Last year, I chatted with Diana Gruver about her upcoming book, detailing the struggles of some historical Christian figures with depression and anxiety.
Now that book, Companions in the Darkness: Seven Saints Who Struggled with Depression and Doubt, is out (get it, you will love it), and I recently had the chance to chat with her again.
The book chronicles the emotional turmoil of Martin Luther, David Brainerd, Charles Spurgeon, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Teresa, Hannah Allen, and William Cowper.
And the purpose lies, helpfully, in the title.
These Christians, long gone, are still our companions in our darkness, because they show us that no Christian who’s walked this earth (even ones who’ve started Reformations) is immune to this disease.
Here, we talk about some of those figures, their battles, and how they fought them – sometimes prevailing, sometimes not, always human.
The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
HEINZE: Let’s first talk about the famous reformer, Martin Luther. He frequently referred to his anfechtung. What is that?
GRUVER: It’s a hard word to translate, but you can loosely translate it as “spiritual turmoil and trials.”
For him, it was a lot of inner wrestling over his own sense of guilt before God. Fear of God’s judgment. A deep trial of either clinging in faith to the grace of God through Christ on the cross, or giving into complete despair.
It’s worth noting that that’s not exactly the same thing as depression. I think there’s some overlap. Depression does affect our whole being. There is a sense of desolation. The temptation to despair of God’s mercy to us. An internal spiritual restlessness. I think that’s something a lot of us experience when we’re depressed.
HEINZE: Some of that angst was related to his sense of guilt. Did any of that spiritual turmoil go away when he started to understand justification by faith alone?
GRUVER: Some of it went away. Those trials helped him develop his theology, to some extent.
His trials started at monastery, and it was part of what drove him to studying the Scripture.
But it wasn’t as if this Reformation shift took everything away. It continued to pop up throughout life. He still had moments when he had to grapple to believe in God’s grace towards him.
Later in his life, he had a lot of health problems, and there’s one story he tells where he said that in the midst of a very intense physical illness that he thought would kill him, he also had a great spiritual trial. And he said it was like being in hell.
So it wasn’t as if a theological shift removed his depression or the spiritual struggle that had accompanied it.
HEINZE: You think his spiritual turmoil was instrumental in the doctrine he arrived at?
GRUVER: He said that. His spiritual trials helped him in the process of learning his theology.
During the physical illness that was accompanied by the spiritual trial, he made a note to himself to remember he was “at school” in that.
There was something in the pain that was a school.
I think a lot of us have taken that too far — the idea that we should blithely ignore the pain that we experience because it’s a learning opportunity.
We don’t want to take it that far, but I think Luther reminds us that it is an opportunity to learn.
He didn’t say it was nothing. He talked very vividly with his friends about how intense it was.
HEIINZE: What did Luther do when he was depressed?
GRUVER: I can tell you what he told other people to do when they were depressed, and sometimes I think he followed his advice.
He once wrote a letter to one of his students who struggled with depression.
Luther was afraid that the student would take his own life in despair and wrote to him, “Flee solitude, drink more, and be with your friends and joke and jest.”
At one point, Luther said that if he couldn’t find friends to be with, he would at least go out and be with the pigs because the heart itself was like a millstone that would keep grinding itself away.
He knew what it felt like to be alone. He spent months in Wartburg Castle by himself, wrestling with his own angst and the implications of the Reformation.
He knew, and we certainly know, that depression makes you want to isolate. It’s one of the symptoms.
Being alone when you’re depressed, at least for me, is very problematic. It gives more space for your thoughts to fester.
Even if you’re not having a grand old time being with other people who care about you, and even if you’re sometimes just going through the motions, doing things you once did find delight in – I think it puts you in a position to even see a little delight coming your way in places you least expect it.
HEINZE: A lot of people in this book struggled with being alone.
There are some Christians who will say that if you’re struggling, find time to pray and think about theology and you’ll feel better.
Yet, here, even Martin Luther knew being alone could send him on a dark path.
He certainly wasn’t the type of person to say that if you’re depressed, you should just be alone and think about God’s grace for you.
He said, “Go out and joke and drink.”
GRUVER: Right, but I don’t think he’d say it was never okay to be alone.
We know solitude can have great benefit for our spiritual lives. But I think Luther knew that there are some seasons where solitude might not be the best choice.
He said that when you’re depressed, solitude is a poison.
As we counsel people, I think it’s worth considering that, of course, we need time alone with the Lord, but we’re not created to be solitary beings.
That’s the first “not-good” of creation: for humankind to be alone. Especially when we’re depressed and, to some extent, can’t even trust our own thought patterns – we need other people.
It can save your life.
HEINZE: It’s a tough thing for depressed Christians. The modern American church can be an awful place to go if you’re feeling depressed.
Counterproductive, even.
GRUVER: We need to be more discerning about it.
There’s this lovely book by Gay Hubbard called More Than An Aspirin, and she had this beautiful insight. She said that when we’re in pain, we can’t do it alone. But not everybody can help us.
Internalizing those two truths will do us a lot of good.
But when you’re depressed, it’s hard to have to be forced to exercise that discernment process.
Some of these are, unfortunately, things that you need to do beforehand or learn afterwards, which is sad. That’s a shame upon the church community, if that’s the case.
You have to ask who you can be fully honest with, who will actually give you good counsel, someone you can call up and say, “Can you sit with me so I’m not alone?” And they don’t try to force you into being your normal self. When we can find those people, they’re a gift of God.
HEINZE: Okay, let’s talk about Martin Luther King Jr. and his apparent battle with depression.
Was he reluctant to talk about it because of how it could be weaponized?
If he talked about depression, his enemies could dismiss him by saying, “Well, look, King is unstable and crazy.”
GRUVER: We don’t have much in his own words.
We don’t know if he knew exactly what would be done. He had plenty of enemies and by the end, unfortunately, only had made more.
So we don’t have, in his own words, exactly what he was feeling, but it seems as if from the accounts of people close to him that at the very least they were scared of what that [speaking about depression] would do.
The FBI spread some pretty malicious rumors and accusations about him, and had pretty extensively tapped him.
So there was a very real risk they would have known what was going on, and would have used some of it to discredit him.
HEINZE: What do we do when we feel like we’re going to reflect poorly on Christ, our spouse, our family, our church if we talk about our mental health?
GRUVER: We have a long way to go, but as we have more conversations about mental health, I think some of the stigma is slowly being undermined. People are more open to talking about it now than when King was alive.
I believe God has gifted and called each of us to be a part of his work in the world. But we know that we can’t as effectively engage in this when we’re depressed. It can really debilitate us.
So taking that step to ask for help, to go on medication if that’s what’s recommended, to see a therapist – that’s an active and faithful part of your discipleship. It says that you want to live the fullest, healthiest life you can, so we can live into that gifting and calling.
For some people, it’s wrestling with cancer or blood pressure, and for me it has to do with taking psychotropic medication. And we don’t have to be ashamed of that.
HEINZE: How did King cope with his depression?
GRUVER: He pulled from different sources of resilience in his life. There are a lot of studies about the habits of resilient people, and he gives us clues to some of those things.
One was, ironically, humor – the ability to stare at the horrors of life in the face and find a way to laugh at them.
He also found resilience in music, which I can relate to. The words of songs, singing those songs. There’s hope — an anchoring point that you can speak back to yourself through the gift of song.
And the third was the resilience he found in his spirituality. The belief in a God that never left him alone. A belief in a God who could make a way out of no way.
That doesn’t cure everything. But that deep-seated belief gives us a sense of hope to take another step forward, even when it’s against all odds.
Those three factors helped him in the civil rights movement, but I think they also helped him cope in his own internal battle against depression.
HEINZE: How did he deal with the cognitive dissonance that the God he leaned on for his strength was, at least in name, the same God of the people who were oppressing him?
GRUVER: That’s a question worth asking generations of Black Americans who were enslaved, oppressed, and violently treated.
These brothers and sisters clung to the belief that God is on the side of the oppressed, and is present with the oppressed, that the God of Exodus sets the captives free.
King really believed God was the God of freedom and justice, so regardless of what the opponents were saying — that was the God he believed.
HEINZE: You also write about someone named David Brainerd. Who was he?
GRUVER: He was a missionary to Native Americans in the United States in the 18th century.
He wanted to be in ministry, but got kicked out of college during the Great Awakening, which led to his becoming a missionary.
He struggled with depression very deeply throughout life, developed tuberculosis, and died very young.
In the midst of all that, he worked and lived as a missionary for several years in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
His physical illnesses and emotional depression were very intertwined, and it seems as if some of his spirituality and theology didn’t always help his depression.
He’d call himself the “worst wretch that ever lived,” and said he was a “worm.” He’d say “Death, death, my kind friend, take me away.”
It’s hard to always differentiate whether he was speaking out of a sense of what he would have considered humility or repentance, or if he was actually experiencing what many feel when we’re depressed – like we’re the worst human and can’t do anything right.
He did spend a lot of time, alone, in introspection, fasting and private prayer. Not that those things are inherently wrong. Not by any means. But I don’t know if it was always particularly helpful for his mental health.
The thing I respect about him is that, in spite of all that, he kept going. He said that it felt as though going on was like lying down in the grave, but he would rather go than stay.
It wasn’t that he was the leader of this huge movement, or that he had that much success in his ministry. But it was the fact that he was somehow faithful, in the midst of his own weakness, that left a legacy so many people have looked to and been inspired by.
Applying it to myself, I might not see all the fruit, I might not see all the success, but trying to faithfully keep taking steps forward the best that I know how, in the midst of my weakness and imperfection?
There’s something in that alone that God can use.
HEINZE: You write in your book, “Depression may have you blinded to the goodness your life offers to the world and those around you.”
It seems as if that really happened to Brainerd. He was doing all this great stuff, but he hated himself.
How much self-awareness did he have? Did he realize this was unusual, or did he think that all Christians went through the inner turmoil that he went through?
GRUVER: I think he knew it was something unusual. He’d call depression “vapory disorders” or “imbalance of his spleen.”
From the medical terms of the day, I think he understood that some of these thoughts, feelings and longing for death came from what we’d call depression.
So he knew something was going on there, but I have to wonder if sometimes the lines were a little blurry, and he didn’t quite see how much that [the depression] influenced some of these thoughts and really debilitating views of his own worth and of God’s love towards him.
Jonathan Edwards ended up editing and publishing Brainerd’s private journals after his death, and Edwards admits in the preface that you can’t really hide that Brainerd was depressed. He didn’t consider that to be any kind of compliment.
HEINZE: Brainerd admitted solitude made his depression worse.
Did he look for friendship or others when he was depressed?
GRUVER: Not really and, frankly, he didn’t have a whole lot of options.
He was pretty physically isolated. He had varying degrees of friendship with the Native Americans he worked with, but he did spend a lot of time actually isolated.
And although he admitted that solitude exacerbated his depression, he went on to say that it was worth it and something he chose.
In his understanding of the spiritual life, time alone dedicated to explicitly spiritual enterprises like prayer, fasting, and spiritual reading was the only thing that would redeem the time that was given to him.
HEINZE: You write about Hannah Allen. I’d never heard of her. Why did you put her in the book?
GRUVER: I think of her as an everyday Christian.
She lived in 17th century England. She was a wife and mom, and she wrote a spiritual memoir of her battle with depression which was published after her death.
Part of what I found fascinating about her life and experience and why I wanted to include her in the book is that she had a perfect diagnosis of what they called at the time, “religious melancholy.”
People with “religious melancholy” were obsessed that they were the worst sinner or had committed the unpardonable sin. She would say she was worse than the devil and that she could never be saved.
This came with other symptoms that we’re more familiar with now with depression.
Sometimes Christians might accuse other Christians with depression of not having enough faith or praying enough, and you would think that, especially during the era when she alive, they would look at her and say she had a spiritual problem.
But they didn’t.
They saw this as a symptom of a physical disorder.
So they didn’t drag her to church to try to preach away her pain, or lecture her, or say she was still guilty.
They put her on suicide watch, took her to the doctor, changed her scenery and kept company with her until she got well again.
So they understood depression was a holistic thing, and it’s not the cause of our spiritual failings.
That’s not a modern concept.
We can find a lot of freedom in saying that this is one of the symptoms that comes with depression and we can get help, we can take care of our bodies, we can go to the doctor.
It doesn’t mean God isn’t present, it doesn’t mean we don’t need faith or Christian community.
But it does mean we don’t have to add to the stigma and guilt of what people are experiencing.
And I think her story really speaks to that.
HEINZE: We see a common thread of self-loathing in David Brainerd, Hannah Allen, and another person you write about, William Cowper.
Genuine self-loathing, where they didn’t see themselves as beloved children of God.
Do you think their depression colored their view of the Gospel, or that their view of the Gospel heightened their depression?
GRUVER: My instinct from spending a lot of time with them – and hearing what they would’ve said about themselves – is that their depression colored their view of the Gospel.
Hannah Allen explicitly said that the devil used her physical illness (her depression) to tempt her.
It wasn’t that depression was a sign of sin, but in that place of vulnerability, the devil came to try to twist it for his own devices.
We have to think about how to put that in a way that’s helpful for people today, because I think that idea has been really abused.
I think she would say — and definitely the pastor Richard Baxter who was alive during her lifetime — that you take care of the physical illness and the spiritual stuff is going to sort its way out.
In the case of William Cowper, he believed in the Gospel and it changed his life. And yet his depression came with psychosis. He heard voices, he had dreams, and that was part of his experience of depression and, unfortunately, those voices were full of condemnation and guilt that said he was outside of grace.
That really shifted his view of the Gospel.
He still believed the Gospel was true, and he would remind other people of its hope, but he believed he was the lone exception from grace, and I think that came from his depression.
HEINZE: I think that’s one of the great tragedies of depression. It can really make you feel differently about whether Christ loves you.
GRUVER: Unfortunately, some of the ways depression has been and is talked about in the church inclines people towards that.
Depression inclines us towards that, but if you’ve heard that depression is about sin and God’s judgment and you’re living in the midst of that and are miserable and see no hope, in the back of your mind you might think, “Maybe God does hate me, because that’s kind of been implied by what I’ve heard before.”
We’re not helping people with that.
We need to be careful about how we’re talking about depression, and realize that we can really hurt people and make it more complicated for them to navigate it.
HEINZE: You also write about Charles Spurgeon. Who was he?
GRUVER: He was a pastor in 19th Century England who’s been called the “Prince of Preachers” by some.
He preached thousands of sermons during his lifetime, founded a pastor’s college, an orphanage, and a magazine. He was also depressed. This happened cyclically throughout his life.
Similar to David Brainerd, it was somewhat tied to his physical illnesses, but he was honest about his depression.
You see it in some of his sermons and stories. He shared what it was like for him and what it’s like to navigate as a Christian. He was matter-of-fact and really gentle with those who were suffering.
I think Christians — and especially those who are in pastoral positions — could learn a lot from seeing how he handled his own suffering and how he used that to fuel deeper compassion for those under his care.
HEINZE: Spurgeon’s diagnosis of depression is so dead-on.
He said, “You may have no outward cause for sorrow and yet if the mind is dejected, the brightest sunshine will not relieve your gloom.”
And elsewhere, there are quotes that suggest he understood panic disorder. You don’t know the cause of your panic, it just comes out of the blue.
He said: “Quite involuntarily, unhappiness of mind, depression of spirit, and sorrow of heart will come upon you. You may be without any real reason for grief, and yet may become among the most unhappy of men.”
Finally, my favorite quote of his: “Depression of spirit is no index of declining grace.”
You write about how he was involved in a lot of controversies.
How was he able to talk about these depressive thoughts so openly in that time?
GRUVER: For a lot of these folks, I don’t think depression had some of the stigma it does now, which is another thing their stories offer. They can show us what it’s like to be pretty matter-of-fact about struggling with depression.
Spurgeon’s critics had plenty of fodder. They were more concerned about his dramatic preaching style at the beginning of his career, and the Downgrade Controversy was division over doctrine.
But as far as I could tell, I don’t think his critics really latched onto anything related to his depression.
I think it’s beautiful he’s so insistent.
He said, “God’s people sometimes walk in darkness and there are times when the best and brightest saints have no joy.”
It doesn’t mean you’re not a Christian, it doesn’t mean that you need to freak out about it.
His message to his students was don’t be alarmed that something strange is happening to you and don’t think all is over with your usefulness.
I think, whether you’re a pastor or not, that’s the message you need to hear when depression hits. Don’t be alarmed as if this is something unusual and don’t think that God is done with you yet.
HEINZE: So what was Spurgeon’s prescription for depression?
GRUVER: He makes me think about what the Bible can offer us in the midst of depression.
I know a lot of people have heard unhelpful advice about the role of spirituality, “If you just memorize these verses, if you just read the Bible more, it will go away.”
He obviously didn’t believe that.
But he found, in the Bible, in the promises of God, something to keep him anchored.
Sometimes that looked like his wife actually handwriting a verse and putting it up on the wall of his bedroom every day.
I see it in the way that he preached and rehearsed some of the stories from Scripture about God’s presence with the brokenhearted, with the suffering, with people like Elijah who said he just wanted to die. God showed up and put Elijah to sleep and gave him some food and reminded him that he wasn’t alone.
Spurgeon offers us this word that the Bible isn’t going to cure your depression, but we need it.
We need to see a God who can meet us in our pain. Someone who clings to the promises of God, who finds in that some way to keep moving forward.
HEINZE: Spurgeon is someone who looked to Scripture and seemed able to find a comfort that William Cowper and David Brainerd couldn’t.
Why do you think that is?
Why can some people can do this and others almost go down a gloomier path?
GRUVER: I think that’s a mystery.
For Spurgeon, it didn’t always provide him comfort.
I think, even for him, there were moments and seasons where Scripture didn’t bring him comfort like it once did.
That helps me shed guilt when I feel that way. If someone like Charles Spurgeon felt that way, I don’t need to feel guilty about that.
And second, some of this work, unfortunately, we can do in the midst of depression, and some of it we have to do on the other side of it.
In the midst of it, some of it doesn’t sink in.
To the best of our ability, in the midst of depression, or after or before it, we need to find ways to anchor ourselves deeper into the story of a God who comes to us when we’re weak and is intent on, and will, redeem all things.
Those seeds grow deeper even if we can’t see that growth in real-time.
HEINZE: I’ve always wondered if Spurgeon was a little bipolar.
Reading him is almost like reading King David. You have this ecstasy and then this huge dejection, whereas David Brainerd and William Cowper didn’t have quite the ecstasy. It seems more this dull, oppressive growing darkness.
Maybe they had different clinical diagnoses.
GRUVER: I think that’s very possible. And I’d put Martin Luther in there, as well. There are plenty of people who’ve suggested that he may have had bipolar.
But I’m very leery of putting 21st century diagnoses onto people from so far away because we can’t do that in good conscience.
But I think you’re right. I think, with all these people, what these experiences looked like for them is different and I think that’s part of the beauty of it.
We can find some that we relate to more than others, and see from their experience something we recognize.
I think that’s one of the big comforts of their stories.
HEINZE: Thank you so much!
(Note: We weren’t trying to give poet William Cowper (his story is perhaps the most intense) or Mother Teresa the short-end of the stick. We talked about them, but I didn’t press “record.” Another reason to read the book, because as I said, Cowper’s is probably the most extreme account of depression in the book).
About Diana Gruver: Diana Gruver (MA, Gordon-Conwell) writes about discipleship and spiritual formation in the every day. She is the author of Companions in the Darkness: Seven Saints Who Struggled with Depression and Doubt.
Diana lives in Pennsylvania, where she can often be found singing in the kitchen with her husband and ever-curious daughter.
You can connect with her at www.dianagruver.com, or on Facebook or Twitter.
