Tragically as a Christian community, we keep witnessing the effects of mental illness within our church leadership. Following the suicide of some prominent pastors, I knew I needed to share my experience to let all my fellow warriors know that they are not alone in their struggles or in the church.
When you are suffering from chronic depression or anxiety as a Christian, it seems that everyone wants to give you a pep talk, while almost no one wants to climb into the darkness and just sit with you. Everyone offers to pray for you, few want to walk through the pain that neither you or they understand. There are many uncomfortable silences, but far worse than the deafening silence, are the words that pierce through you like a knife and deepen your pain, which hardly seems imaginable. This leads to feeling even more out of place and misunderstood within the walls of the church.