Depression

I’ve learned from the book that depression is not what I thought it was. Depression is a multidimensional wound that cannot be healed by reducing it only to biological dysfunction. The term “sickness” is a social construct that exacerbates the pain beyond the person and into public scrutiny and stigmatization. Finally, the local church and the Bible can offer significant hope to depression sufferers.

I sympathize with those ravaged by depression but unable to grasp its brutality on a person’s soul. McBain’s exposition on depression helps illuminate a complex subject hidden under my ignorance. “Depression is a total body experience that isolates the sufferer from everything real” (p. 22). The story of Robert Taylor’s drowning helps me conceptualize the isolation the sufferer goes through. Surrounded by death, detached from reality, alienated from the very people trying desperately to help. The biblical story of a father kneeling before Jesus begging to heal his son who “has seizures and suffers terribly” (Mat 17:15) exemplifies this desperation. Exasperated, the father says, “I brought him to your disciples, and they could not heal him” (verse 17). This statement spotlights the deficiency of the church to be Jesus to those who are sufferings and, to a greater extent, my failure as a disciple of the Lord. McBain’s personal story and research have illuminated my ignorance and agnosy about depression and compelled me to learn and hopefully engage in a spiritually meaningful way.

“Depression is a fleshly and physical reality that creates a barrier that separates what the sufferer’s intellect knows is happening from the things they actually experience” (p. 23). McBain describes depression as three related but distinct phenomena: depression as a disease, an illness, and a sickness. Depression as a disease has been my general sentiment. Still, when McBain phrases, “according to the medical model, the root of depression is always biological,” it caused me to reassess my views. As an illness, depression is “something the person has” rather than a “physical abnormality” (p.24). The distinction between depression as a disease and an illness helps me see depression as more than mere somatic but phenomenological and spiritual. But what I found most intriguing is McBain’s explanation of depression as a sickness. “The term ‘sickness’ corresponds to the way society sees the illness” (p. 26). When the Shunammite woman’s son died, Elijah sent Gehazi to heal the lad, but the woman refused (2 Kings 4:30). Elijah’s perception of the boy’s condition does not match reality — the boy is dead. Depression is not what I think it should be; I must learn to recognize its destructive effects on the minds and hearts of the sufferers. I must entreat the Lord to come and heal.

Our society and the church may need encouragement to talk about mental illness and depression, but the Bible is not quiet about the problem. (p. 56)

Liturgy and worship help depression sufferers find comfort and hope. McBain cites Swinton’s research that the Psalms help sufferers express “their feelings when their intellect could not comprehend what exactly they were experiencing” (p. 57). The Lord knows all our needs, whether they are physical, emotional, psychological, or spiritual.

And the LORD said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows. (Ex 3:7)

He sent Moses — an old man and an outcast — to deliver his people out of bondage. God knows our pain and uses the “foolish things of the world” to accomplish His mighty work of redemption for those suffering from depression.