An Unwasted Life 

I grew up in the nineties and early 2000’s, which means my faith came of age in the Don’t Waste Your Life¹A popular Evangelical book of this name by John Piper was released in this era, and came to define the period of Evangelicalism I am describing. era. During this time period, the holiest call for a young woman who was serious about her faith was to either go to the mission field or marry a man who was called to be a pastor—both of which required long skirts. The appeal of either modestly heroic scenario was its promise of a life laden with holy productivity and purpose through self-denial and faith-infused grit in which we planted our shoulders to the plow, pointed ourselves in the direction of the Kingdom, and never looked back. By the time I was 15, several altar calls and a few “I surrender all’s” were all it took to have cemented the idea in my mind that I was being called to an ambiguous yet promising future of “Full-Time Christian Service.” 

I bought the whole thing.

Truly serious about my faith, I wanted a guarantee that at the end of my life I could look back and know that I had poured it all out upon God—that not one second had been wasted. I craved the affirmation that I had been used and emptied, and would surely hear a “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” upon my victorious entrance into heaven. From my teenage years on, my plan of church-sanctioned glorious purpose in an unwasted life for God came along nicely until my sophomore year of college, in which I hit a major snag on my Pilgrim’s Progress road to glory: depression. The cocktail of a high-pressure academic environment, a bad breakup, a budding eating disorder, and my inability to hold it all together had landed me in a very deep slough of despondency. My broken brain and I spent a semester wondering if God loved me, if God even existed, and if I’d be able to make it through another day without collapsing in a heap of tears on my small dorm room bed in the fetal position, praying for it all to end. Only time, rest, counseling, and medication provided relief. It took months to recover an internal sense of normalcy and balance—months which, at the time, felt wasted. 

Although my first introduction to clinical depression²https://988lifeline.org is a safe, loving, trustworthy resource–free to all–for anyone struggling with potential symptoms of depression. was fifteen years ago, I still recall the stark terror of sensing “Something is very wrong with my brain” along with a frustrated sense of helplessness to do anything meaningful about it. With the gift of time, I learned to integrate that experience as a story from my past—a painful and bewildering season from which God delivered me, with the help of medication, a help that has kept depression at bay until this past year, when I’ve been required to go off of my antidepressants for other medical reasons.

For the past fifteen years, I’ve lived believing that I could be an effective witness for Christ as long as I effectively had my depression “under control.” As long as that one embarrassing depressive episode remained in the past—a compelling testimony of God’s deliverance through medication, counseling, and improved life circumstances—I was safe. But the recent resurgence of depression at a time in my life when I most prefer it to be silent has me wondering: What if my depression is not a ministry roadblock, but rather a just-as-effective (though admittedly less appealing) witness with its own story to tell? Might my depression bear active, truthful witness in ways my joy does not? What story are my tears telling?

The Witness of Holy Saturday

People with depression have, by necessity, learned to navigate the darkness around them and within them. Keenly attuned to what is wrong, they often have the capacity to lead with a depth of intuition and insight from which only those who have dwelt in the darkness can speak. The problem is that a diagnosis of depression often carries the heavy sense that we are powerless against such darkness—that the dawn will never come, and nothing will ever change. So we stay silent.

But what might happen if the rest of the Body of Christ invited us to speak? If they are willing to step into it, I believe that Christians who live with depression are uniquely called to speak into a vital part of Christ’s resurrection story: the silence of Holy Saturday. 

Traditionally, the church has understood that there is no Resurrection Sunday without the agony of Good Friday and the fraught silence—waiting in the seeming nothingness of grief—of Holy Saturday. Today, many of our church traditions tend to over-emphasize the good news of eternal, resurrection life, hollowly proclaiming “He is risen, and so too should you be” without acknowledging—in fact, often outright skipping—that in-between day for which many of us (including myself) have not had a name: Holy Saturday.

What does the silence of this day have to teach us? Although depression can often feel like silence from God, Holy Saturday invites all of us into a practice of waiting in silence with God. As people who live close to the ache, Christians who are familiar with depression are well-positioned to show us what it looks like to wait in the aching silence with God. Both those who have willingly practiced silence as well as those who, through inexplicable suffering, have had silence thrust upon them also know this secret: silence is not barren, but pregnant with the whisper and activity of God. In silence, we learn a new language. It is the language of the Spirit, who like a woman in labor cries out with groans too deep for words. 

This is a prophetic groaning that, if it could speak, might sound something like the exilic prophet Jeremiah: “Oh, that my head were a spring of water and my eyes a fountain of tears! I would weep day and night for the slain of my people” (Jeremiah 9:1). I find it intriguing that the prophet Jeremiah actually asks for an increased capacity for tears as part of his ministry to fellow Israelites. It seems as though Jeremiah believes his tears are an effective witness before God and His people—a communication fit for both the heavenly throne room and the earthly temple of God. I don’t know that there will ever be a day when I have the courage to ask God for “More tears, please.” But seeing Jeremiah do so—as if only tears would be enough to meet the coming devastation he saw—gives me strength.

Maybe it is my silent, Holy Saturday tears that help to proclaim the whole story of the resurrection of Jesus.

What if my depression is not a ministry roadblock, but rather a just-as-effective (though admittedly less appealing) witness with its own story to tell? What story are my tears telling? Share on X

Seeds of the Kingdom

For many of us in the Body of Christ, this season has been one of devastation with no end in sight. Having limped our way through a global pandemic, we’ve also experienced the politicization of our faith with cries of injustice from both sides of our political and congregational divides. For me, the weightiness of this season paired with a recent resurgence of insurmountable depression has me asking a myriad of soul-searching questions, at the heart of which is this: “Who am I when all I have to give are my tears?” When I finally had the courage to ask God, not expecting a reply, the answer came almost immediately:

• I am a co-laborer with the Spirit, who “intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26).

Please hear me clearly: I am not trying to romanticize depression, but rather to offer it up before God in hopes of redeeming it by learning to see it, and to hold it, differently.

For far too long, I have believed that if I could just stop crying, maybe I could be of some use to the Body of Christ—that an unwasted life is an unweeping life. The Western church has historically valued bolder, cheerier, more charismatic and courageous gifts than are mine to give. But now I wonder if it is precisely such a time as this that calls for those given the burden and gift of tears to be re-anointed, consecrated for a special work in God’s kingdom. People with depression see and feel things differently, yet they often feel like outsiders—especially in the church. This particular cultural moment has me pondering what the unique invitation might be for those in the Body who, like their Savior, are already deeply acquainted with grief.

As a small first step, I offer this: What if we intentionally invited our brothers and sisters who wrestle with depression into the leadership circle, instead of asking them to be well or to be quiet until they can pull it together into a more hopeful narrative that the rest of us find easier to bear? Sisters and brothers, perhaps now is the appointed time for those of us who have long dwelt in the valley of shadows to come forward and share what we have learned of the Good Shepherd who guides his sheep through the valley of tears, making it a place of springs (Psalm 84:6). “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Jesus teaches, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).

Is.

Theirs is the kingdom, here and now, not someday.

Maybe, just maybe, the mustard seed of faith that slowly grows into a giant, shading tree, symbolic of the kingdom, is planted and watered with the tears of the saints. 

This particular cultural moment has me pondering what the unique invitation might be for those in the Body who, like their Savior, are already deeply acquainted with grief. Share on X

Let Your Tears Speak

To the Beloved of the Body who suffer with depression and other forms of mental anguish, hear me clearly: Our best and truest offering to the Church in this season may simply be the wisdom and witness of our tears. We are being called to remember that just as the rain waters seeds planted deep in the earth, so our tears water the seeds God has planted deep in our own souls—seeds that only the waters of grief, longing, sorrow, and lament can call forth. What’s more, our tears carry within them the seeds of new life. We are called to remember the truth of Scripture, which tells us that when we suffer, that we are not alone (1 Corinthians 12:26). We weep with the Spirit, who groans and weeps with us, in labor pains unto life.

Having walked through the valley of tears, I now know something my younger self couldn’t have known otherwise: In Christ, my tears are not indicative of a wasted life. Instead, my tears are seeds sown into the unfading redemptive beauty of an “already-not-yet Garden Kingdom,” one which buds and blossoms with the promise of Psalm 126:6: 

“Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow,

will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.”

Let us not be ashamed of our tears nor of those who sow weeping, for theirs is the kingdom. And one day, we will reap with shouts of joy, carrying with us the fruit of all our unwasted tears.

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In silence, we learn a new language. It is the language of the Spirit, who like a woman in labor cries out with groans too deep for words. Share on X

*Editorial Note:  If you are struggling with depression, you are not alone. Inviting someone who loves you to help carry your burden could very well be the first step in your healing journey. Below are some initial resources on depression.

• What is clinical depression? | Dr. Daniel K. Hall-Flavin (Mayo Clinic)
• The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, a free resource for anyone suffering from mental health struggles, emotional distress, alcohol or drug addictions. Trained counselors are available 24/7.
• On Getting Out of Bed by Alan Noble (IVP, 2023), and On Getting Out of Bed: A Mental Health Podcast, is an honest and engaging work about depression, mental health, and entering into the suffering of Christ in our world as we are.

I stand with you (personally!) in this journey towards wholeness and health. ~CK