Book Review: “Depression: A Stubborn Darkness”

Book Title: Depression: A Stubborn Darkness
Author: Ed Welch
Pages: 275
Publisher: New Growth Press (2004).
An updated version, published Oct. 3, 2011, is what is available at most booksellers.
ISBN #: 978-0-9762308-0-9

Reviewer: Jonathan Matías is a pastor ordained by Heritage Bible Church and sent to the Washington D.C. Metro area to plant Grace Church of Alexandria.

Struggling With Despair
Do you struggle with depression? Does a family member or friend of yours struggle with despair? I can tell you that you will definitely find words of help and hope in biblical counselor Ed Welch’s book Depression: A Stubborn Darkness. As a pastor and counselor, Welch’s caring, honest, thoughtful, gentle approach to depression has helped me care for souls in our church and even find help for my own heart when things look bleak. Welch writes in short, clipped sentences, and bite-sized chapters so that a person whose heart is in turmoil can work through a chapter in a few minutes, without feeling like they’re wading through heavy material.

Ed Welch’s care and concern for those who struggle with depression started when he was growing up. His father, a faithful Christian man, was weighed down with depression in an era when it was shameful to talk about it. And so Ed looked for ways to encourage and uplift his father in the days when the darkness of depression weighed heavily.

Introduction
The first three chapters capture what it feels like to be depressed. If this is your battle, you will find that other people are going through exactly what you’re enduring too. If you’re a friend or counselor of someone in that battle, you’ll get a window into the thoughts, feelings, and emotions in their soul.

Part One: Depression Is Suffering
Sympathy. That’s what’s found in the next seven chapters. Here Ed Welch gives a biblical perspective on depression by showing how Job endured this stubborn darkness, how Jesus shows us the way through it, and how the Psalms give us words to cry out to help us through. Frankly, this book isn’t just for sufferers of depression, it’s for anyone who feels the pain of living under the curse. 

Part Two: Listening to Depression
Answers. In these ten short chapters, this is where Welch really applies the gospel to depression and gives answers. What are the causes of depression? How can you manage and treat the symptoms of depression if it leads you to fear, anger, shame, dashed hopes, guilt, worry of death? For each of these, he takes you to the cross and to the promises of Scripture to give you reasons to hope in the midst of shadows. Part Two reminds me that “even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” Psalm 23:4.

Part Three: Other Help and Advice
Outside help. These four chapters give counsel on medical treatment, doctor’s visits, and how friends and family can best serve their friend who is going through depression.

Part Four: Hope and Joy: Thinking God’s Thoughts
Transformation. Can you believe, God is so sovereign he can use your depression to strengthen you, make you more like Christ, and develop in you the fruit of the Spirit? God can actually this struggle with despair to build you up. These two chapters show how God uses the suffering of depression to cultivate in us humility and hope, thankfulness and joy.

Recommendation
After reading Depression: A Stubborn Darkness, I realized this book isn’t just for those who wrestle with depression. It’s for all of us who face disappointment, discouragement, and weariness to any extent, light or heavy. Ed Welch brings the gospel to bear on the human condition and gives glimmers of hope by pointing to the person of Christ, his promises, his cross, his healing power, and his coming kingdom. Ultimately, this book is a guide for applying the gospel to the human condition in general.

I do highly recommend you pick up a copy if you’re feeling depressed or know someone who feels this way. I think if we understand depression in clearly biblical terms, the way forward in depression becomes more clear. Thus, my only regret for this volume is that Welch doesn’t make the case for replacing the vague modern psychological term “depression” with its more accurate biblical correspondent “despair.” Nevertheless, I’m keeping my copy of this book on my shelf as a ready reference for finding hope through Christ in the difficult moments of life.

Interview With the Author
You can catch an interview with the author about his book in the YouTube below.

Meditation for Worship

She considered Him faithful who had promised.

Hebrews 11:11

Meditation for Worship

A man’s greatest care should be for that place where he lives longest; therefore eternity should be his scope.

Thomas Manton

Meditation for Worship

Some care not what they say in their passion; they will censure, slander and wish evil to others. How can Christ be in the heart, when the devil has taken possession of the tongue? . . . Let them whose tongues are set on fire, take heed that they do not one day in hell desire a drop of water to cool them.

Thomas Watson

Meditation for Worship

Christ’s “blood, being sprinkled on the conscience, chases away slavish fear, and gives the believer assurance both of his safety and his welcome into the divine presence.”

Matthew Henry

Meditation for Worship

Our Heavenly Father “lingers long, with loving pauses, tarrying by the way to give space for repentance and opportunity for accepting His mercy. Thus deals He with the greatest sinners, and with His own children much more so: towards them His anger is short-lived and never reaches into eternity, and when it is shown in fatherly chastisements He does not afflict willingly, and soon pities their sorrows.”

C.H. SPURGEON

Meditation for Worship

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

I Corinthians 15:51-52 (ESV)

Sermon Notes for 4/8/2012

Peace Be with You
John 20:19-21
Dan Brooks, Pastor
Download a PDF of Sunday’s notes here.

Meditation for Worship

For if we have been united with Him in a death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His. We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death He died He died to sin, once for all, but the life He lives He lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Romans 6:5–11

Meditation for Worship

“Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

Matthew 21:9 (ESV)