Depression & Scripture:

When the move was done, the reading paused & depression crept back in.

Last week Tuesday, I got moved to a new home by an incredible team of movers. The move had been slowly taking form, beginning with a few boxes of books after I got possession of the new place in late November 2025. Followed by a few carloads of other boxes and the help of friends. We moved all we could safely move. And then I waited. And waited. And waited. For an opening in the weather and the availability of movers to coincide, so that we could complete the move.

Backtracking a bit, before the move:

The end of 2025 was marked by illness for me. A really bad stomach flu that wiped me out just before fourth Advent, and took me out of commission for the Christmas services. We are blessed on the Peninsula to have retired clergy who stepped in, so Christmas services proceeded.

I spent my Christmas alone with God. It was unlike COVID isolation, when we knew everyone was alone with God! This time it was me and Luna (foster doggy and bundle of cheer) and God. A time of Spirit ministering to me, preparing me for change and for 2026. Also, a stomach flu virus which I think decimated by gut biome, if energy levels be any indicator! But as St Paul says, when we are weak, God is strong!

At the beginning of 2026, we (myself and a small core group of Bible lovers who agreed to '“at least give it a try”) launched the Read the Bible in One Year project.

Reading the Bible daily gives me something I cannot quite define. With the prescribed reading we are using, it is about 4 - 6 pages of large print every day. Old Testament, Gospel, Psalms, Proverbs. A hearty sampling of story, encouragement, sometimes lament, sometimes praise, always wisdom.

But last week, after move day, a tiredness, perhaps cumulative from the weeks of challenging weather, moving by carloads, along with work and shoveling (and shoveling, and shoveling, and shoveling … you get the picture) seemed to slam down all around me.

The moving and shoveling on top of regularly scheduled programming also took me out of the realm of sitting with all the feelings - for every move is both a beginning and an ending. For me, every move involves a real grief and usually also a real anticipation. I had given the anticipation her due, but not the grief. So the grief came home to roost. As a dark and moody depression.

And instead of Reading the Bible, I ate more than I should, leapt headlong into overwork and missing Sabbath … all efforts to squash down difficult feelings. The darkness of depression gained on me.

And each day that I missed of reading the Bible, the darkness gathered herself around me, tucking in around me, cocooning me and seeking to transform me into something hopeless and helpless, someone who would give up. It always amazes me how quickly this darkness gathers, how quickly there can be a shift from a sunny mood of hopefulness to an “I don’t want to get up and face the day.”

A number of packages of caramel cheddar popcorn and potato chips were sacrificed on the altar of this depression. The air fryer came out and crispy chicken leg quarters sent pleasing aromas (to God? to me? to Luna? to the demonic forces trying to convince me that eating would solve the problems?)

Also sacrifices on the altar of this depression: Christmas chocolate, Christmas home made shortbread cookies (and possibly also baking chocolate … desperate darkness calls for desperate chocolate measures) which I had been trying to meter out in a calorically responsible way.

Responsibility went out the window.

After missing a number of days of reading, sometime this week, I had a few exchanges with some very dear friends who are also hearty disciples in the Peninsula ministry. Talking about our challenges and grief helps.

One of these friends (one who is also doing the Reading the Bible in One Year project) wrote to me:

“There is a well known law of science, “for every high, there is an equal and corresponding low”. What you are feeling now is the let down after the anticipation of the move, and all the issues you had to overcome to complete it. I would consider it completely normal. Plus another grey day like today, and the isolation of having the snow continue, and the highway closed, is adding to it. Sometimes it is disappointing to discover no matter where we are, we are still in our own skin.”

I am.

Still.

In.

My.

Own.

Skin. Dagnabbit!

But with the encouragement of friends who reached out to me, with truths and compassion like that expressed above, I picked up the Bible again, and began reading again. The old friendship and comfort of the stories God has given us was there. They reached into my solitude, into my skin, washing my soul of grimy exhaustion. They said, ‘You are loved. There is hope. Here, take my hand, and let’s go for a walk together.”

And so we did. By the time I post this, I hope I will be caught up. But perhaps the greatest beauty of this particular endeavour is not accomplishment so much so as the rediscovery and re-experiencing of the grace of God who is always waiting for us to return to relationship - whatever that may look like for each one of us us. God is always waiting. And the instrument scripture provides for that return to relationship.

Thanks be to GOD :)

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girl face down - Photo by Carolina on Unsplash

winter sunrise - Photo by Juho Luomala on Unsplash