Skiing, Depression, and the French Alps Crash

This blog itself is bipolar. Get ready for superficial, then really deep. Just a warning...

One of our older language partners named Guy invited us to spend the day speaking French with him on the ski slopes on Saturday. This was only after we assured him that we could easily ski difficult terrain (blue/black- in France they have red trails)! I knew he enjoyed skiing when he was younger, reflecting on multiple conversations with him, but it didn't even occur to me that he might continue his ski adventures even now. But at the ripe old age of 79, he gets to ski for free!  He treated us to a wonderful day. Just 30 minutes away by car, we hopped on a gondola for a 40 minute ride up over 2600 feet to a ski resort. This wasn't just any ski resort; it was 3 Valleys, the largest ski resort in the world! And also the site of downhill skiing for the Albertville Olympics in 1992. And the site of the World Cup Finals held last weekend in downhill skiing.

The sun was out with hardly a cloud in the sky when we began. Guy joked that he had telephoned his request in to God for good weather and only hoped that someone else hadn't beat him to it (like farmers who need the rain, for instance.)

We only did the middle one of the valleys as the resort is immense and impossible to ski in one day. There are 2 glaciers that can be seen from the top of one of the peaks. In just our valley there were 3 summits. We were able to peek over to the other 2 valleys on either side of our resort during our time there.

At one side of the valley, looking at the summit on the other side (the two prominent rocks without snow)

It was breathtaking, with jagged tooth-like rocks jutting out of the summits. The ski trails meandered around the giant jutting rock formations, so we never felt in danger of falling on/off the rocks.

Disregard my closed eyes, but just look how massive those rocks are compared to the gondolas bringing people up!! They are the same two rocks seen at the summit on the picture just before this one.

Even if it took 3 lifts (chairs, poles between the legs, and gondolas) to get to the summits, the trails down were non-stop skiing all the way to the bottom with a view of the entire valley almost all the way back to Albertville!! It was an incredible day, and one where I hardly spoke a word of English.

I’d like to completely switch gears now and speak about the tragedy which occurred here in the Alps just this week and my reflections on it during our time skiing. It is full of analogy, but stick with me for a bit.

As we were descending down the valley, the sun which had shown so brilliantly that morning was hidden by clouds. In an instant, our sunshine was gone. It made me think of the recent events of the suicide plane crash just about 75 miles as the crow flies in the same Alps to the south. It seems to me that sunshine in the mountains is like the mysteriousness of depression which can come and go without much warning. A depressing thought or fear can come in, and if it invokes a chemical response (adrenaline, dopamine), it can affect a person without him or her even consciously thinking about it anymore. If not dealt with consciously (or if the situation goes unresolved), it can wreak havoc on the emotions and mood by running unconsciously in the background. Equilibrium is off.

I’m not a stranger to the effects of depression. Depression and mental illness (including suicide) have touched both Ryan and my extended families. Fellow missionaries struggle with it. I do know it is very hard to talk about; it’s embarrassing. It is not like having an illness like diabetes where there is a known cause. With mental illness, what part is a result of unfortunate past experiences? What part is a result of unresolved conflict? What part is a spiritual battle? What part is a genetic predisposition or a chemical imbalance? What part can be treated with medication, what part resolves with counseling, what resolves with prayer, what will resolve only when God redeems our broken world? Adversity is so much easier to deal with than uncertainty. Mental illness is the epitome of uncertainty.

Now back to the Alps and our lack of sun. I lamented to Guy that in the mountains, the sun comes and goes quickly. You can’t predict it easily. It just comes and goes without warning. He responded, “Oh but the sun hasn't moved. It is the clouds.” By analogy, God doesn't move either. We can hide in the shade, or clouds can blow in which are out of our control, but God is still there. We don’t need to berate ourselves and assume that, once again, we have sinned and He is displeased. Although we may move into the shade (by sinning) plenty of times, often it is clouds that blow in (out of our control- uncertainty) that block our direct view of God. We can rest in the knowledge that God is always there, even if we can’t see Him. He is our hope.