WHEN DARKNESS SEEMS MY CLOSEST
FRIEND:
Reflections on life and ministry with depression
By Mark Meynell
IVP. 240 pages. £9.99
ISBN 978 1 783 596 508
Reviewers are asked to assess a book’s worth, orthodoxy, helpfulness and relevance, a task that Mark Meynell has made very simple for this reviewer – it is excellent in every department!
But for en readers who need a little more detail before they buy a book, let me explain that yes, this is another book about depression written from painful personal experience by a Christian. It is warm-hearted, honest, biblical, practical; Mark is a gifted wordsmith who grapples successfully with the terrible dilemma of needing to find words to describe the almost indescribable. His achievement is not only to give words to fellow sufferers, but to help others who have not shared his experience to get closer to understanding it. I found particularly helpful his metaphors both geological – likening the sudden eruption of another episode to the bubbling lava of a volcano suddenly breaking through the earth’s crust that usually contains it; and meteorological – brain blizzard, fog, storm.
