The Depression Chronicles, Part 1

by Evan Wicker

“You’re under arrest”, I said. As soon as the words were spoken, the suspect’s demeanor changed. He quickly moved away from me as I grabbed his left wrist. He began to combatively struggle and resist arrest. He was, by his own admission, intoxicated and probably high. During the tussle he ended up face down on the hood of my vehicle with all my strength and weight pinning him to the car. I was forced to use a rear wrist lock to gain compliance and place him into handcuffs, which seemed to work with quick results.  As soon as I was in control of the arrestee, I had an existential moment. “My hands,” I thought to myself. “What am I doing here?” I wasn’t injured, but I was struck with a deep irony that I could not escape. 

These hands that once were used to serve communion, pray over the sick, and lead the people of God in worship were now being used in a manner that could not be further from my former vocation.  The juxtaposition hit me with force. I did not think that what I was doing was morally wrong, just on different ends of the moral spectrum of mercy and justice. I once dedicated my life to a life of mercy, to use my hands to increase God’s grace and mercy in the world. Now, I found myself executing justice on a daily basis. I could not help but reflect on the moment: how did I end up here? How did I go from using my hands to serve God’s people to serving out state justice? 

An overly simplistic answer might be that I completely failed at my last church. In fact, I was asked to resign after I was falsely accused of angry outbursts during a youth retreat. None of the accusations were true, but the church elders were already convinced of the events before I even returned from the trip. I was too hurt and felt too betrayed to even defend myself. They were already convinced of my wrong-doing, so I left with no intention ever to return to the pastorate. It never ceases to amaze me what one manipulative person can accomplish with half-truths, but I digress. 

The more complex answer involves something much deeper and much more personal: clinical depression. This mental illness has plagued me since my last year in college (along with another serious mental health diagnoses). It has been the bane of my existence and has led me to make regretful and baffling decisions over the course of my life. The struggle has impacted all facets of my existence, especially my relationships and vocation. For a long time I was unable to handle the emotional investments required of someone in the pastorate. When you find it impossible to love yourself and your life, others’ needs quickly become unmanageable. Depression taints your entire outlook. It breaks your brain’s ability to function in many ways. Your self-talk is constantly questioning your abilities, sabotaging your motivations, and covering everything and everyone in a cloud of despair. The inevitable conflicts and attacks in pastoral ministry only reinforced what my thoughts already believed. And, I am sad to say, I let depression win…for a time. 

Before I met my wife, I had two major episodes where I nearly ended my own life. The first occurred while in seminary. I did not know it was clinical depression at the time. In fact, the seminary where I was training had a nouthetic view of counseling and psychology. This perspective tends to see mental problems as spiritual problems which can be solved through proper application of biblical principles. From the training I received, I learned that this perspective takes all psychology as nonsense and non-scientific, outright rejecting psychological categories and diagnoses. Depression is merely a spiritual issue requiring spiritual direction to once again find “joy in the Lord”. However, no matter how much I prayed and how much I repented of sin, nothing changed. Intrusive thoughts continued and worsened; despair covered all. I was actually on the brink of suicide. 

So, what does a borderline suicidal seminarian do? He quits mid-semester and moves back to a familiar place. Ironically, I moved back to my college town for a temporary internship with the church I served while a student. It was free housing, a paycheck, and near my sister who lived there at the time. I also had a few friends still in town, so it was a better alternative than ending my life in Texas. Over the course of the next year, something began to happen in my relationship with God. My depression was not healed (which can take years depending on your diagnoses!), but I began to gain a new perspective. A paradigm shift was occurring in my relationship with God. It was during this time that I heard a famous quote, “God’s office is at the end of your rope.” I hoped I was on time for my appointment. 

During this time in my life, I began to question everything. In my soul-searching, I had found that much of my faith had been based on a lie. I had believed that true Christians were always supposed to be growing in their holiness, or else they were “backsliding”. “Real Christians” are supposed to rejoice in their suffering. “Real Christians” don’t constantly doubt. “Real Christians” are supposed to be growing holier every day. “Real Christians” are supposed to be better, but I only felt I was getting worse. So, what was the alternative? I saw only three options. Either I am a backsliding Christian who needs to repent (of which I did constantly), or I am not a true Christian, or this whole Christian thing is a hoax. At my lowest, I considered the third option, that God isn’t real and I might as well give up trying to live up to an impossible standard. But most days, I just felt that I wasn’t a true believer. 

However, in God’s mercy, He showed me a fourth option: I was wrong about “real Christians”. I stumbled upon a book during this time by a former pastor himself, Steve Brown, called Scandalous Freedom. It literally saved my faith, and may have saved my life. In the book he talks about true Christian freedom, a freedom based on God’s radical unconditional love for his children. Brown states, 

“Some reveal their flight from freedom in the comment, ‘Of course we’re free, but that doesn’t mean we’re free to     sin. It means we’re free not to sin.’ That sounds so very spiritual, and I believe there is something to it. In fact, I have the freedom to do some really good things I could never do before…Still, if freedom doesn’t include the freedom not to obey, then it isn’t real freedom. Paul said, ‘For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence (Gal. 5:13).’ He didn’t want them to, but they could. Why? They are free.” 

Brown is not waxing eloquent here about an antinomian view of Christianity, as he makes clear in the book. Instead, what he is saying is that we are truly free to fail because we already are. Any Christian who takes God’s law seriously will learn that we consistently do not measure up to his holiness, and are daily in need of his forgiveness and his righteousness. In my darkest hour, these words were life to me. My brokenness was pushing me to faith and trust in the one thing that had to be true–nothing, not even myself, can separate me from the love of God in Christ. I could boldly approach Christ with all my darkness, doubts, and failures and know–really, truly know– that he won’t turn away. At that moment, for the first time, I realized that Martin Luther was right, “The whole of the Christian life is one of repentance.” Christ was there all along waiting for me at the end of my rope.