I used to routinely say stuff like “He/she is messed up in the head.” I didn’t mean that as a compliment.

Because, like most folks to this day, I thought depression, anxiety, even worry was a sign of weakness.

I was willing to cut some slack for a few people. Certainly I was compassionate toward those that were “born that way” – people who had mental handicaps, Down’s syndrome, things like that. The totally non-PC term we used was “mentally retarded.” That phrase could be used as a benign identifier, or an insult. You know what I mean.

My disdain was for those who just fretted, and brooded, and moped around. I remember a cousin who, when her husband died, basically took to her bed for what seemed like weeks. I thought that was pathetic.

Over time, however, my sensibilities have evolved (can I use that term?) The great awakening for me came with my brain injury back in June of 2018.

It’s funny how one event can virtually alter the course of your life.

I’ve always been given to melancholy, which isn’t a good or bad thing. It’s a temperament, a trait, like having blue eyes or brown eyes. Since I’m all about finding out who I am (and who others are!), I’ve spent time with personality tests, such as Myers-Briggs (I’m an INFJ, which makes me pretty unique) and an Enneagram Type 4 (or as a friend states, “You’re a special snowflake.”) All that makes me a classically endowed introvert. Again, that’s not a positive or a negative. It’s just a thing.

I never really viewed my personality and temperament as an asset or liability. It was just part of what made me me, albeit a significant part. A lot of folks avoid discovering who they really are. Me, I’ve embraced it. I’m guessing some people might not like what they discover.

Last year I experienced a nasty concussion, as you may know. It’s kind of defined my life since then. There have been all  sorts of effects that come from post-concussion syndrome. It’s nasty stuff.

I can tell you all about most of the symptoms, including headaches, fatigue, dizziness, loss of concentration and memory – it’s quite a list. However, it’s the anxiety and depression that are killer. The linked article above from the Mayo Clinic compares PCS to PTSD. So, some days I’m a wreck. Before you place me in the Benevolent Home for Chronic Whiners, though, hear me out.

I titled this blog “The Joy of Depression.” Click-baity, right? But I mean it.

Depression might not ever be an issue for you. Perhaps you cruise above life’s cares like an untethered helium balloon. Yay you!

But for those of you like me who cringe from the encroaching darkness, check this out. And if you are free from anxiety and depression, I’ll bet you have someone close to you who deals with it.

Where’s the joy in that!?

Consider Charles Spurgeon, the “prince of preachers.” He was prone to bouts of crippling depression, in addition to other physical ailments.The depression could hit him so intensely that, he once said, “I could say with Job, ‘My soul chooseth strangling rather than life’. I could readily enough have laid violent hands upon myself, to escape from my misery of spirit.”

His wife, Susannah, wrote, “My beloved’s anguish was so deep and violent, that reason seemed to totter in her throne, and we sometimes feared that he would never preach again.”

I’d say he spent some time in a dark place. Been there, done that.

With all this as background, let me offer some thoughts about this whole depression thing (and cribbing liberally from Spurgeon, paraphrased. The good stuff is his, identified with a “*”).

1. Depression isn’t all in your mind. But it is. There are a lot of clinical components to depression, which I won’t get into, but it is manifested first in your head and can, of course, affect a whole host of other body systems. So if someone says, “It’s all in your mind,” you can congratulate them for being so perceptive.
2. Someone is bound to say, “Cheer up. There are a lot of people worse off than you are.” As if hearing that helps. Your most appropriate response is to punch them in the throat.
3. “Move on. Stop dwelling on it.” Talk about useless, even stupid advice! Depression can last a lifetime and a person can’t simply move on. There are resources aplenty to help manage depression, but that kind of counsel does more harm than good. Punch them in the throat.
4. As I mentioned before, there is still a stigma about depression and other forms of mental illness. So what? Do what you need to to get well.
5. If you’re a believer, you’re gonna love this one: Who wants to hurt? No sane person, but you need to hurt anyway. Those who struggle with depression and other difficulties never grow in strength and maturity like those who do.*
6. Regarding #5, those who lead an “easy life” (disclaimer: no one really does) tend to have a faith that is frail and shallow. There is a discipline that comes with trial.
7. You don’t tell someone else that they can grow through depression when they’re in the grip of it. That won’t help. I guarantee it. There may be a time when you just need to sit down and keep your mouth shut. Maybe cry with them.
8. Depression and anxiety are not evidence that God is against you. If anything, it’s the opposite. He is not going to abandon you, or render you useless. In a fallen world, friends may desert us, we may hurt, and we may even despair. But it’s entirely possible to lose things you cherish in order to learn that God is all-sufficient. For everything.*
9. As a believer, I want to focus on the resurrection of Christ. But Spurgeon, when dealing with the suffering and depressed, tended to point people toward Jesus crucified and the “Man of Sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” It’s all about knowing that there is Someone Who not only identifies with you, but Who has experienced the same thing you have.*
10. Instead of focusing on the “what” and “why” of depression, the call is to focus on the promises of God. We need to have an objective truth that exists apart from our feelings about it.

Consider, finally, the opening words from Spurgeon’s sermon, “When a Preacher is D0wncast.”

“Fits of depression come over the most of us. Cheerful as we may be, we must at intervals be cast down. The strong are not always vigorous, the wise not always ready, the brave not always courageous, and the joyous not always happy.

“There may be here and there men of iron to whom wear and tear work no perceptible detriment, but surely the rust frets even these; and as for ordinary men, the Lord knows and makes them to know that they are but dust.

“Knowing by most painful experience what deep depression of spirit means, being visited therewith at seasons by no means few or far between, I thought it might be consolatory to some of my brethren if I gave my thoughts thereon, that younger men might not fancy that some strange thing had happened to them when they became for a season possessed by melancholy; and that sadder men might know that one upon whom the sun has shown right joyously did not always walk in the light.”

This is a sequel of sorts to my last blog, “Grieve Appropriately.” I have a bit more to say, and for some reason that particular blog seemed to resonate with many of you. So there’s this.

Papa Wilson died when I was eight years old. This was in 1964. I don’t remember many details about his actual death, but I do remember that he was 84 when he died. I thought that was positively ancient.

Mama was part of a family of twelve kids. At some point you cross the threshold of having a family and it becomes a litter. She was close to her daddy, and she indeed grieved.

There was some debate with Daddy and her about whether or not I should go to the funeral. Maybe they thought I’d be traumatized. I was up for it. I had sort of a morbid fascination with the whole process. I had a nebulous idea about how all this worked from TV shows and movies. I knew it was all about preparing the body for burial, picking out a casket, having the funeral itself (which these days more often referred to as a “memorial service,” as if the term “funeral” is too archaic or disturbing. Maybe they’re two different things.)

I also knew that there’d be a procession – that Papa Wilson’s casket would be carried by the pallbearers across the road from the church to the cemetery itself, and there he’d be “interred” (another infrequently used word) by being dropped into a vault in the ground and subsequently sealed and covered up in dirt. I remember thinking “what IS a pall anyway?” The whole thing, from the time the body was prepared for burial until the time it was lowered in the ground, was choreographed with the panache of a Broadway musical.

The most intriguing part of the process was what was called the “viewing.” “Wake” is another term. The excitement I felt at the time was knowing that I was going to be able to see a dead person. I loved Papa Wilson too, but I had no fear about seeing his body. I found the term “viewing” to be very accurate. We all had to take a look at him. It was part of the process, and was supposed to bring some closure. I’d add, too, that in southeast Alabama, another term was prior to the funeral you had a “sitting up,” aka wake, where someone spent the night at the funeral home or the house and sat with the body, as if it were going anywhere. The custom came from the need to keep mice and other vermin from making themselves at home in the casket – they needed to be shooed off. Or to keep the cat from sitting on the body. It didn’t matter if there were mice or cats around. You were simply expected to keep the departed company.

Papa Wilson lay in state in his house, in the parlor. I remember relatives and friends milling around on the front porch, talking in subdued whispers, as though if you were too loud it might disturb Papa Wilson. When you walked in the front door of the house, you came in the living room, and through French doors from the living room you’d enter the parlor/dining room.

So here’s young Tony, standing on the front porch, flanked by Mama and Daddy. Mama said, “Would you like to say goodbye to Papa?” I didn’t know about that … I knew he wouldn’t be able to hear me, but I also figured the goodbye was more for me than him. I said yes, but it was more of me wanting to see what he looked like than say any farewells.

So I was ushered into the parlor. People parted to let us come in. I saw the casket, gleaming in the subdued light, with the top opened, or at least half of it. I saw a white ruffle of pleated fabric spilling over the side. But because I was not grown, I couldn’t really see into it. I could see Papa Wilson’s nose and not much else.

At we approached the side of the casket I was able to peek in. Papa Wilson was dressed in a fine suit. I heard Mama sniffling, and I glanced up at Daddy. His jaws were working, his teeth clenched.

“Doesn’t he look sweet,” Mama said.

“He looks like he’s asleep,” Daddy said.

My thought? “He looks like he’s dead.” I wasn’t fooled.

Like his grandson, Papa Wilson was bald. Typically his head shone like a polished hubcap. This time, however, it was so powdered that it looked like parchment. His face was stretched tight, almost like a mask. His mouth was what disturbed me – it was though it was made of wax. (I’ve since learned that mouths can be a real problem for undertakers – because the mouth is always in motion, to see it perfectly still is an anomaly.)

I stood still and examined him with frank curiosity. I think my folks expected me to cry, or run, or something. I did none of these. Candidly, I didn’t feel anything. My primary thought was, “That’s not Papa Wilson. That’s just the horse he rode in on.”

Since that day I’ve been to many more funerals and performed a fair share, too. It’s given me plenty of opportunities to observe grief. Here’s your takeaway – everyone grieves differently, and you are in no place to judge if someone doesn’t grieve the way you would.

Which brings me back to “grieve appropriately.” I’ve already discussed that. To an observer of the eight-year-old Tony, they might feel that I didn’t grieve appropriately, if at all. That may be so.

When you think about it, grief is a part of closure, or should be. The overarching need is to move on. Grief, whatever its source, is a milestone, a transitional point from what was to what is. To get stuck in the what was can be a recipe for despair. Losses will happen, and there’s nothing that can be done about that. But staying bogged down in that loss, refusing to move on, is to doubt the bigness and sovereignty of God, who has no desire for us to be mired in the past, and is aware and present in our loss and perhaps even engineered it.

How do you move on?

This may be shallow, but … you just do. While your emotions may be raging and drowning you, understand that they are transient (unless there is some clinical problem, which we won’t go into here. I understand the reality of chronic depression, anxiety, anger, etc.).

Say this familiar biblical phrase: “And it came to pass…”

What is isn’t what will always be. And while we may always have a sense of loss after a tragedy, the reality is that it doesn’t have to cripple us. It is legitimate to miss what once was. But, armed with the knowledge that you can’t go back, and by listening to your head as well as your heart, it is possible – and necessary – to move forward toward a new horizon. What lies beyond may be a mystery, but it is no mystery in knowing that no matter where you’re headed, God is already there.

All change involves an element of loss.

Even good changes.

If you’re single and marry the love of your life, you lose some independence. If you begin a new job, you lose the familiarity of where you once worked. If you move to a new place, you lose the comfort that comes from knowing your way around.

Then there are the bad changes. You lose your health. You lose your job. You lose a loved one.

Change = loss. Ponder that a moment. Change is inevitable in life, and by my simple equation, it follows that loss is inevitable.

We grieve when we lose. I grieve when Auburn loses a ball game, but it’s not a crushing grief (well, sometimes it comes close.) I grieve when we’ve lost a pet. That’s family. In all my years of youth ministry, I’ve grieved when I’ve lost a student … when a kid I’ve invested in and loved on gets spiritually shipwrecked, man, that hurts.

I could go on. Certainly we grieve over lost relationships. There are times when people leave our lives, either benignly or by some incident. There may be times to legitimately say “good riddance” and other times when even after multiple attempts to make things right, they’re just – gone. Heartbreaking.

And loss of a loved one? What pure, unadulterated pain. It could be a grandparent, parent, child, or spouse. If you’re a believer, and you know the one you’ve said goodbye to is also a believer, you understand that your “goodbye” is more accurately a “see you later.” You’ve made arrangements to meet again.

Mama lost her fourth bout with cancer. She began with renal cell carcinoma, a kidney cancer that is rarely life-threatening and relatively easy to treat. (I’ve had that one, and I’m fine.)

Some years later she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Surgery, and she had several cancer-free years. Then, lung cancer v.2. Surgery. Done.

Finally, she found herself complaining of rapidly increasing back pain. This time, it was cancer, and it was everywhere, in her bones. She didn’t last long after that. But she died with dignity, just as she’d lived.

I’m an only child, and we’d already buried Daddy some years earlier. So this was it. I was to be an orphan (albeit a middle-aged one.) We had several good conversations as the day approached and she was lucid. It really wasn’t until a couple of days before her death that she slipped into a quiet, sweet darkness and didn’t communicate. And when she passed, it was expected and I was prepared.

It was still hard. But interestingly enough, I’d done most of my grieving before she actually died. There was time for me to prepare, and my comfort during those days had an awful lot to do with grace. I often wondered in earlier years how I’d react after both my parents were gone, and I think I’ve done fine. Of course there are times when I’d love to visit with them today, but that’s just going to have to stay on hold for a while longer.

So, we have this: Change = loss = grief.

How does one grieve appropriately? More succinctly, how do we grieve as one who has hope?

1. You have to identify your source of hope. This is an immutable, unchanging factor in your life. If your hope is based on how you feel at any given point in time, you are not going to handle loss well. Feelings are the great betrayers. They are ever-changing. They are often based on circumstances. So your hope has to be based not on how you feel, but what (and who) your security is in.

2. You look to those who have hope in that similar source. This is where you look for living testimonies. You know scores of people who’ve dealt with a loss, and I’m not restricting that to the loss of a loved one. It could be some of the other losses I’ve mentioned. And they’ve managed fine. It may have taken a while for them to adjust to their new normal, but often they’ve flourished. (I could riff on “failure” here, but the bottom line is that failure, which is also a loss, can and should lead to a fresh start and eventual success.) Be encouraged by them.

3. Don’t let others drag you down. We all know those people who darken a room by their very presence. They are negative and cynical. You aren’t allowed not to love them, but you are allowed to avoid them, or at least not get trapped in their negativity.

4. Realize your loss can be someone else’s gain. This is a companion thought to that last point. Everything – and I mean everything – happens for at least two reasons. One is to teach you something about yourself and give you inspiration to do something about it if you aren’t happy with what you’ve learned. Second, you can lead and comfort someone going through the same thing you did. It goes from saying “I understand” (which you may or may not) to “I identify,” because you’ve been there. In the ultimate manifestation of empathy, you may be able to honestly say, “I feel (or have felt) what you feel.” Tell me that won’t impact someone else’s life.

5. Accept the fact that you can’t go back. I could say a lot about regrets here, but that’s fodder for another day. What I can say is that you don’t get do-overs. You do get second chances, but that’s not the same. There are moments in our collective past that are forever fixed in time, and they can’t be undone. Sometimes grief grows out of “I should have’s.” Do what you can to internalize this thought: Whatever it was, you can’t take it back. You can learn from it, grow from it, but it won’t change what was, or wasn’t, done. It’s called moving forward.

6. Finally, you can’t place your hope in something that can change. If your total source of hope is found in a person, realize that people change, leave, die. Where’s your hope then? And surely you know better than to place your hope in a paycheck, or modern medicine, or the government. Those can all change, too. From where I sit, that hope is found in a personal relationship with God.

Ancient script says “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”* Change is inevitable, but it should never lead to hopelessness. Hopelessness is not an option. Be encouraged.

*James 1:17