Depression is a great burden. It is something that people who experience it would not wish on anyone. By sharing this burden with others, it feels like you are also inflicting your situation on other people. In many ways you are. People have their own problems to deal with and the last thing they need is to worry about you too. I don’t know if it is worse to keep someone in the dark about what you are going through so they have to guess what’s wrong or forcing them to endure your sharing of what you are going through… which can be more than what they can deal with. It can go badly either way.

You are in a congregation where the people had been taught the Gospel. If the people believe in mercy and undeserved kindness and God's grace to them when they are downtrodden, they will respond to Pastor's illness with mercy and kindness. But because our Old Adam believes in the law, and because some congregations have a more law-oriented history, and because synod itself tends toward programs that "measure success," we have reason to wonder whether those around us will respond to illness with mercy or "Just buck up, will ya?"

You are in a congregation where the people had been taught the Gospel. If the people believe in mercy and undeserved kindness and God's grace to them when they are downtrodden, they will respond to Pastor's illness with mercy and kindness. But because our Old Adam believes in the law, and because some congregations have a more law-oriented history, and because synod itself tends toward programs that "measure success," we have reason to wonder whether those around us will respond to illness with mercy or "Just buck up, will ya?"