Series: Tipping Points “From Darkness to Hope” (10)

(2 Corinthians)

1. today’s tipping point is the challenge of depression & the necessity of hope.

2. 1st a few statistics & facts about depression, the clinical side. Then the story side, specifically my story of depression. And thirdly, the Scripture side, the Scripture that carried me through my bout with darkness.

3. Oregon poet William Stafford has a book of poems entitled The Darkness Around Us in Deep, a perfect description of depression.

Clinical side
1. statistics:
à rates of depression have more than doubled in the last 50 years
à everyone will at some time in their life be affected by depression, their own or someone else’s
à 35 million Americans (more than 16% of the population) suffer from depression severe enough to warrant treatment at some time in their lives
à pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants in our country
à the rate of increase of depression among children is an astounding 23% (Harvard University study)
à 30% of women are depressed & depression among men is rising
à 15% of depressed people will commit suicide (recent memorial service for Art Bremer – no one commits suicide in their right mind)
à depression results in more absenteeism from work than almost any other disorder & costs employers more than $51 billion per year in lost productivity (2004 Rand Corporation report)

2. what are the symptoms?
à sad, anxious, or "empty" mood
à feelings of hopelessness, pessimism
à feelings of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness
à loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities that were once enjoyed, including sex
à decreased energy, fatigue, being "slowed down”
à difficulty concentrating, remembering, making decisions
à insomnia, early-morning wakening, or oversleeping
à appetite and/or weight loss
à thoughts of death or suicide; suicide attempts

3. risk factors:
à family history of depression
à death or illness of a loved one or close friend
à stressful conflicts
à physical, sexual, emotional abuse
à major life events such as moving, graduating from college, changing jobs, divorce, becoming a new parent, retiring

4. specific causes include
à unresolved anger (anger turned inward)
à experience of grief or loss
à desire for gain not yet realized
à chemical imbalance
à un-confessed or hidden sin
à the powers of darkness, Satan

5. depression is not a personal weakness. We can be sick or injured not just physically but emotionally, mentally & spiritually as well. Depression is an injured, broken, sprained soul.

My story of depression
1. what I want to do now is share a few vignettes of my depression with you. Portraits, episodes of what happened to me. This is my sacred realism.

2. November 23, 2000, 3am. I was curled up in a fetal position on the family room floor, racked with fear, anxiety & a sense of being overwhelmed with life. Something inside of me broke. I saw a counselor the next afternoon & was told you’re exhausted & depressed; you need a break.

3. 3 days later I was driving up 205 to where I was going to ‘hole up’ for the next week in a small apartment in a gated community on the Columbia River.

4. an inner voice told me to stop at Christian Supply on Division to buy a book. I walked into the store not knowing what I was looking for. 15 minutes later I walked out with a 536 page commentary on 2 Corinthians. This book coupled with 2 Corinthians literally saved my life.

5. I slept for hours that first week like I hadn’t slept in weeks. I took 2-3 hour naps during the day. Sleep felt like cold water poured down the throat of a man dying of thirst.

6. initially I couldn’t imagine ever returning to ministry or CAC. Pastoring a church was simply too hard, too taxing & too impossible. My insides felt like they were cut up into spaghetti. My inner core felt shredded.

7. Mike Higgs came to see me. He took me out to lunch. He asked pointed questions with carefulness & compassion. I told him I wasn’t ready to go back to church. He told me I didn’t have to. That if I needed more time away the elders would understand (and they did – Norm Beck, John Champ, Lee Gellinger & Bob Cryder).

8. a few weeks later Tim Gilmer came to visit. It was one of those days where it hurt to be alive. Tim simply told me the story of his depression after his accident. He spoke words that I have never forgotten & passed onto others swamped by depression – your depression will pass. He spoke words of hope.

9. getting out of bed each morning required a Herculean effort. I hated mornings. Physically & emotionally I felt like a 500 lb weight lay on top of me. I needed a crane to lift me up out of bed & some mornings that crane was no where to be found. There were many nights where I hardly slept once I came back home.

10. I remember grocery shopping at Thriftway for our Christmas dinner. I had a list of about 15 items to pick up. I walked into the store & felt overwhelmed. I didn’t know how I was going to do this. I couldn’t remember where anything was at. I broke out into a sweat. The simplest, easiest tasks felt Mt Everest-like in their complexity.

11. silence, solitude, & sunlight were golden. I couldn’t get enough of them. I spent 5 days alone in a motel at Cannon Beach. And then 3 days at the Best Western in Wilsonville. I needed the silence & solitude to heal. I read my Bible, read books & filled journals with what seemed like miles of entries. I was desperately trying to figure out what happened to me, why & what bearing this would have on the rest of my life. I felt so lost.

12. when I was scraping the bottom I made a pilgrimage to see Clara Webber. I told her I was undone, finished. I told her that God was a million light years away & had forgotten I even existed. The deep darkness had totally engulfed me.

13. Clara looked scared. She knelt beside me & began to pray. I was so exhausted I fell asleep. When I woke up she was still kneeling & still praying. The next day the darkness began to lift.

Reflection
1. I’ve just described a black time in my life that I can hardly fashion words to describe – a nervous breakdown. Today, I look back at those times & the person I was is almost beyond my recognition. I feel bent inside as a result of my crash & like Jacob I walk with a limp.

2. what happened? I experienced a paradigm crisis. Before November of 2000 I worked & willed & prayed my way through every obstacle or challenge in my path. This had served me well through 15 years of ministry & most of my life.

3. and then I came up against 3 obstacles that I couldn’t work, will or pray my way through though. I gave it my best Olympian shot. 3 seriously conflicted relationships with people in our church that I loved. I couldn’t forge a peace no matter how hard I tried. And 5 days after 1 of these people came into my office & told me they were leaving the church, I collapsed into a fetal position on our family room floor. I felt like a huge failure. That I had let the church down & that God had let me down.

4. what I eventually discovered was that too much of what I did was about me. I wanted everyone to like me. I tried to keep everyone happy. I was a people pleaser disguised as a Matthew 5 peacemaker. Eventually God’s message got through – he alone is my audience of One. He alone is who I am to please. It’s impossible to keep everyone happy & everyone agreeing with my every thought, decision & move.

2 Corinthians
1. now comes the good stuff. Now comes hope.

2. 2 Corinthians is the most personal of Paul’s writings. He lets us see into his life & the struggles, fears, anxieties, & challenges that resided there. I began reading 2 Corinthians & Scott Hafemann’s commentary in my little hidden apartment on the Columbia River. And slowly but surely hope began to break through the dark clouds.

3. 4 passages were pivotal in this breakthrough.

1:8-11 – we despaired even of life
1. Paul writes of hardships, suffering, great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, we despaired even of life, we felt the sentence of death. He is not describing the yellow brick road of ministry. This is Paul’s sacred reality.

2. what comes next? This happened that we might now rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead, on him we have set our hope, he has delivered us from such a deadly peril and he will deliver us, he will continue to deliver us.

3. these are wonderful words of life and hope. I crawled into them & sat for weeks on end.

4:7-12 – treasure in jars of clay
1. more powerful words. I was a clay jar holding a treasure. The treasure of Christ – this all surpassing power is from God and not from us.

2. and how does this Christ in me get worked out in my life? Hard pressed but not crushed. Perplexed but not in despair. Persecuted but not abandoned. Struck down but not destroyed. Christ doesn’t always take me out of tough times but comes to me with persevering power while in the midst of them.

3. I tethered myself to this phrase – struck down but not destroyed. I felt struck down by my depression but it didn’t have to destroy me. And it wouldn’t as long as I turned to the treasure Christ in my cracked & chipped clay pot.

7:5-7 – God’s comfort
1. hope kept coming as I kept working my way through 2 Corinthians.

2. no rest, harassed at every turn, conflicts on the outside, fears within. I could have written these words. Conflicts on the outside, yes, with people I dearly loved. Fears on the inside, yes, a steady, unstoppable stream of them like I’d never experienced before.

3. but God who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus. God comforts. The comfort comes from God through the coming of Titus to Paul.

4. God sent me some Titus’. Heather Hannah & Elizabeth were a safe haven of rest for me. Heather never gave up hope nor love nor support. Mike’s visit. Tim’s words. Norm & the elders were huge. Kelvin our DS & my pastor – he gave me Brennan Manning’s Ruthless Trust, another key book in my recovery. Rick my cousin. My parents. Heather’s family. Gary. Hope gradually come through these people minted in God’s mercy & love.

12:1-10 – power made perfect in weakness
1. I memorized 12:9-10. I prayed them. I meditated on them. I let them strengthen me, feed me, nourish me. They became the very personal, direct word of God to me.

God’s power is made perfect in my weakness
I boast in my weaknesses – Christ’s power rests on me
I delight in weaknesses insults hardships persecutions
difficulties
when I am weak then I am strong

3. my old paradigm (I can will, work, pray my way through anything) was transformed into a new paradigm (in my weaknesses & difficulties God’s grace & Christ’s power are all I need).

Last words
1. when we are depressed what we need more than anything else is hope. Hope that springs from the heart of God. Hope that finds us through Scripture. Hope that touches us through God’s people, family & friends.

2. this morning I can’t stress enough the importance of Scripture. God’s word worked to heal & comfort me in a manner nothing else could. I saw my medical doctor, I went on medication, I saw counselors for the next 2-3 years (3 different ones) & I had the best of family, friends & church.

3. but Scripture topped them all. 2 Corinthians was God’s conversation with me. The God who comforts & gives hope did not let me down.

4. whatever your struggles are this morning, God’s power & God’s hope are sufficient. 2 Corinthians reminds us that God did not so much deliver Paul out of his difficult circumstances as much as he strengthened & en-hoped him from within them.

5. as we come to the celebration of communion this morning, God is able. God gives hope. God gives power. God heals. God’s grace is sufficient for our weakness.