Truly Never Alone (1 Samuel 1:4-20)

(The 6th grade version of myself sits outside the school, leaning glumly against a pillar staring at a blank page of my notebook. The Assistant Principal comes out of the school doors and sees me.)

Assistant Principal: How are you doing, Trey?

Me: (Sighs) Not great. I can’t figure this thing out, and I think that I might have a fever.

Assistant Principal: Trey, when people ask you “how are you doing,” they don’t really want to know how you are doing. You’re just supposed to say “fine” or “good.”

Me: (Baffled silence)

That scene happened back in 1998, but, as with a lot of things that confuse me, I remember it clearly. I stayed at the school late because I had Odyssey of the Mind practice. I got tasked with writing the script for our competition skit, while the rest of the team built some contraption. I didn’t know about things like depression and writer’s block much less that I suffered from both. I couldn’t get the script going, and I felt down about it. My conversation of the AP served as one of a number in an endless series of indications that the world didn’t care that I felt depressed and would rather not hear it about.

I mentioned on a recent podcast that in the 1990s and early 2000s, we were all liars because we all followed the correct social script and declared ourselves “fine.” Things have shifted in our culture, but back then, no one talked about mental health. We knew words like “crazy,” “bipolar,” and “on Valium,” but that a double-digit percentage of the population suffered from something real never entered the public consciousness. Instead, I got told that no one wanted to hear about it and learned, overtime, to not talk about it, to paper over the cracks with as much forced cheerfulness as I could muster. I had been this way for as long as I can remember – the kid weirdly sad at theoretically happy occasion, or suddenly not wanting to go to the theme park that I had been longing to go to for weeks. I still get teased by my loving found family for being the only person who can be sad on a carousel or often walking moodily ahead of the group. We have a growing collection of “Trey walks alone” pictures because my mood drops in the middle of a fun outing. In my life now, I know that I suffer from an actual condition, that I can receive treatment, that the people around me accept me for it, and that it sits at the core of my wiring. As a kid, I was just the problem child who couldn’t portray the right emotions at the right times.

One shouldn’t play armchair psychologist for major Biblical and religious figures. We probably shouldn’t diagnosis Ezekiel with schizophrenia, Paul, John the Baptist, and John Wesley with Asperger’s, and Jesus with a high level of introversion. Think about it. Jesus constantly seeks a break from the crowd. We get multiple accounts of him trying and failing to escape. No extrovert desires that much of a break. However, if Hannah told her story at a depression support group, the whole crowd would say, “Same, Girl, same.”

Hannah lives a reasonably good life, for women in the ancient world. She has one of the few healthy marriages in all of Scripture. Her husband feels for her and legitimately tries to help by giving her an extra portion out of love. He also asks the question that every spouse of a depressed person must wonder at some point, “Her husband Elkanah said to her, ‘Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? Why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?’” (1 Samuel 1:8 NRSV) She has a caring spouse, who chooses to love her more rather than reject her because of her inability to bear children. However, she still feels the weight of the emptiness, which Peninnah helps to drive home at every possible opportunity, compounding the suffering and making it unescapable.

She then does what every good church kid does, when they hurt and need relief, she goes to the Temple. Eli, the ever reliable, lets her down, in a way that a lot of people who turned to faith for help in midst of mental health crisis would recognize. “As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, ‘How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.’” (1 Samuel 1:12-14 NRSV) Her pain and desperation get mistaken for immorality and intemperance. She couldn’t possibility have a valid reason for such behavior. She should get it together and act the way that one should at the Temple!

Even as Eli misunderstands, God knows all. Even as society rejects or never quite empathizes, God never lacks such clarity. God answers Hannah’s prayer establishing the depth of God’s knowledge. This carries hope for all who hurt and feel unseen. God sees. No one every truly suffers alone or unrecognized because the Lord of universe only knows realities – not humanity’s clouded judgement.

I resonate with the story of Hannah and its implications for the nature of God. I know well the struggle of trying to shake a seemingly unshakable weight, while everyone around you either feels powerless to help or seems determined to make the weight even more crushing. I used to think of God’s omniscience as merely God’s perfect knowledge of all the ways that I messed up. I missed the part, where it meant that I always had someone who actually understood the reality of a life forever fleeing the avalanche of my own emotions. I have reached a place in life where I know that I don’t suffer alone. Millions of people suffer from depression, and I am blessed to have people in my life that I can always turn to. However, I find comfort in knowing that I was never alone to begin with.