Hope in the Death-Shadowed Valley
15 April 2019 was the lowest point in my life: I was booked into a mental health clinic. By that time, the depressive episode was so bad, I had difficulty putting suicidal thoughts out of my mind. All of this was two months before Lydia and I would get married... So... how did I end up here? Looking back now, I probably struggled with my mental health from late primary school. The complicated factor here is: If you've felt really low for long enough, you believe that this is your baseline, your normal. This makes it difficult to acknowledge that you have a problem in the first place. In high school, I excelled academically and did well in music, but I could never truly celebrate my successes. My failures and rejection/teasing from my peer group is what stung me the most. 2006 I started at Timothy Ministry Team's Bible school (TMT) in Wellington. My time was characterised by a lot of solitary prayer walks during depressive episodes. Fortunately, some people pulled me in a