God is with you. —Not being able to defeat the dragons in your life does not mean God has abandoned you, whether you feel God’s presence or not. Your feelings aren’t always reliable, and they don’t have the final word. Things like depression can dull all our spiritual senses. Even if you feel nothing but fog, absence, and desolation, God still holds you.
You need not despair. And God’s mercy is enough when you do. —The path of faith is tough. It’d be wonderful to have great faith that endures rock-like through battle upon grueling battle without losing trust in God. Some people have the gift of that kind of faith. But personally, there have been times, especially when I’m depressed, when faith has felt impossible. In those times, let yourself trust that God’s mercy is more expansive than you can imagine.
I used to be afraid that my faltering faith meant that I could fall outside of mercy’s reach. Part of my healing came from a slow shift in perspective, from the realization that even if in this life I never defeat my dragons, even if I have to wrestle with bipolar symptoms and anxiety and depression and doubt to my dying day, Christ has compassion on me and is with me through the unrelenting toil.
I don’t know about tomorrow, but today I trust that Christ holds me in his love even when I feel swallowed up by Leviathan in the abyss, even when I’m captive to the dragon of despair, when I feel abandoned by God.
Christ is the One who can’t stop loving us even when the dragons are inside us, all around us, and when they swallow us whole. It took me so long to grow into this kind of trust, but I believe that Christ holds me even when, in the clutches of despair, I happen to lose faith.
Some might call me a heretic, but that’s who Christ is for me. That’s who Christ has to be for me, given the dragons I swim with. I trust that even if these dragons win, they don’t win. Because I belong to Christ. Because I am my Beloved’s, and he is mine.
God may not slay our dragons, but God’s love holds us through the fire. Even when the depths swarm with leviathans, God can make home with us in the abyss.
Jean L. Neely, PhD, is a Korean American writer and educator and the author of Christ in the Abyss: Cultivating Deep Faith Amid Depression and Despair (NavPress, June 2026). She has degrees in Comparative Literature from UC Irvine and Sorbonne University in Paris and a doctorate in English Literature from the University of Southern California. Jean teaches writing and literature and writes regularly on issues of mental health and faith. Learn more at jeanneelywriter.com. Subscribe to her Substack at mercyinthedeep.substack.com. Jean is on Instagram @jeanneelywriter and Facebook @DrJeanNeely.
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Well said! After talking with you this weekend at the SoCal meet up, I felt like I had the context to read this and appreciate it even more. Especially as I consider my own dragons that refuse to be slain.
Thank you Jean. This is so helpful for those of us learning to swim with monsters, day by day, year by year. We are not called, I don't think, to defeat anything, only to pray and trust. Love will win by faith in the end.