Serving When I’m Depressed
By Gillian Marchenko
One Sunday morning about a dozen years ago, I called my friend at church five minutes before the service started and asked her to come to my house instead. It must have been a strange phone call, her pastor’s wife asking her to come next door to the parsonage. But I, home alone, anxious, and depressed, couldn’t imagine a morning by myself. So, I hung my head and made the call.
My fingers shook as I dialed her number. It’s difficult to show weakness and uncomfortable to ask for help in general, but when your husband is the pastor, extra pressure, both internal and external, tends to creep in. And I didn't want to keep a sister in Christ away from church. Her heart needed worship. Her ears needed to hear the word preached. She needed fellowship and the fellowship needed her.
But I needed her too, and after years of major depressive disorder, the time for embarrassment had passed. This was about survival. And part of survival that Sunday morning included leaning in to my church family and asking for help.
I’ve battled mental illness for the tenure of my husband’s ministry career. I support him in his endeavors and participate in various ministries at church. I facilitate Bible studies, greet people on Sunday mornings, assist with children’s church, and am involved in discipleship relationships. Except when I’m depressed. Then I’m suddenly absent. Other dear saints pick up slack. But meetings get cancelled and get-togethers are rescheduled and lives are disrupted. Years ago, when my depression was at its worst, I was out of church for weeks or even months at a time.
How do I reconcile such brokenness inside with my outward ministry?
It’s difficult. We still have a lot to learn. But we’ve chosen not to hide my illness from our people, partly because it’s impossible to do so. I suspect there aren’t too many pastor’s wives with my act. Now you see me. Now you don’t. More importantly though, we don’t hide our trials because we’ve learned, albeit through pain and tears, that the Lord uses them for his glory and for our benefit (see 1 Peter 1:6-7). We’ve seen the Lord move in mighty ways, not in spite of my illness, but through it.
Vulnerability begets vulnerability
We’ve been told that our openness encourages others to open up as well. We watch in awe as God builds a culture of vulnerability in our congregation. When we speak about mental illness and other topics rarely mentioned in church, we offer people the opportunity to share their broken parts and be seen and known on a deeper level. This is real community, walking with one another and sharing each other’s burdens as brothers and sisters in Christ. Vulnerability helps us grow in personal sanctification and communal adoration of God.
I am learning to comfort others
Through the years I’ve become much more empathetic and caring towards others because of my trials. Paul reminds us that the God of all comfort comforts us in our afflictions so that we may then comfort others (see 2 Corinthians 1:3-4). When someone comes to me with soul-deep pain or hard-to-untangle sin, I am more equipped to respond with compassion and understanding. This is not natural for me, but part of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. I can comfort others because I am comforted by God.
His power is made perfect in my weakness
These days, my depressive episodes are few and less dark. But they still come, and I still struggle. I grieve my absence at church and am saddened that my children are sometimes without their mom even though I’m sleeping in the next room. And like Paul’s thorn in his flesh, I pray for God to take it away.
But the growth I’ve experienced in my mental illness is undeniable. God’s power is made perfect in my weakness (see 1 Corinthians 12:9-10). I’m driven to the cross of Christ time and again. And what a good place to be, bowed before my God and resting in his strength. When I am weak, he is strong.
When the next episode comes, I’ll pray and sleep and read Scripture and take my medication and go for walks and ask for help. And when it passes, I’ll pick up where I left off. I’ll go back to Bible study, make eye contact and smile at church, and meet with someone for discipleship all in the strength that God gives me. I’ll breathe out prayers of thanksgiving and note the blessings I’ve received on this treacherous journey, the most prominent of all being his presence.
How do I reconcile inward brokenness with outward ministry?
I don’t. Rather, I rest in Jesus Christ who already reconciled me to God through his sacrifice on the cross. Mental illness is difficult. But the Lord is kind. God uses for his glory what I deem my failure and lack of faith. And really, that’s what we are after, isn’t it? We want to glorify God, and we trust that he is glorifying himself in us. I may struggle to rejoice in the full body ache of depression, but I can rejoice in God’s sanctifying work in me and his good plan for my life.
Sister, whatever your trial or affliction, give it to Jesus. Ask God for healing, but also ask him to grow your love for him. Ask that he use you for his glory and the furtherance of his kingdom. Ask him to make you someone who encourages vulnerability and ministers to others and points people to the cross of Christ. When surrendered to Jesus, your specific weakness can meet a specific need in your church and become a gift to your congregation.
My friend came and sat on my couch that Sunday morning many years ago while I slept upstairs in my bedroom. She came as a ministry to me, without a livestream to join online or the promise of a podcast to catch up on later. She came as a part of our church family, willing to share another person’s burden. And she came as a follower of Jesus, responding to a need in another’s life as a humble nod to what he gave for us all: himself.
Gillian Marchenko writes at the intersection of trials and truth. She has been in ministry for twenty years and lives with her family in a suburb of St. Louis. She’s the author of Still Life, A Memoir of Living Fully with Depression (IVP) and Sun Shine Down (T. S. Poetry Press), and is a mental health and special needs advocate. Find out more about Gillian at gillianmarchenko.com