Brad makes a point that I’ve noted for years: Many of those we revere in Christian history were remarkably open about their emotional life and struggles. Spurgeon, in particular, said and preached a great deal about his personal melancholy. In fact, he said far more than I ever would in the pulpit.

As I wind up the Mental Illness posts at IM, one of my key points is that the presence of brokenness among God’s people is a sacramental presence. It isn’t just broken bread that shows us Christ; it is the broken people in whom the Gospel is true. To see the Gospel’s “wholeness” as an erasing of the reality of human pain and experience is to make the Gospel gnosticism, and a rather dull, flat gnosticism at that.

“Why, O my soul, art thou disquited within me?” Another question: Why, Holy Spirit, do you inspire those words for the edification of your people?

PW: I have it on good authority that you will make the “manic” list, but not the grumpy list.