It hit me hard today…the depression. I arrived at the church at 6:45 am, to get ready for the day’s sermons. It was to be a hot topic today; morality and presenting ourselves as aliens to the secular world. It was a much needed message to be sure. Our values as Christians tend to become lax over time. For example, we have a tendency to accept hearing someone take the Lord’s name in vain. We become desensitized to it. The message was that we should present ourselves as the Bible instructs us. Stop making allowances for behavior that is detrimental to the cause of the Christian faith. Be a light unto the world so that we cannot be the reason a person falters in his walk with God. There are many whom we encounter that may be on the brink of making the decision to accept Christ as his personal Saviour and our behavior could make that decision for them.
During the first service, I stayed focused on the tasks at hand, that is, ensuring all the channels were EQ’d and ready to go. On Thursday nights, we do extensive sound checks but Sunday morning, it is very quick. We just verify that things are working properly. If perchance something fails, we will react to it quickly. Jeff was actually running the board. I stayed in the background. As the service progressed, I began to feel disconnected. It was as if I was a different kind of alien, not the one Pastor Scott was preaching about but alien to the people around me. I felt disjointed, conspicuous.
Yesterday, knowing the part of the sermon was to include the passage from Joshua 24:15 which says, in essence, “…but for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”, I made a very nice picture of a beautiful starry night with that Bible verse overlayed as a gift for the family that I had wrote about earlier in this blog. The family that had been so gracious to me. I put it in a beautiful frame and left it for them to find. After it was discovered, they fawned over it but, then, I suddenly felt ridiculous. I felt like a child who made something in school for his mommy. I wanted to hide.
During the second and third services, the depression really hit. I could not wait to get out of there and go home away from everyone. After it ended, I took my leave without so much as a goodbye. Now that was childish but I was so overwhelmed with emotion that I couldn’t worry about what anyone would think. I just had to go!
There was a point in time where I imagined a completely different scenario. There is a young woman who I met briefly last fall that had traveled to Cambodia along with other church members on a missions trip. They had gone there to build a church. Upon their return, our Bible-study leader invited two of them to come share their experience with the men’s group. They were introduced to us but I don’t remember her name. I was completely smitten by her. When I saw her arrive for the third service, My eyes were glued to her. She came in at the start of the service and made her way to the far wall in the back so as not to create a disturbance. At one point, I whispered to Jeff, “Do you see that young lady over there with the white top and long dark hair? Do you know who she is?”
“No, I don’t know her name but she’s one of the ones who went to Cambodia last year.” “Yes, I know but what’s her name?” “Dunno.”
In my mental state, I saw that as another disappointment. I saw such a lovely vision of a woman and no one knows her name. So I beat myself up over it. I convinced myself that it was just as well because she wouldn’t give me a second look anyway. Who am I fooling?
I sincerely wish I could get some relief from this debilitating disease. It’s like going through a slow death. Thoughts of suicide seem to always be just around the bend with me. I haven’t attempted it in over forty years but regardless, it is never far from my mind. I have prayed to God to take this demon away from me but while I pray I find that I tell myself that I don’t deserve relief from it. I am just taking up space that someone else whose more deserving should occupy. Isn’t that sick!
