personal testimony – Broken Believers

Rip Tide Lessons

In the late 1990s, my wife Lynn and I were based in a mission station about 200 miles south of Tijuana, Mexico. We would be working in Baja in the sleepy little village of San Telmo. It was hard work, but sometimes we would take day trips to a beach on the Pacific Ocean. One beach in particular, was a favorite place for surfers.

One day we headed out for some sand, surf and sea. Little did I know that day, that I would almost drown. Yes, the waves were bigger then usual, but we set up camp and our two children combed the beach, under our watchful eyes. After a while, I gathered up my ‘boogie board’ and headed for the water.

I had caught several nice waves, and was having a wonderful time. But all of a sudden things got scary. I was working the waves on the north side of the beach, when suddenly– I lost control. The current began to pull me away from the shore. I doubled my paddling efforts, but still I was being pulled out.

I became really afraid. The beach was getting very small, and I still was being pulled out. It was at this point, I began to pray. I had never experienced a rip tide before. I really wasn’t sure what was happening.

In retrospect, I was being ‘schooled.’ I learned more in 15 minutes of stark terror, then in many months of classroom teaching.

1) I learned that I’m not in control of my life, there are things completely beyond me. I had zero control over what was happening. But often life is like that.

2) God can take my life whenever He chooses. He decides when I leave this earthly existence. “My times are in His hands,” the psalmist declared.

3) I needed to admit my profound ignorance of many things that are intensely important to know. These gaps in my knowledge will often take me where I don’t want to go.

4) Stay on your board! Cling to it. You WILL drown if you get separated from it. You can also use it to rest on when your arms feel like they are going to fall off.

5) And finally ~~start~~ to swim parallel with the beach, NOT toward it! The current is very likely 30-40 yards wide. The rising panic will probably keep you focused on the beach. You cannot overcome a riptide by trying to paddle harder.

6) If you make it through this, the beach is beautiful. You will be exhausted. Your friends will not grasp how close you came to drowning. They have no idea what has just transpired, and you realize you can’t explain what just happened. But all of a sudden, you have lost all enthusiasm for the board and the waves.

Often it feels like my depression a massive riptide. To fight it directly is disastrous, and pulls me away. I look back and realize that my experience has given me valuable things, an understanding that nothing can replace.

All about riptides can be found here.

Grasping Grace, an Excerpt

I was seventeen when I faced the most difficult decision of my life. At the time, I justified it as my only option.

Curled up on my bed, in what had once been my safe haven, I squeezed my eyes tight, holding back a flood of tears. I gasped for air and shuddered at the thought of telling my parents.

The scene played out in my mind over and over. Shaking and trembling, unable to look either of them in the eye, I would force the words “Mom, Dad, I was raped and I’m pregnant.” Dad’s cheerful grin would disappear. Mom would give me the silent stare that said it was all my fault.

Escape plan

With each passing day, I wasn’t getting any less pregnant. I had to do something. But what? I had my whole life ahead of me. I had college plans and a career, which didn’t mesh with becoming a teenage mom. College was going to be my escape from my crummy hometown.

Getting pregnant was a bit like the run on the Bailey Savings and Loan that kept poor George Bailey from getting out of Bedford Falls in It’s a Wonderful Life. Only I didn’t stay and save the town from Potter. I took the money and ran.

The Rest of the Story

This is my story. Well, one of my stories. I, just like you, am made up of many stories. To read the rest of this story, see the full article “Grasping Grace” on Now What?, the online magazine of Bible Advocate Magazine.

Seeing Through Recurring Depression

by Terry Powell

DOES RECURRING DEPRESSION PREVENT A FRUITFUL MINISTRY?

Long before the proliferation of mass media, Charles Spurgeon was known and revered throughout the Christian world. Scholars of his era labeled him, “the prince of expositors.” His commentaries, devotionals, and sermons are still being published, generations after his death.

So many folks in London wanted to hear him preach that he occasionally pleaded with church members to stay home so unsaved visitors could get a seat and hear the gospel. The pages of his book, Lectures to My Students, should be dog-eared by every vocational or volunteer teacher of the Bible.

Yet, depression dogged Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892) most of his adult life. A major bout with despondency occurred in 1858 when he was 24, serving as a pastor in London. That’s when he wrote, “My spirits were sunken so low that I could weep by the hour like a child, and yet I know not what I wept for.” Repeated episodes spawned these words: “Causeless depression cannot be reasoned with…as well fight with the mist as with this shapeless, undefinable, yet all-beclouding hopelessness.”

What can we learn from this depression-prone, yet outrageously fruitful leader?

Depression doesn’t necessarily hinder ministry effectiveness. He often didn’t feel like serving, yet enabled by God’s grace, he kept giving himself to others. No matter how physically and emotionally drained he was, most Mondays he wrote out by longhand the previous day’s sermon so it could later be published.
The pain of despondency may expand one’s usefulness by cultivating dependency and humility. Spurgeon said that despondency was “my trial, my thorn in the flesh that Satan wanted to use to take me down, and God wanted to use to deepen my dependency on Him.”

A favorite verse of his was 2 Corinthians 12:9, where God told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” In reference to this verse, Spurgeon said, “My job is not to supply the power, but the weakness. That’s one job I’m good at! It’s God’s job to supply the power.”

Openness about one’s depression may encourage others, and point them to God’s sustaining grace. Spurgeon’s transparency concerning his depression was rare for his day. Knowing how many people suffered in silence with this malady, he preached a message to show others how he coped with it (titled “When a Preacher Is Downcast”). From experience, he learned and taught an ironic truth captured in my favorite Spurgeon quote: “God gets from us the most glory when we get from Him much grace.”
His life and ministry demonstrate that depression and spiritual maturity aren’t mutually exclusive. Depression didn’t negate Spurgeon’s godliness, nor did his steadfast use of spiritual disciplines cure it.

Biographies of and articles about Spurgeon don’t always mention his predilection for depression. Yet reading about his accomplishments and ministry output will show you what God can do through a yielded person not in spite of the depression, but possibly because of it. Spurgeon also suffered from severe gout in his later years, long before the medical intervention could eliminate or minimize the pain.

I benefited enormously from Arnold Dallimore’s Spurgeon (Banner of Truth, 1984). Also, in a chapter of John Piper’s Future Grace, titled “Faith in Future Grace Versus Despondency,” you can read about Spurgeon’s battle with depression.

Blessings, Terry Powell

Check out his blog at https://penetratingthedarkness.com/. His ministry is focused on Christians experiencing clinical depression. It is a good ministry that is touching many.

A Very English Pigeon

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.”

Psalm 32:8

In April 2002, I was sitting in a cavernous waiting room at King’s Cross in London, England. I was waiting for a bus to Cambridge, UK. I sat all alone and stared at the tiled floor at my feet. The doctors had warned me not to travel alone, but I ignored their advice.

And now I was starting to really unravel.

Depression had followed me all the way from Alaska to England. I had pushed my limits and was completely drained and was becoming very confused. I began to cry out to the Lord, very desperately. Sometimes madly. (Read Psalm 88.)

As I sat there staring intensely at the floor, several pigeons seemed to put on a show, just for me. They were fat little guys, apparently scratching out a good living. Several very large windows were open, and these pigeons seemed to have no fear as they took advantage of a meal from bored travelers.

All of a sudden something very odd happened.

A pigeon came across the floor and “presented” himself, right square in front of me. I watched him intently and saw that he was crippled, one of his feet was nothing more than a twisted claw. He had been profoundly injured in such a way, that he would never be the same. He was damaged, and yet somehow he was surviving, but even more, and he was thriving!

It was like experiencing a lightning bolt. God’s own light switch was being flipped.

I saw that pigeon, and I saw myself, and it was a moment of clarity, a shining grace. In the mega-hustle of 13.6 million people in London, and in the midst of my own profound mental crisis, I knew God’s caring touch and it gave me real grace, love, and goodness–far greater than all my sin and confusion. He was just letting me know that He was very, very close. (See Psalm 34:18.)

I had seen my damaged pigeon, completely oblivious to self-pity.

I started to call out to the Father out of my confusion. Within a few minutes, I found myself sitting on the top level of a double decker bus, with the driver aware of my problems and who specifically drove me to the place I was staying.

I was being cared for. Between a crippled pigeon and the dutiful ministrations of a bus driver, I’d finally found my hotel. (See Matthew 6:26.)

I have come to realize that this trip to England was not for me to see Big Ben, Parliament, or wander the academic schools of Cambridge University. Rather I was brought there to make contact with a certain pigeon, who was waiting to meet me and pass on vital instructions.

The Father shared things that I need to know. British castles and churches are beautiful and worth seeing but I must admit I’ve forgotten much. I hope I can return someday.

Category: personal testimony