Interview With Joy Wilson and the Not Alone Project

Visit author Joy Wilson at her website:  joyleewilson.org/wordpress/  

Interview With Jake Kampe, Contributor to Not Alone
 
I had the privilege this year of being a contributing author to Not Alone: Stories of Living With Depression, written by people who have suffered from depression.  We have openly shared our stories so that other people with depression will know that they are not alone in their pain.
I’ve had clinical depression all my life, and know the pain and isolation it causes.  I know the shame of crying uncontrollably in public for no apparent reason, panic attacks, fear of falling into a black, bottomless chasm and never coming out again, despair that just won’t go away. There is often a stigma associated with this disease, because our symptoms aren’t rational or predictable. So we hide behind a façade whenever possible, and suffer in silence, never knowing that many people around us have similar feelings.

I first met Jake Kampe when he e-mailed me after reading my essay in Not Alone.  I learned he was a fellow contributor, and we discovered we shared the same feelings and many of the same experiences (which is the point of the book).  I asked Jake if I could interview him, so you can hear his story of hurt and hope.

Tell us a little bit about your spiritual journey, and why you decided to write your story for Not Alone?

First of all, I’m fairly new to the writing scene, so basically I write for anything, everything and anyone that will let me.  The mere fact that anyone sees any value in what I have to say is amazing.  I’m often my worst critic and regularly have to convince myself that I just might not be as full of crap as I imagine.  But I realized that I “needed” to contribute for me more than anything else. Revisiting some of the darkest places in my life was a confirming indicator in how much God has given me and how far I’ve come.  I’m the kind of person that doesn’t necessarily see things as they are within the moment.  I live much of my life in a retrospective perspective, which is probably why I am such a nostalgic person.  By the way, did you know that “nostalgia” was once thought to be a mental deficiency? Makes sense.

I’ve dealt with depression and severe anxiety for most of my life.  It sucks.  The darkest periods were during high school and college, and if it wasn’t for God and my extensive collection of Smiths CDs, I probably would not be writing this today.  As with anyone who has lived with depression, the journey has been extremely difficult and filled with a deep darkness that most people cannot even imagine.   I can remember many times crying out to God, especially when I became involved in vocational ministry, Why?  What possible good could come from this?  What is this accomplishing for Your Kingdom, God? I’m utterly useless!”  As hard as I tried, I could not see how God would use my experience of personal hell to further His message of being the light of the world.  For me, the light was flickering.  I felt like a hypocrite, a failure and at the very least, a weak Christian.  I frequently found myself angry with God and cursed Him often.  Instead of seeing the God of love that I now know He is, I only envisioned a vindictive God that I wanted nothing to do with, or at the very least saw Him as a divine practical joker.

Once I began to find healing, more stability and a semblance of peace in my life, I soon began to see things with a bit more clarity.  When I began to accept depression as part of my life, it was as if a fog had been lifted from my vision of the world and I began to see reality for what it really was. I think that’s one of the more sinister weapons that depression uses most often: the inability to see things as they are.  Reality becomes warped and distorted, creating a deeper spiral of darkness that just feeds on itself.  Things don’t look the same, smell the same or sound the same.  Reality can become almost hallucinogenic in the deepest times of depression.  The mind feeds on itself in this vicious circle of demoralizing thoughts that screw up the mind, body and spirit.  But as the fog clears, questions such as the ones I asked God begin to find the answers in the realty that once seemed so elusive.

Why do you think it’s so hard for people with depression to talk about it?

Because we’re chicken shit. We’re so caught up in this societal “appearance” game that we’re terrified to look weaker or more inferior to someone else.  Instead of embracing that depression is part of who we are, we hide it, ignore it and push it deep down inside.  What we don’t realize is that we’re subconsciously hindering aspects of ourselves that enable beautiful qualities that culture and the Kingdom need to see lived out.  People with depression have great empathy for others, they love deeper, hurt more and care about the world around them.  Those are qualities that are nothing to be ashamed of.  The world is in short supply of people that love painfully.

Depression has historically been considered a weakness.  It’s only been in recent years that people are finally realizing that it is in fact an illness.  Just as someone with cancer would seek medical treatment, someone with clinical and/or chemical depression must do the same.  A person with a broken arm gets a cast.  The heart attack victim has surgery.  The one with cancer is treated with chemo.  Unfortunately, most people who have not experienced intensive chronic depression cannot understand from their limited perspective.  That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but we live in a culture in which one usually has to physically see something before believing in its reality.  So it is with depression.

The same issues exist within the Church, and unfortunately maybe even to a much higher degree.  As I stated in Not Alone, one questionably well-intended friend once enlightened me that depression was a curse form God, and that I needed to repent of some sin in my life that was keeping me in bondage.  Luckily, I dismissed his advice and rested in what I knew was true.  God may have allowed me to remain in depression, but I never felt that He “made” me depressed.  We serve a God love.  Just read through 1 John 4:7-21.
I think that this kind of perspective comes from a warped view of the Gospel, wrong theology and basically just wrong thinking.  A life of following Christ has never been promised to be free of pain and suffering. In fact, we should expect it and maybe even welcome it.  Christ promised that we would have trouble in this world (John 16:33).  He states very clearly that one of the requirements of being His disciple is that we deny ourselves and pick up our own cross.  It is only then that we truly follow Him.

Carrying a cross is not easy.  It sucks.  It’s painful, embarrassing and difficult.  But suffering is an essential part of being a Christian.  In fact, many of the early Church Fathers considered it to be a spiritual discipline.  Imagine that concept being taught in today’s “Dr. Phil” society.

What has having depression cost you?

Well, let’s see.  If I add up the cost of hundreds of therapy sessions and medications alone….Hmmmm….Now that’s depressing.

When I look back in retrospect, I can see that depression has cost me a lot.  But it’s all relative.  It has to do with how you define “cost”.  Surely, I’ve missed out on a lot.  Depression causes deep fear, which held me back for quite a while.  Who knows what I could have accomplished much earlier in life had depression not been such an intricate part of my journey.  I might have decided to go into seminary in my early ‘20s instead of my ‘30s, or been the pastor of a mega-church (cringe!).  I might have written dozens of bestselling books.  I might have never met my wife and had the two amazing boys that I have today.  I might have never had the chance to meet you and the incredible people I know through the Not Alone Project.  I might have become an arrogant, cold, unloving, shallow, superficial person.  Everything I loathe today.  I’d say that maybe it’s cost me a lot, and maybe that’s a good thing.

Why do you say that depression can be a blessing?

I think I may have already jumped ahead and talked a little about this already, but I soon discovered that depression was somewhat of teacher to me.   And from its intensive education, I learned not only how to deal with depression in my own life, but how to minister to others suffering from the same demons that I once had.  I learned that I had been blessed with not only sympathy for others, but also empathy.  I hurt when others hurt.  When alking with someone with depression, I feel the pain that they feel.  I see what they see.  I hear what they hear.  And I find myself not wanting to travel down the dark road with them.  I think to myself,”Oh shit!  This is too real!  I can’t go there!  Too many familiar things in this story!”   But I go with them.  I take their hand and jump down that spiral of darkness just because they need me to.  I’ve learned to trust that God will not allow me to stay there anymore.  His hand pulls me back out, once the communal suffering is complete.  Kind of like a lifeline for a climber, descending into a deep crevasse.

I’ll be honest.   If could go back in time, and had the ability to change my life experience, I would not change anything.  As strange as it may sound, depression has been one of the greatest blessings in my life, because it made me into what I am today, and I like who I am.  Depression refined me, sculpted me and transformed my life.  Sometimes I see my life as a clay vessel, with God as the Potter. He created a vessel that for all practical purposes looked OK from an outside perspective.  But after careful analysis, God realized that what He had made was not quite what He wanted it to be.  The only way to transform a clay vessel into something new is to break it down.  It’s smashed into many pieces; the pieces are then crushed into smaller pieces and then ground into a fine dust. Water is again added and clay forms once again.  The Potter then begins to mold and shape the clay into the perfect vessel that He always intended to make by pushing, squeezing, stretching and cutting.  It’s not comfortable.  It doesn’t look pretty.

At last the vessel is as it should be, but still not complete.  For if it is used without being exposed to the heat, it will sag and wilt into a useless lump.  The furnace refines the vessel so that it can be used in fulfillment of why it was created. The fire is intense and burns away any material that is not mandatory to the vessel being hardened.  It’s ugly, chaotic and painful.  But when complete, and the vessel has been cooled, it’s now ready for use in the most essential way possible.

If there’s one thing you hope people can take away by reading your story, what would it be?

Like the title of the book says, you’re not alone.  That seems to be the essential message of all the authors and what we all tried to communicate.  Reading through the entire book, it’s as if a common thread of empathy runs through the pages of this community of people.   As a collective voice, we join together and agree that we share the same experiences and long for others to join the group.

My greatest hope, my humble prayer, is that people would see that recovery is not only possible, but a much fuller life is possible as well.  There were times in my life when I literally accepted that my life would not get any better.  I was convinced that my mind and psychological condition was beyond repair. I was broken and regardless of how much progress I might make, I would never have the life I had always hoped for. I resolved that I would probably never get married and subsequently never have children.  In the worst case scenario, I feared that one day my mind would just snap under the pressure of depression and I would have to be locked up in a nut house (I can say “nut house” because I consider myself a nut).

But man!  God not only blessed me with recovery and peace in my life, but He has given me more than I ever expected!  I got married to the same woman who suffered through the deepest and darkest days with me, I have two beautiful boys and God opened the door for me to go to seminary and dedicate  he rest of my life serving Him in vocational ministry.  Over the last 5 years, He also added writing to my life and ministry, which has opened even more doors of peace and joy.   How cool is that?  And it just continues to get better with age!  People ask me if I’m “healed” from depression and without hesitation, I tell them no, because I’m being healed every day.  I have peace, but just when I think my healing has come to fruition, God reveals something new and beautiful to me.  Peace grows deeper, and peace is an awesome gift of God, isn’t it?

Peace be with you!

Five Simple Steps for Rapture Preparation

There's been a lot of talk about the the Rapture of the Church taking place tomorrow, May 21.  I figured that I should probably blog about my thoughts on the upcoming events, so I sat down to give it some thought.  Many things ran through my mind, and then it hit me.  No one has given any practical advice on preparation for the Rapture.  How are we to know if we are "Rapture Ready"?

Well, here's a list of Five practicals steps for you to follow to make sure you are adequately prepared.   Whether you are one of the lucky ones to be gathered to the Lord, or one of the poor souls left to endure the inevitable Tribulation, let's make sure that everything runs smoothly and without unnecessary inconvenience.

1.  Do Not Drive:  Let's face it.  If you on the roads when the Rapture occurs, and you're not one of the fortunate ones to be taken, you probably don't want to be on the road when 100s of cars go driverless.  And if you are planning on being Raptured, have a little common courtesy and just stay home where it's safe.


2.  Call in Sick:  If you are a pilot, cab driver, train conductor, surgeon, air traffic controller, or any occupation that involves the safety of others, please call in sick or take a vacation day.

3.  Think Green:  If there is a high probability that you will be raptured, please turn off your water, electricity, cancel cable, phones, etc.  Those left behind are going to dealing with enough.  Why burden them further with open accounts, wasted utilities?  Please note: If you leave your cars in the garage, make sure the emergency handle has been pulled on your garage door.

4.  Drink Responsibly:  As with hurricane parties and New Years Eve, many folks are going to be tempted to partake in a few extra pints in celebration.  Trust me.  If you are one of the heathens that will be here on Sunday morning, you don't want to face it with a hangover.  And the rest of you probably don't want to be raptured while intoxicated. (RWI)

5.  Remember Your Pets:  As much as we love our pets, the truth is that they will NOT be part of the Rapture.  Think ahead.  If you are left behind, make sure that you have plenty of pet food and reserve water supply in case store and utilities are down for a while.  If you will be leaving us, make sure that your pets have a safe, quiet and caring place to stay.  They will most likely be very nervous and stressed as it is.  Let's think of their needs as well.

It is my hope that these simple steps will help you as we all hurdle toward the end times.  Whether you are left behind or taken from the Earth to be with Christ, we all need to make sure we are prepared.

As for me, more than likely, this will be my last blog.  I appreciate each and every one of you that have been faithful in reading my theological musings.  If you've been left behind, and are reading this after the fact, I'm sorry.  You must not have paid enough attention to my more evangelical blogs.  I'm pretty sarcastic, but I'm pretty sure that I never joked about damnation.

And if you reason I am unfortunately left behind with you, I'll have one hell of a freaking blog to write on Sunday.

The Singularity of God

Deuteronomy 6:4:  "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one."

John 1:1-4: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.   In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind."

Lord, You are all that is,

  all that has been,

  and all that will be.

You encompass all and are within all.

  In a divine spiral, You sit at the centermost point of all existence.

  My life, my worries and my joys

revolve around the great sustainer that is You.

The spiral eternally spins in unison with all that is.

By Your Word it began,

  through Your Word it endures,

  and in Your Word it conitues.

Instill in me the simplicity of my union with You.

  Amen

A Prayer of St. Francis

"Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred...let me sow love.
Where there is injury...pardon.
Where there is doubt...faith.
Where there is despair...hope.
Where there is darkness...light.
Where there is sadness...joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled...as to console,
to be understood...as to understand,
to be loved...as to love,
for
It is in giving...that we receive,
It is in pardoning...that we are pardoned,
It is in dying...that we are born to eternal life.   

Peace Be With You - Excerpt from Not Alone: Stories of Living with Depression

Toward the end of college, I felt as though my life was in full blown crisis.  Regular cocktails of anti-depressants, downers and alcohol only numbed the pain that was hiding just below the surface.  The temporary alleviation of suffering created a false reality that only isolated me further.  “Nothing seems real to me anymore” I remember telling my psychologist at the time.  He immediately said with certainty, “Then Jake, you need to be in a place where things can feel real again.”  What was he saying?  Did I need to be in a hospital?  Institutionalized?  Was I that bad off?  I don’t remember much of those days, but I remember that moment very well. It was a sobering realization that my life had spiraled out of control.  One question remained: Where was God in the midst of this downward journey into an unknown abyss?  

Even attending church, spending time in prayer or reading scripture became an uncomfortable experience.  I suppose that even my image of God was distorted, but ironically my faith was growing deeper.  My convictions to know Him more fully and serve Him were growing as well.  But like a car stuck in the mud, the more I spun the wheels of effort and faith, the deeper I seemed to sink.  My prayers became mundane, spiritless and forced.  I would frequently find it hard to focus on God and my anger and frustration soon became directed more toward Him.   I began to envision God mockingly holding the key to my healing.  Dangling it just beyond my reach, He would smile as I reached out.