A treasured friend popped in to see me last week. She was concerned about me and wanted to know how I was doing.
What followed was a wide-ranging, hour-plus-long conversation in which I traced the wavy, blurry, confusing lines of being a husband, a father, a pastor – and a man of a certain age. The resulting picture was not entirely rosy. My friend listened actively to my rambling doodle of “how I’m doing,” and when I’d shared what I had to share, her reply was simple and honest: “I thought I was the only one.”
An empathic heart and mind, a sympathetic soul and spirit, had come into my midst unexpectedly yet blessedly. Our minds were cut of whole cloth: entwined thoughts and feelings weaving a collective fabric of stunned disbelief, and anxious emotion, and outright fear. And she thought she was the only one, as I too thought my dark nights of the soul were mine to endure alone. To echo the author of Psalm 88 – the first of this morning’s Scripture lessons, I sometimes feel – in these our conflicted and confusing days – like darkness is my only friend.
Depending on how you count them, between one-third and one-half of the Old Testament’s 150 psalms are expressions of lament. In this angry poetry of weeping and gnashing, writers pour out their hearts to God in powerful expressions of grief, sorrow, and regret. Voices choked with raw emotion agonize over God’s apparent absence, God’s seeming lack of concern, God’s outward detachment from the long, dark, uphill slog of their days.
The lament psalms are bold expressions of strong emotions, men and women articulating their frustration and anger with themselves, their situations – and with God. But usually, in their final stanzas, speakers of lament psalms express some measure of calm assurance that God really has heard their cries, that God indeed does care, that God ultimately will step in and save the day.
Except for Psalm 88. By its end, the psalmist cannot even begin to imagine even the remotest of possibilities for better days ahead: “My only friend is darkness.” Period. End of sentence, end of story. Hear now these ancient words that sadly remain true –
LORD, you are the God who saves me; day and night I cry out to you. May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry.
I am overwhelmed with troubles and my life draws near to death. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like one without strength. I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care.
You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves. You have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape; my eyes are dim with grief. I call to you, LORD, every day; I spread out my hands to you. Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do their spirits rise up and praise you? Is your love declared in the grave, your faithfulness in Destruction? Are your wonders known in the place of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?
But I cry to you for help, LORD; in the morning my prayer comes before you. Why, LORD, do you reject me and hide your face from me? From my youth I have suffered and been close to death; I have borne your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me. All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me.
You have taken from me friend and neighbor – darkness is my closest friend. (Psalm 88, NIV translation)
“My only friend is darkness.” That’s how the psalmist ends. Because that’s how the psalmist feels. The news is all bad; assurance and re-assurance are nowhere to be found; nothing but hopelessness and godlessness abound. You surely have to wonder why the distressing, woe-is-me, pity-party of a psalm is even included in the Bible in the first place. Yet, with full throat, we declare it “the Word of the Lord.” Thanks be to God!
Psalm 88 acknowledges that being a believer is not all happiness and “hurray for God!”
By decision, circumstance, or accident, bad things happen in our lives just as they do among non-believers. I’ve been a baptized Christian all my life: 20-or-so years a Roman Catholic, 40- or-so a Presbyterian. Yet my life hasn’t always been perfect, nor my attitude constantly positive, nor my moods entirely bearable.
At times, yes – even for a pastor – God feels distant, difficult to see, through the lingering fog of my own weaknesses and limitations, through the oftentimes-dim social and political realities of daily living in an imperfect, fallen world. If the writer of Psalm 88 isn’t battling full-on clinical depression, she or he full-well knows the sensation of intense sadness: So much so that even the very presence of God feels like inky blackness!
But as both theologian and clinician affirm, depression is a liar. It tells you that you are worthless, that you have no friends, that you are beyond hope, that you have no future, that you are only a burden to others.
Psalm 88 reassures that struggles with depression and other forms of mental illness arise not from a lack of faith. With Psalm 88, the writer exhibits faith both deep and wide in continuing to cry out to the Lord, even when God seems distant, or absent, or downright cruel. Though you sometimes cannot hear or see the Lord’s response, you ever-enjoy the full privilege of prayer that empties the pain of your heart and mind unto heaven – even if, and especially when, it feels like you’re just shouting and screaming in thin air.
Psalm 88 declares that doubt and difficulty are not signs of lackluster faith. “I’ve been there,” the psalmist assures. “The dark times are simply part of the earthly journey.”
One of the most harmful misconceptions about depression and other mental illness is that they are signs of weakness. Believing they are being helpful, Christians will tell someone dealing with acute, prolonged sadness that they’ll soon recover and feel better – if they just pray more, or just read the Bible more, or just be more thankful, or just be more positive and optimistic!
Those are not bad things – certainly praying, reading Scripture, practicing gratitude, and manifesting abundance are healthy behaviors and solid spiritual disciplines, especially during times of trial and tribulation. But depression is an illness. And you’d never dream of telling someone with the flu, or a severe head laceration, cancer or paralysis, to just pray more and think good thoughts.
Indeed, it is more challenging to reach out to someone battling depression or other mental challenge than it is to help someone suffering physically. You can see a deep cut, stitch it up, and cover it with a bandage. An x-ray reveals a broken bone that’s healed with application of a cast. You peer down someone’s throat, have the doctor take a swab and culture the sample, to diagnose strep throat and prescribe an antibiotic.
Not so much when it comes to mental illness, which is not always as apparent and obvious as physical trauma and disease – especially to the man, woman, teen, or child experiencing it!
Here’s how I sense the Holy Spirit moving among us toward healing and wholeness –
For starters, the Spirit is urging us to purge the stigma of depression and other mental illness. Instead of saying or implying that mental illness merely is a matter of faith or lack thereof, the Holy Spirit – I believe – would have us acknowledge mental illness as a medical challenge to be diagnosed and treated as with diabetes or diverticulitis. And following the pattern of Psalm 88 helps stir the courage to admit one’s struggles with short-term or chronic mental health. You are not the only one!
There is no more shame in seeking expert care of your mental health than there is in asking a surgeon to repair that torn cartilage in your knee. Sure, you could just deny that your knee is injured, or pray harder while thinking happy thoughts. But none of those things – filled with the power of faith as they are – will do thing one to improve your mobility. They might even attack and diminish your faith, as you linger in daily frustration and pain, until that moment when you realize ignoring your buggered-up leg is foolish. Surely God, the Great Physician, has been answering your prayers for relief all along: “Go see the doctor!” But you’ve been too hard of hearing and too stiff of neck to listen to the Lord’s gracious reply.
As always God’s grace is sufficient. And by grace God gifts doctors, PAs, nurses and other medical professionals with the skills and talents to deal with our physical ailments, and God so also gifts physicians, therapists, and counselors to treat injuries and wounds to our mental health. To seek professional help does not deny God’s power or ability to heal. God works in, with, and through those whom God has called and equipped to heal. God’s power works through therapy they provide and medications they prescribe.
God also can and does work through the people of God, just as God works through us when we come to the aid of those physically ill or injured. The church, the Body of Christ, stands as source of strength and support for those dealing with depression, anxiety, addiction, and other mental health challenges.
You and I have the power and obligation to stop the contagious lie that mental illness likes to spread – as to the writer of Psalm 88 – that you have no friends, that no one cares about you, and that you’re not worth caring about anyway. As a community of faith – in thought, word and deed, we disprove those lies not just by reminding each other of God’s unconditional love and presence, but by living, moving, and being the incarnate, embodied presence of love – God’s love and presence first made flesh in Christ Jesus, love and presence with us still, in our flesh, through the Holy Spirit.
Rather than telling someone to “cheer up,” let me suggest that you listen up. Let me suggest that you acknowledge the other’s pain – even if you don’t understand it fully or can’t relate to it personally. Encourage the other to reach out for help. Point them toward help, and even accompany them when the other gets help.
How do you know if you or another needs help?
If your depression or anxiety is keeping you from doing the things you need and want to do, if it is keeping you from being the person you want to be, if it is separating you from the ones you love – then I pray you’ll consider getting help.
If you are having trouble finding hope and believing that things can be better, then I hope you’ll consider getting help.
If anxiety is causing you to worry constantly, to believe bad things are going to happen if you don’t do things a certain way, if anxiety won’t go away, then I urge you to consider getting help.
If you feel you’re not worth helping, then I want you to consider getting help. You are worth it!
If you feel like hurting yourself or someone else, or like the world would be a better place if you or someone else weren’t in it, then time has come to get help right away. Call 9-8-8 or one of the other hotlines. You might need someone to help you get that help, or even get you to the emergency room. That’s okay. We are here for each other in the same way that God is here for all of us.
No matter who you are, no matter what you have or haven’t done, you are a beloved child of God, fearfully and wonderfully made, knit together in your mother’s womb, God’s masterpiece re-created in Christ Jesus to do the good work that God has planned for you. No matter who you are, no matter what you have or haven’t done – even when you can’t see or sense your inherent dignity and worth, because your illness is lying to you, you nonetheless remain among God’s beloved gathered into the Body of Christ.
God holds no desire for your eternal suffering, physically or emotionally. There is help. There is hope. We are here for each other. You have friends, even in the darkness. Let’s turn the page from Psalm 88 to selected verses of Psalm 89 and revel in slivers of light that pierce the darkness.
I will sing of the LORD’s great love forever.
With my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations. I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you have established your faithfulness in heaven itself. You said, “I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant, ‘I will establish your line forever and make your throne firm through all generations.’”
Once you spoke in a vision, to your faithful people you said: “I have bestowed strength on a warrior; I have raised up a young man from among the people. I have found David my servant; with my sacred oil I have anointed him. My hand will sustain him; surely my arm will strengthen him. The enemy will not get the better of him; the wicked will not oppress him. I will crush his foes before him and strike down his adversaries.
My faithful love will be with him, and through my name his horn will be exalted. I will set his hand over the sea, his right hand over the rivers. He will call out to me, “You are my Father, my God, the Rock my Savior.” And I will appoint him to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth. (Psalm 89:1-4, 19-27 NIV translation)
In her classic essay “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” author Maya Angelou turns back the clock to the Deep South of the 1930s and ’40s. In that American time and place of segregation and oppression, her parents ran a small grocery store.
One day, when Maya’s mother was sitting in a rocking chair on the store’s front porch, a group of white girls came by and decided to mock Mama. The mean girls laughed at her for being black. They spewed nasty, racially wounding words. At one point, a 13-year-old girl did a handstand, allowing her dress to fall down around her shoulders to reveal her total lack of underwear, thus mooning Mama with her bare bottom.
Watching the cruel scene unfold from a corner of the porch, young Maya was furious that her mother said nothing, did nothing to shoo away the teen-age gaggle of verbal abuse and slander. Mama stayed calm, and as Maya moved a little closer, she could hear her mother singing softly, “Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me till I want no more.”
The girls eventually tired of the putrid antics and slithered away. As Mama stood to return into her store, Maya could hear her singing softly again, “Glory hallelujah, when I lay my burden down. Glory hallelujah, when I lay my burden down.”
Maybe, then, spiritually speaking, it is at least a little helpful, in seasons of genuine and legitimate lament, to do what we can to praise the Lord for his faithfulness, for his awesome and majestic power on full display in his Creation. That won’t bubble-wrap God’s people from the jarring shock of seismic difficulty. But such postures of praise and adoration do fan embers of hope in our souls: that God is in charge, that God can and will do something, that God can and will still bring all things to where the Lord wants them to be, when the kingdom of Christ fully comes.
Perhaps, then, it really is so, that a broken mirror really does reflect light. You are not the only one. Perhaps, then, you and I enter the brokenness of another only to the extent that we’re willing and able to enter our own. You definitely are not the only one.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit: God loves you, and so do I.
Amen, and amen!
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message on Sunday, September 7, 2025, during worship at First Presbyterian Church in Waukon, Iowa, USA. Scholarship, commentary, and reflection by Maya Angelou, Scott Hoezee, and Dave Simpson inform the message.
The service tied into the Monday’s observance of “988 Day.” Sept. 8 (9/8) intends to raise awareness of the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Dial 9-8-8 from any phone for 24/7 access to help when dealing with emotional distress, substance use and abuse, or simply loneliness. The 988 Lifeline is a national network of more than 200 crisis centers that combine local care and resources with national standards and best practices.
You are encouraged to reach out to a family member, friend, co-worker, classmate, neighbor, clergyperson or other professional when life’s daily challenges overwhelm. If none of those folks is available, or if you simply can’t find or don’t have anyone — for whatever reason, please dial 9-8-8 to reach a compassionate voice and a helping heart.