I just received a call from my Rabbi friend who is 34, pregnant, and having to do a funeral for a 33-year old woman who succumbed to depression and shot herself on Thursday. The woman was a middle school teacher, had not only been in treatment but had a psychiatrist and two therapists and a husband who loved her dearly. My friend said about the husband, "He - they - did everything right, and it just got to be too much for her."

I received a call yesterday from RM who shared with me about this man - a Sunday School teacher with a perfect family - with a wife and two children who strangled his eight year old daughter to death because "God told him that she was the devil and he had to save the world from her and that his son was the chosen one."

I deal almost weekly with students who are suffering from some sort of mental illness. Most of them mild depression that stifles their ability to cope, but some of them with bipolar disorder (or manic/depression, depending on who calls it what). Over my career, I have listened and prayed with and for many who have suffered from various mental distress, and I have to admit I can never figure out which ones will get "better" and which ones won't.

All of this triggers my own stuff, since I was diagnosed with depression while I was at the end of my first year in seminary. I told my group, "It is like an earthquake has happened, and I am hidden beneath the rubble and I know people are out there looking; but I'm getting ready to stop yelling help. I'm just so tired." I was never suicidal, but sleeping 18 hours a day was never enough to satisfy the weariness in my spirit and my soul.

There were many reasons for my own depression - probably the thing that was the straw that broke the camels back was a recent breakup with the "love of my life." (O, Thank you God, that I did not marry him!) That, and the fact that I was feeling a call into ministry and was of a denominational identity that did not embrace the ordination of women. Back then, I was not one to rock the boat, so I thought I was the one that was not listening to God correctly.

Even as I look back on that time, I am grateful for many things. The medication (although I never understood why Prozac had on the front of their brochure, "You are not alone." For those who were depressed and paranoid, I'm not sure that was helpful!) My friends and professors in seminary, my pastor who likened the medication as "manna from heaven," a great therapist, time, grace, maturity, hope, and so much more. And I am grateful that after time and work, my coping skills came back and new life came with them. And I am grateful that through it all, I knew I could rely on God's strength and faithfulness, even if I couldn't rely on my own.

Wrestling with my mild form of depression was hard enough, though, so I cannot imagine what those in our world feel like when it consumes them. I can only hold onto the fact that somehow God holds it - and us - all.

I deeply believe that through Christ's resurrection we are all offered new life and hope - and that it signifies that God's grace and love and power are more powerful than all evil and darkness and despair.

When I was younger, I used to think that this new life happened all at once - God's Spirit immediately transformed a person's life the minute they opened themselves to it. However, time and experience have shown me that often new life comes gradually, in time, with great intentionality.

And that sometimes new life happens only after death, when God embraces us and wipes away our tears and our despair is over.

May all who suffer from mental illness - may their families and friends who suffer with them - may somehow God hold them all and may new life begin to bud in the midst of the darkness.