Mom and Dad had just come back downstairs after placing their daughter into her crib and watching her drift off to a peaceful sleep. They plopped themselves down in the family room and picked up the books they read each evening once their daughter was tucked away for the night. They had only been reading for five minutes or so when Howard broke the silence. "Honey, do you know what tomorrow is?" "I think so, it's Friday, right?" "No, no, I don't mean what day of the week it is, I mean tomorrow is a special occasion."
Ellen looked a bit puzzled but started guessing. "Well, let's see. It's not my birthday and it's not your birthday. It's not Christmas or Easter or the Fourth of July. Howard, tomorrow is not our anniversary. That's next month."
"I know that! I didn't think tomorrow was our anniversary. But tomorrow is a special day." Ellen thought about it for a few seconds and then admitted that she had no clue what tomorrow was.
Howard announced that it was their daughter's six month birthday. "She'll be one-half of a year-old tomorrow and I thought we should celebrate it with a party. You know, cake and ice cream and a couple of presents."
"Cake and ice cream? Howard, all she eats are strained carrots and beets."
"I know. But I thought we could eat the cake and ice cream."
"Howard, you just don't celebrate six months. You wait until her real birthday when she is one year old."
"Okay, it was just an idea. Maybe it wasn't such a good one."
Over the next few months they experienced all the joys of watching their first child's development - the first time she crawled, the first time she stood up, her first taste of ice cream. But then, just a few weeks prior to their daughter's first birthday, Ellen began experiencing difficulties. Howard called them "mood swings" and couldn't understand why she seemed down so much of the time. Things got worse. She didn't feel like eating and some days she did not want to climb out of bed.
Then, just a few days before their daughter's first birthday, Ellen was admitted to the psychiatric ward at the hospital. She was suffering from clinical depression.
Howard was embarrassed and didn't want anyone to know, but he had to go to work, and that meant someone would have to stay with their daughter. Ellen's parents were always busy doing things for themselves and didn't show much interest in their granddaughter, so he called his mom and explained what had happened. She was pleased to be asked and happy to help out.
In three or four days, everyone knew that Ellen was hospitalized and the phone calls started coming in. Some people were genuinely concerned and wondered what they could do to help, but some of the calls made Howard furious. After one such call he slammed his fist down on the kitchen counter. A so-called "friend" from church had called and explained that she would be with her prayer group that evening and wanted to share the details of Ellen's condition with the others.
Howard's mom said to him, "What's wrong with that? It sounds like they're concerned about her and want to remember her in prayer."
"Mom, you don't understand. This prayer group has degenerated into a gossip group. Their main purpose is not so much to pray for others as it is to talk about others. They are precisely the kind of people that give Christianity a bad name. I'll bet God cringes every time they get together."
Three weeks went by before Ellen came home from the hospital. She was better, but she wasn't her old self. There were still times when she felt gloomy and she would cry at almost anything.
After she was home for a few days a friend called, and asked if she could come by for a visit. Ellen felt very anxious and wanted to say "No," but she knew she could not hide out in her home and avoid people indefinitely, so she agreed.
When her friend arrived at the front door and greeted Ellen with a hug, Ellen began to relax. It was good to see her friend again and to catch up on her life. She and her husband had recently returned from a cruise in the Caribbean. They had eaten too much food, drank too much wine and bought too many items while shopping on one of the islands, but they had thoroughly enjoyed themselves and felt as if they had taken a second honeymoon.
But then the conversation became uncomfortable. Her friend began to ask questions about Ellen's stay in the hospital, and said she didn't see why Ellen should be feeling down. "Your husband has a good job," she said. "You live in a nice neighborhood. You have a beautiful daughter. Why are you depressed?"
Ellen was at a loss for words. She didn't know why she was feeling so empty inside. She didn't know why she felt so much despair. She didn't know why the tears flowed so freely. They just did. She made several attempts to explain, but her friend could not or would not understand. Ellen became frustrated and began to weep. Her friend stood up, said she needed to go now and left abruptly.
Ellen watched through the front curtains as her friend walked quickly down the sidewalk to her car, hopped inside and sped off. Ellen wheeled away from the window, shuffled over to the sofa and collapsed in tears. She buried her face in her hands and felt ashamed of herself.
Over the next few weeks she kept asking herself what she had done wrong. She wondered if God were punishing her for some sin? She heard a TV preacher railing about how mental illness derived from a lack of faith in God. True believers, he said, did not experience such problems.
The church had always been a high priority with Ellen. She was the chair of the Christian Education Committee and served on the session. Was her problem really a lack of faith?
A friend from the prayer/gossip group phoned to say that they were praying for her. And then she went on to imply that if Ellen would just pray hard enough everything would be fine.
Ellen began to feel guiltier than ever. The terrible black cloud was beginning to envelop her again. She recalled something she had read years before. The writer had defined hell not as a place, but as alienation from God. That accurately described what she felt much of the time. She felt lost and alone and alienated from everyone, especially God.
But then one day, an acquaintance from church paid a visit. She had never been a close friend of Ellen's, but they had worked on a couple of projects together. When Ellen opened the door, the woman held up a large plastic container which was filled with something. She said, "I fixed some vegetable soup for my family's dinner tonight and I guess I got a little carried away. I made way too much for us, and wondered if you might like to have some of it."
For a few moments Ellen just stood there, and then she replied, "I guess so. I don't know what I was going to do about dinner tonight."
Ellen invited the woman in and as she was putting the soup in the refrigerator, the woman said, "I'm sorry you have been having such a difficult time. Depression is really rough and people who have never experienced it don't understand. Sometimes it doesn't make any sense. On the outside life seems fine, but on the inside you feel terrible. Routine chores can seem like huge, impossible tasks. Minor problems seem like major catastrophes." They sat at the kitchen table and talked, and Ellen was amazed that someone else really understand what she was going through. At one point, tears came to Ellen's eyes, and her friend stood up. Ellen thought to herself, "Oh no, I've chased off another one."
But her friend didn't stand in order to leave. But only to come over to Ellen to comfort her with a hug, to hand her a handkerchief, and to reassure her that she was no stranger to tears. She had also had problems with depression and she knew how desperate it could make you feel. She was on her third different anti-depressant, but this one really seemed to be doing the job. She had been on it for about eighteen months, and had not experienced the darkness which she had battled off and on for many years. She told Ellen that it might take awhile, but her doctor could help her find the right medicine. "And don't you be ashamed of taking it," she said, "it's not a weakness in your character that's causing this problem. It's a chemical imbalance in your body. If you had a problem with your heart, you'd take heart medicine, wouldn't you? Well, when you have a problem with depression, you take an anti-depressant. But I have found that medicine isn't enough on its own. You also need the church."
A skeptical look covered Ellen's face. The church had not been exactly helpful to her since her problems began.
"I know," the woman nodded, "some Christians aren't very Christian. Some church people will add to your problem by making you feel guilty. They believe that if you just believe harder or pray harder, everything will be just fine. They just don't know any better. They don't understand how oppressive depression can be. They don't know what genuine darkness is."
"I just know that I wouldn't be doing as well as I am today, if it weren't for the church. For a long time, I prayed that God would take this depression away from me. But then I finally realized that what I really needed was to pray for the strength to endure it. God doesn't eliminate suffering. Heaven knows there is lots of it in the world. What God does is give us the fortitude to withstand it, and the stamina not to be defeated by it. This may sound peculiar, but I have discovered that I find more comfort in Christ's crucifixion than I do in his resurrection. Because, there have been times when I felt like people were crucifying me. They acted like my illness was my fault. I know first hand what it means to blame the victim for her troubles. And that's why the crucifixion of Christ means so much to me. Christ knew what it was to suffer, and to suffer unjustly. The crucifixion shows us that Christ stands with us in our suffering, and will never desert us."
Ellen found a true friend, a true soul-mate to help her with her struggle. And Christ calls us to be that same kind of friend to others. To be a faithful follower of Christ, is not to speak lofty platitudes or to be quick to judge or to place blame. It has nothing to do with acting as if we are better than others, or to act as if our lives are perfect or to claim that we have all the answers. Instead, it strikes a tone of genuine humility, one like Paul speaks of in this morning's passage. In writing to the church in Corinth he wrote, "I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. And I came to you in weakness." (1 Cor.2:1-5). That is, Paul came not in arrogance, as one looking down upon another. But rather in humility, standing side by side as a fellow human being.
There is a great deal of darkness in our world, and we are called to be like a light in the darkness. Not a glaring light that blinds others and turns them away with its harshness. And not a light that shines from such a great distance that it provides only minimal help. But rather, a light that stands in solidarity with those who are hurting and will not go out when times become difficult.
The passage we read from Isaiah spells out what kind of light we are to be. We are called "to loose the bonds of injustice...to free those who are oppressed...to share our bread with the hungry, and to bring the homeless into our homes...Then," writes the prophet, "Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and healing shall spring up quickly."
May we strive to be the kind of light that dispels darkness and brings hope to people's lives.
© 1999 Gregory Knox Jones, all rights reserved
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