Things We Don’t Talk About: Jesus and Depression
Have you ever found a scripture that changed your life?
I did, and it’s not even Jesus who said it. It’s not from the gospels or Paul.
It’s actually our psalm today, Psalm 84.
Take a look back at it in your bulletin if you’d like—sometimes the psalm can kind of speed past us in the service and we don’t always absorb it—and I’ll tell you how Psalm 84 and I began our journey together.
I’ve dealt with clinical depression all of my adult life.
There were signs that it was emerging in high school and then it really crashed in on me catastrophically my freshman year in college.
The bottom dropped out of my mind and spirit quite abruptly.
Those of you who have dealt with this yourselves or walked this with family members know what it’s like to see the world in grayscale, as though your body has somehow biologically lost the ability to see color.
You know what it’s like to have to fight every single day to get out of bed, to struggle to fulfill the most basic responsibilities, to feel your world shrinking smaller and smaller around you.
You know what it’s like to feel suicide creeping closer and closer, tempting you with the idea of such blessed rest and peace, until the only things holding you back are the pain of your friends and family and frankly, the effort it would actually take to kill yourself.
Most people who have suicidal ideation have one specific temptation for how they would go about it.
For me it was driving my car into the supports of an overpass on the freeway.
At one point my junior year I had to give my car keys to my roommate because I didn’t trust myself not to do it.
I know I’m not the only one who’s been there. Continue reading