What I've Seen in the Darkness of Depression • Chronic Joy®

“Christ understands the tears I shed. He also wept before He bled.” (Terry Powell)

WHAT I’VE SEEN IN THE DARK: A Story of Depression and Faith

Audio of Dr. Terry Powell’s testimony at Columbia International University on September 22, 2014. Used with permission.

LIKE FALLING RAIN

My tears descend like falling rain.
Their constant flow reveals the pain
of much regret; of fragile heart.
I cannot stop them once they start.

With every drop, there is an ache.
I did not know one’s heart could break
so many times in just one day.
Despondency won’t go away.

I shout! Yet God seems not to hear.
He leaves untouched my hurt, my fear.
Where is the God of Abraham?
Where’s El Shaddai? The great “I Am?”

Like falling rain, hope, too, descends.
Are there not any dividends
to faith within the here and now?
Will God assist me? When? And How?

Does He not care when what I feel
makes dying grow in its appeal?
Though wracked by doubt, my mind turns
to God’s Word. Here’s what it learns.

He gave His Spirit. He is near!
In time, He’ll wipe away each tear.
Though I do not know how or when,
My lips will smile and sing again.

Christ understands the tears I shed.
He also wept before He bled.
His cross absorbed His tears and mine.
Heart-rending pain serves to refine.

God never acts except from love.
My darkness was designed above.
For fruitfulness and for my gain.
It’s grace outpoured like falling rain.

Dr. Terry Powell

Terry is a Faculty Emeritus and an adjunct professor in Church Ministries at Columbia International University. He and his wife, Dolly, have been married for 50 years and share two sons, a daughter-in-law, and a grandson. Terry writes about faith and depression at Penetrating the Darkness.