When we preach challenging sermons – and if we are to be true to the Gospel that is sometimes our calling – we must never forget that out congregations may include people battling with terrible circumstances outside our understanding especially depressive illness. It is all too easy for us to make the depressed person’s load heavier.

The Disability Discrimination Act has made us more aware of the stumbling blocks church buildings put in the way of people with obvious physical disabilities. Let us try as preachers to be aware of the hidden problems of depressive illness.

Though the characters and events in this story are fictitious, the feelings are real; some from my own experience, the rest from two people whose shared their stories with me in the last few months.

Three people arrived late for morning service. It was hardly surprising; it had been a stormy night and the main road into town often flooded. That was how experienced local preacher Bill came to be late, but the other two had deeper reasons. Eric couldn’t face conversation before the service, so planned to be late. Anna had hesitated in the street for a full ten minutes before plucking up courage to enter the unfamiliar building.

The congregation was in good voice as they sang “My chains fell off, my heart was free…”  “What do they know about chains,” thought Anna, as she looked around. “I used to sing those words so lightly once  - but now all my confidence has gone.” The familiar much-loved words washed over Eric as he sat in the pew where he and his wife had worshipped for so many years. Since the road accident, Eric’s life had fallen apart. Grief had become depression, concentration had been impossible, and he had lost his job and was struggling to get by on benefit. Yet here he still found some sense of security. Bill sang along absorbed in the beauty of the hymn. It had been a bad morning: he hated it when his wife was away staying with her sister, and waking up to find the back fence blown down had not improved his temper. He hated being late… but the hymn put things back into perspective and he was soon truly worshipping.

It was the second hymn that hurt Eric. “All I once held dear, built my life upon…  worthless now, compared to this, knowing you Jesus.” What he had held dear was his family  - his wife, his child, cruelly snatched from him by a drunken driver. Worthless? Surely not. Precious gifts from God, they were and without them his faith seemed hollow.

A young man gave a testimony about how God had answered his prayers. “Why doesn’t he answer mine?” thought Anna. So much had happened in the year since she moved here with her job. She had prayed desperately for a successful outcome to the operation on her eye. But it had gone wrong, and after months of enforced idleness, she was left with limited vision, unable to drive or use a computer. She had been forced to accept early retirement. She had prayed for help to find a way forward within the limits of her disability, but all her enquiries had drawn a blank. They sang again “O what needless pain we bear, all because we do not carry everything to God in prayer”. “But I did”, thought Anna. “The depression is my fault because I can’t pray” thought Eric.

The visiting preacher was a gifted speaker who held everyone’s attention. The lectionary for the day concerned tithing. The listeners were told firmly that they ought to give a tenth and that the Lord loves a cheerful giver. Worried about his electricity bill, Eric despaired. “ I put in the little I can but tithing is impossible for me. So does that mean God doesn’t love me any more?”

Bill was appalled by this preacher’s narrow interpretation and arrogance and he saw Eric flinch. When it came to the intercessions, and the rest of the congregation were praying about world issues, Bill was praying for his friend Eric and praying for wisdom to help his friend in his need.

Bill knew a lot more than most about depression, because he had supported his wife through depressive illness. He remembered how she had dreaded some hymns, like “a charge to keep I have” and “trust and obey”. With a wry smile, he remembered how hard she had found it to sit still for twenty minutes and how upset the oldest local preacher had been when she told him how the only way she could get through his sermon was to use yoga breathing techniques. He remembered all too clearly how she had described her illness.

“It was as if I was shut in a small room with no windows. The walls were made of reinforced concrete and they kept moving closer, forcing me to shrink. The life I had known, the people I loved, my religious experience, even my own true personality, were outside the wall and I could not communicate with them. Prayer was impossible. The only things that were real were the walls, my fear of being crushed and guilt. I knew I was hurting the people around me and hated myself for this, but I was powerless to love. Guilt was overwhelming - guilt for what my condition was doing to my family and guilt for the errors of judgement that I thought had brought about the situation that triggered depression. I shrank from meeting people because I did not want anyone to see me in this state, so I became even more isolated.

To all the friends and family outside, my prison appeared to be a pile of loose rubble. Why didn’t I push it down? When people told me to “pull myself together”, to “stop hurting my family like this”, or to “take it to the Lord in prayer” it was as if they were ordering me to break down the rough concrete wall with my bare hands. I tried. I tried till my hands were torn to shreds and I had no nails and I was banging my head against the wall. Then the pain became too much to bear and I stopped trying.” Medication had helped her, so had those friends who had stayed in contact, and, as she got better, included her in ordinary things again, till her confidence had returned. How could he help Eric find some self-respect?

Eric slipped out during the last hymn. He could not face the well-intentioned enquiries after his health. Anna was also anxious to get away; sitting through a half hour sermon had been unbearably painful and pain gets in the way of polite conversation to well-intentioned strangers.

That afternoon Bill rang his friend Eric and asked him for help mending the broken fence. It would take many such afternoons to rebuild Eric’s faith. Where would Anna find help?

Pat Fry is a Local Preacher Tutor in the Winchester Circuit. She and her husband worship at the United Church in Winchester City Centre – which is Methodist/URC. Pat is a teacher but had to leave work when her eyesight deteriorated. This article was written after a Christian friend, who had similar problems to her own, committed suicide.