Depression

For the past several days I have been thinking about a man that I met years ago, but only through the stories that his grandfather and his mother and father told. I am sure he was all of what they said of him, and more. This man changed the oil in cars belonging to widows. He was often the first to arrive at church and the last to leave. I read one headline that called him, "A True Friend of Our Town". People said that throughout his life he struggled with learning disabilities, depression and attention deficit disorder. I am sure he had to work harder at his job because of these challenges than most people ever will. Life became so hard for him that he ended his life last week, leaving a wife who called him, 'the best man I ever knew'.

The newspaper articles carrying the tragic news quoted people saying, "He was beating it." "It came out of the blue". "We don't know what we could have done." Clinical depression is far worse than any feeling than most of us will ever experience. Because of this extremely sad event to me and my family I do not think I will ever use the word, "depressed" again unless my life becomes so unmanageable that I cannot imagine life at all. The next time you feel "out of sorts", "lost" or, as one man confided to me very recently, "I am so very broken", please think, rethink and think again at whatever you believe is the way to get through and out of your uneasiness. The man who described his life to me as broken reminded me of a writing I came across a long time ago and I share it with you,

As children bring their broken toys with tears, for us to mend, I brought my broken dreams to God, because He is my friend. But instead of leaving Him in peace to work alone; I hung around and tried to help in ways that were my own. God didn't mend my broken dreams. He didn't make them new. In fact He seemed quite nonchalant, as though He didn't care. Watching and waiting for His hand to do what I had prayed...he did nothing and so I sent Him on His way. But before He left I snatched back my unanswered prayers and asked,"How could you be so slow?" "My child," He lovingly replied,"you never did let go!"

The man with the 'broken life' reminded me that God is the ultimate expert at fixing broken things. God delights in filling empty lives. God listens to the ignored; God reorders the chaos we often create by our own doing; God is a friend to the friendless, God will be the husband to the widowed woman, the father to the fatherless children and the Shepherd of a church who stands in need of a shepherd...I cannot get any of these folks off my heart off my heart tonight, so I pray.