Why I Wrote Companions in the Darkness

I’m asked often why I wrote my book, Companions in the Darkness. The stories in it are unusual, I’ve heard. It’s not often we hear about depression and faith or about the struggles of our spiritual heroes and mental health. What led you to this?

I suppose the short answer is that Companions in the Darkness is a book I needed. I needed these stories in the past, when depression first took hold of me. I need them today, as I navigate (with all of you) a season of lingering uncertainty and stress. And I will need them in the future, regardless of what it may hold.

When I first struggled with depression, I did not know the stories in this book. But how I wish I had. It’s impossible to know looking back, but I can’t help but wonder how the stories of the companions may have encouraged me, how they may have assuaged some of the guilt that came with depression, how they may have pointed me towards small steps I could take as I journeyed back into the light.

I heard the first of these stories in a seminary classroom, and in them I heard something I recognized. These heroes, these saints, had struggled with depression much as I did. So I set out to learn more about these companions and found others along the way. They became stories I treasured, stories I learned from, stories I needed to share.

“I’ve come to realize that the stories we choose to tell communicate something. Ignoring a struggle like depression in the lives of people in church history—those we still talk about today, those we may call heroes—communicates something. It says those stories don’t matter, or, worse, that we should be ashamed of them.

“That is why this book exists.… [The stories in this book] need to be told so that we can be heirs of the wisdom and comfort these brothers and sisters have to share. They need to be told so that we find the courage and freedom to tell our own stories. They need to be told so that we are reminded that God can still use us, that depression will not be our life’s epitaph.”

I am delighted and honored to finally be able to share these stories with you, as Companions in the Darkness finally releases next week. I pray they shine a bit of light for any of you in the dark.