Dear friend, if you’re among those who cry out to God and yearn for his comfort, know you’re not alone. Your walk in the darkness cannot hide you from the Light of the World (John 8:12). Even when you can’t feel his presence, Jesus remains with you until the end of the age (Matt. 28:20), and nothing—not your shame, your despair, or the agony of depression—can separate you from his love (Rom. 8:38–39). Though every hour may seem hopeless and every day a painful ordeal, healing is possible. The following practical guidelines can ease you toward a place of greater wholeness. Keep in mind these suggestions don’t take the place of professional counseling. Confide in Someone You Trust When we struggle with depression, we often feel isolated and alone. We fear others won’t understand our struggles and will condemn us for our inability to “pull ourselves up by our bootstraps.” So while we thirst for companionship, our shame silences us. But when flailing in the dark, we need the guiding hand of fellowship more than ever. Though fears of rejection may haunt you, identify people in your life whom you trust and then confide in them about your struggles. Biblical counselor Ed Welch advises, Tell someone you are depressed. That is a small, risky yet doable step. It might feel like you are coming out of hiding and acknowledging something hideous or shameful. But tell someone. If you have no idea who to tell, tell your pastor. Among those who responded [to our survey about depression], there was a chorus that never stopped singing the same refrain: “Don’t isolate. Don’t isolate.” Honestly sharing your struggles helps others better love you and helps you remain engaged. Safe people may include immediate family, a dear friend, a mentor, a counselor, or (and especially) the church. The body of Christ is designed to bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2), so connect with your pastor or members of your church who can weep alongside you (Rom. 12:15). As you voice your pain, invite others to pray with and for you. Private prayer may feel laborious, but requests on our behalf can provide a balm for our weary souls. No matter whom you invite into your confidence, be forthright about what helps and what makes days worse. Allowing others to be present with you without pretending all is well can give you the freedom to heal. Seek (and Accept) Help Depression is much more serious than a glum mood, and an early step toward shaking away the shadows and reclaiming your joy is to acknowledge you need help. You can’t overcome this affliction alone. The first stop when seeking help for depression is your primary doctor’s office, but it shouldn’t be the last. While a doctor determines whether an antidepressant will help, it’s critically important to couple any medication with counseling. Your doctor may refer you to a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist, or you can seek out a Christian counselor through various online resources like Anchored Hope, which provides clinically informed biblical counseling remotely. Additionally, both the American Association of Christian Counselors (AACC) and the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation (CCEF) host helpful search engines with contact information for Christian counselors across the country. If you’re among those who cry out to God and yearn for his comfort, know you’re not alone. Your walk in the darkness cannot hide you from the Light of the World. If a doctor recommends antidepressants, don’t view this as a failure. Such medications can be a crucial component of recovery, especially when combined with counseling. Though getting out the door to an appointment can feel impossible at times, aim to continue therapy as best you can. If you don’t connect with or grow to trust the first counselor you see, seek out another therapist rather than abandoning treatment completely. Recruit a trusted friend to help you research options and to drive you to and from appointments. Lean on others to ease the burden and keep you accountable when your motivation is at a minimum. Focus on Doing the Next Thing Depression feels like a mire of meaninglessness, but daily structure can keep you moving forward even when your mind and body want to surrender. Elisabeth Elliot, a missionary well versed in suffering, relied on an old Saxon poem to prod her to “do the next thing”: Do it immediately; do it with prayer; Do it reliantly, casting all care; Do it with reverence, tracing His hand Who placed it before thee with earnest command. Stayed on omnipotence, safe ’neath His wing, Leave all resultings, do the next thing. Doing the next thing can offer a lifeline in depression. The next thing need not be momentous. It may be the only task your mind can handle in a given instance—getting out of bed, making lunch, calling a friend, taking a walk, or driving to work. In her book on grief, Clarissa Moll reframes the daily routines of “eat, sleep, exercise” as “nourish, rest, move.” The words mean the same thing, but hers can seem less daunting to a weary heart. When simple tasks seem arduous, focus not on the responsibilities that loom but only on the next thing: Nourish, rest, move. Repeat. As much as possible, incorporate these into routines to conserve your energy and limit the burden of daily decisions. Lean into Prayer Depression muddies concentration. We may yearn for God’s Word but find our eyes gloss over familiar verses without comprehending them. Our hearts cry out for help, but we can’t organize our anguish into a coherent prayer. The psalms are life-giving in such moments. When you’re feeling well, bookmark particular psalms in your Bible to which you can turn when the fog of depression again clouds your thinking. When you’re sinking into the depths, allow the psalms to anchor your prayers. Recite them as if they were your own words. If a doctor recommends antidepressants, don’t view this as a failure. Such medications can be a crucial component of recovery, especially when combined with counseling. If the Spirit moves you, add your own language of lament, pouring out your woes to God. Lift up your prayers even if they dwindle to single phrases—“Lord, have mercy on me,” “Father, please help me.” God hears our prayers (1 John 5:15), and when our own words fail, the Spirit speaks on our behalf “with groanings too deep for words” (Rom. 8:26). My prayer is that when gloom descends and living seems unbearable, the body of Christ will offer a cool cup of water and you’ll find hope in God—even if it’s only glimpses at first. When church members bolster one another with the message of God’s grace, and we cleave to one another as brothers and sisters, we can chase away the loneliness. After all, our hope isn’t found in the work of our meager hands but in Christ, through whom God shows his boundless love, mercy, and forgiveness. And when we encounter that love, pinpricks of light penetrate the darkness.

After three healthy pregnancies and births, I entered a season of deep sorrow with the miscarriages of my next three babies. These brought not only physical difficulties but also emotional and spiritual wrestling with grief and guilt. Then the Lord provided me with one final pregnancy that turned into an emotional rollercoaster. While serving as cross-cultural workers in Asia, we were stateside for a family emergency. During that unexpected visit, I ended up in the doctor’s office due to difficulties with the pregnancy. I could see by the ultrasound technician’s face that something was wrong before she uttered a word. As the doctor explained, the ultrasound showed a hematoma—the same problem that led to the tragic end of my sixth pregnancy. Our baby had a 50 percent chance of survival, and the doctor sent us home to wait and pray. While my experiences are personal, they aren’t unique. Jackie Gibson’s book You Are Still a Mother: Hope for Women Grieving a Stillbirth or Miscarriage is the book I needed in those hard times. Her theological reflections offer real comfort because they come from someone who knows what it feels like to lose a child. The stillbirth of her daughter, Leila, put her in this “club no one wants to be in” (xi). She shows how the gospel can shine through even in heartbreaking loss. Suffering Alone The local church loves to celebrate newborns. And they generally mourn the loss of babies when a miscarriage occurs after the pregnancy has already been announced. However, many mothers suffer a lost pregnancy in private because no one knows. The March of Dimes estimates that between 10 and 20 percent of women who know they’re pregnant experience a miscarriage—the loss of a pregnancy before 20 weeks. Because of this high loss rate, our culture encourages women not to share early news of their pregnancy with others. Thus many women who initially rejoiced in private are left to grieve the loss without much support. Many women who initially rejoiced in private are left to grieve the loss without much support. Whether public or not, a stillbirth or miscarriage often leads to a deep sense of loneliness because a mother’s body conditions itself during pregnancy to care for that little one. Gibson recalls walking away with empty arms after placing Leila in the arms of a nurse whose name she doesn’t remember (6). She observes, “One of the hardest things about the death of a baby is that you have nothing to show for your motherhood” (42). A grieving mother has to pack up the newborn clothing and give away unused diapers and wipes. Grief can turn into despair and doubt in the goodness of God. Why would God, who is infinitely good, allow such loss? Even those who know the theological truths of God’s goodness can struggle. Gibson writes, It is still very hard to accept God’s goodness as you stare at an empty crib and give away the newborn diapers you bought; as you ache to hold your baby just one more time (or for the first time). Our finite minds cannot comprehend how a good God can ordain suffering, especially when our arms are empty. God is good, yes, but sometimes mysteriously so. (28–29) Suffering Together Gibson wrote You Are Still a Mother for women who’ve lost a child. It brought to my mind ways the local church can help, even months after the initial loss. The pain certainly changes over time, but it never goes away.  A church’s support for a grieving mother may take the form of dropping off a meal at the door or sending a bouquet of flowers. Simply listening and mourning together is another way to minister. Other women who share similar scars can stop by and share their confidence that Jesus cares. They can remind the grieving mother that Jesus entered our suffering and sympathizes with us in our weakness (Heb. 4:15). Jesus wept with Martha and Mary at the tomb of their brother, despite knowing he’d raise Lazarus from the dead (John 11). Jesus bore our griefs and carried our sorrows all the way to his own tomb (Isa. 53). Amid their suffering, mothers need to be gently reminded this loss isn’t their fault. Guilt has a way of poisoning our thoughts: If only I hadn’t picked up that box. I should have rested more. Mothers need others to help them wade through these emotions. As Gibson writes, “Our babies were only ever going to live for the days that God apportioned to them” (23). This challenging truth can bring comfort in a time of self-doubt. Loving friends and neighbors need to encourage mothers that the Lord values and cares for children, even children in the womb. Gibson observes, “It doesn’t matter at what point during the pregnancy your baby dies, how developed they were, or whether or not they had medical complications. They were still image-bearing, soul-possessing human beings whom the God of the universe intimately wove together, and therefore they are precious in his sight” (36). The loss is real and the grief is warranted. Sometimes the heartbreaks we suffer aren’t the end of the story. My seventh pregnancy resulted in a healthy baby. Two weeks after that worrying ultrasound appointment, I again lay on the table, praying silently for tangible signs of progress. Each moment seemed like an eternity as we studied the face of the technician who was puzzled by what she didn’t see. After curious questions and consultation with the radiologist, we received the news of God’s grace. To the shock of the medical professionals, the hematoma was gone. Cling to Hope My experiences left me with the conviction that we, the church, can be more effective at ministering to parents who endure the loss of a baby. It’s much easier to rejoice with those who rejoice than it is to weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15). The latter may be more important. It’s much easier to rejoice with those who rejoice than it is to weep with those who weep. The latter may be more important. As Gibson notes, “Grief is still a part of me, a quiet companion who accompanies me wherever I go. That’s because the final morning hasn’t come yet, the morning when Jesus will return and make all things new; the morning when our wounds will be fully healed” (58). You Are Still a Mother is a resource that will benefit grieving mothers and church leaders ministering to them. Churches should have this resource on their shelves to give to women who need it.

Questioning is hazardous. Though recent generations of Christians have often sought to reclaim questions and questioning from their overly-anxious forbearers, we have struggled to discover what it feels and looks like to question well. The questions we ask aren’t neutral: questioning is not a game in which we play in the fields of the world while blowing bubbles. Questioning is the fundamental mode of the intellectual life and, to that extent, shapes the orientation of the whole person toward the world and God. The questions we ask dispose our hearts, wills, minds, and even bodies toward or away from bearing witness to God’s triune life and love. We can see both the perils and the promise of inquiry in Luke 1, where the announcement of two miraculous births is met with two different questions: the skeptical inquiry of the priest Zechariah, who is serving in the temple, and the devout, faithful query of the mother of our Lord. Zechariah’s Skepticism When an angel of the Lord appears to Zechariah, Luke tells us the priest “was troubled” and “fear fell upon him” (Luke 1:12). The angel’s announcement is good news—some of the best news, really—to the grieving, childless man: Zechariah and Elizabeth “will have joy and gladness” when John the Baptist is born (v. 14). Zechariah’s question, though, sounds a note of skepticism: “How shall I know this,” he asks, “for I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years?” (v. 18). He is chastised for it: after reminding Zechariah of his credentials, the angel, Gabriel, tells him he will “be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time” (v. 20). On the surface, Zechariah’s question seems eminently reasonable. Yet the details and form of his inquiry shed some light on why he is rebuked. The grammar Luke uses for Zechariah’s question is an exact quotation of the Septuagint’s rendering of Abraham’s question in Genesis 15:8, which the King James Bible delightfully renders “Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit [the land]?” In verse 5, Abraham is told he’ll have a child—a message he believes and that’s counted to him as righteousness (v. 6). His question in verse 8 is about how he will know God’s promise he will possess the land. In this light, the unbelief at the heart of Zechariah’s question becomes apparent. Zechariah is alluding to his potential position as a recapitulation of Abraham’s role—only he has collapsed together what Abraham keeps distinct, namely, the sure promise of God’s creative power in giving him and Sarah birth and the more nebulous path toward “possessing” the land. Abraham hears he will have a child and is credited for his righteous faith; Zechariah hears he will have a child and wonders how he will know. In Romans 4:17, Paul is explicit that Abraham’s response to God’s promise in Genesis 15 is an affirmation of God’s power to give life to mortal bodies and call being out of non-being—the same power at work in Jesus’s resurrection (Rom. 4:17; 8:11). Zechariah essentially calls into question God’s creative and re-creative power. Questioning Revelation But he also calls into question the reliability of God’s revelation. Zechariah is disciplined for his question: he is silenced until John is born. As with all God’s ways, the punishment fits the offense: Gabriel observes Zechariah “did not believe [his] words,” even though the angel “stand[s] in the presence of God” and “was sent to speak to [Zechariah] and bring [him] this good news” (Luke 1:19–20). Zechariah wants to confirm the truth of God’s Word according to some standard beyond it—he does not accept its self-authenticating power. While his question seems humble, it has notes of an unwarranted disbelief. Zechariah is the high priest serving in the temple when the angel comes to him. He surely knows old age is not a barrier to procreation in God’s divine plan. But if left unchecked, his suspicion about the reliability of God’s plans and purposes would bring both questioning and speech to an end. Zechariah’s question is a stark reminder that not all questions are the right ones. There’s a manner and mode of questioning that breeds cynicism and suspicion. Zechariah’s question is a stark reminder that not all questions are the right ones. There’s a manner and mode of questioning that breeds cynicism and suspicion. In this case, Zechariah’s great learning and training did not prepare him to appropriately encounter the reality of the revelation of God’s Word. We might say he was seeking understanding in order to believe. I’m inclined to think it wasn’t outright disbelief that caused Zechariah to want the additional security of hearing what form God’s promise would take—it was his fear. Mary, Model Theologian Zechariah’s skepticism is not the only way Luke depicts questioning at the incarnation, though. Mary greets a similar angelic announcement with a question of her own. When the angel first greets Mary as “favored one,” she’s fascinated. Luke uses two important terms to depict Mary’s response (Luke 1:28). First, he describes Mary as perplexed (ESV, “greatly troubled”), like a philosopher would be. The term appears only here in the New Testament but is used in both Xenophon and Plato to describe a state of confusion. Then Luke tells us Mary does what any confused, uncertain person might do: she tries to discern what the angel’s proclamation means (v. 29). Though the angel tells her to not be afraid (v. 30), the other times an angel appears in his Gospel Luke tells us people are afraid (v. 12; 2:9; 24:5), with the only other exception being Christ in the garden (22:43). Mary might be perplexed, but she is not afraid. Instead, Mary asks a question. She seeks to overcome her confusion by working her way through it. “How will this be,” she asks the angel, “since I am a virgin?” (1:34). Her question is often translated the same way as Zechariah’s, but Luke’s Greek is precise: Zechariah wants the angel to tell him how he will know the angel’s word will come true, whereas Mary wants to know how the angel’s promise will happen. She uses the future tense verb “will this be” because she knows that what the angel says will come about—she has no uncertainty that the word given is true and needs no independent verification of its accuracy. Where Zechariah’s question signals his suspicion, Mary’s question reveals her faith. Moreover, Mary wants to understand what is to come so she can conform her will to God, not because she is afraid. Her search for understanding is not disobedience but preparation for glad conformity to God. She consummates her inquiry in the surrender of her will: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (v. 38). Where Eve’s reluctance to question the Serpent’s deception in Genesis embroiled humanity in death, Mary’s question to the angel opens humanity to redemption. Mary’s question is paradigmatic for the Christian believer: in that moment, Mary is the New Testament’s model for theologians (and we are all theologians). Mary has been prepared to hear the angel’s word by her loving study of Scripture. She believes in order to understand, and understands in order to obey. She is fearless in her ignorance and so she is free with her questions, because she knows the revelation of God will bring about her good and the good of the world. Evaluating Questions We can learn much from these questions. In Genesis 4, there are two modes of worship: Abel’s is acceptable to the Lord, while Cain’s is not. In Luke 1, there are two modes of inquiry: one is welcome to the Lord and the other is not. Mary has been prepared to hear the angel’s word by her loving study of Scripture. She believes in order to understand, and understands in order to obey. As Jacob of Sarug, a fifth-century Syriac theologian, writes, “See, O prudent one, there is a (sort of) inquiry that is advantageous, and there is questioning that generates harm by its doubt.” There is one “who inquires, yet he is not belittled because he is on the side of truth,” and there is “another one who disputes, and his discourse ends up in loss.” How we discern fidelity in questioning is a hard question. Paradoxically, Zechariah’s sophisticated display of his vast learning gets him into trouble: his fearful anxiety moves him to reach deep into Scripture for what he thinks will be the right response, even though it is not. By contrast, Mary tries to find her way through a strange moment: she speaks her question in her own voice and words, and in doing so reveals the burning fire of her love for God. Questions aimed at understanding are rarely, if ever, the wrong kinds of questions to ask. Zechariah is rebuked—but it is a healing rebuke, not an alienating one. Zechariah’s unbelieving question is not Luke’s first or last word about him. Luke tells us Zechariah and Elizabeth “were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statues of the Lord” (v. 6). And when John is born, he conforms his will to God by naming him in accordance with the angel’s instructions. Then his tongue is loosed and he speaks, “blessing God” (v. 64). Zechariah’s unhappy question is an irruption in an otherwise faithful life, which Luke records so we might learn to question like Mary and be gracious to those who do not. Learning the art of questioning well is difficult because the human heart is a deep and impenetrable abyss, full of darkness and deception and self-deceit. When God’s Word pierces our hearts as Mary’s was pierced on that day, we will often encounter it with confusion, uncertainty, and hesitation. It is our glorious opportunity to meet the promises of God as Mary did, by putting a question to the Word in sincerity and faith: “How will this be?” Only then will we be prepared to say with her, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, may it be to me according to your word” (v. 38).

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