Naomi Judd and her daughter Wynonna were inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame yesterday. However, only Wynonna and her sister, the actress Ashley Judd, were in attendance, since their mother had died the day before. They tweeted on Saturday, “Today we sisters experienced a tragedy. We lost our beautiful mother to the disease of mental illness. We are shattered. We are navigating profound grief and know that as we loved her, she was loved by her public. We are in unknown territory.”
Naomi Judd’s story was truly improbable: the daughter of a gas station owner in Kentucky, she gave birth to Wynonna when she was eighteen and Ashley four years later. After she and their father divorced, she brought up both daughters as a single parent. She attended nursing school before beginning a singing career with Wynonna.
The duo went on to record twenty top ten hits (including fifteen number ones) and won five Grammy Awards. However, Naomi struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts for years.
She told People magazine in 2016, “Nobody can understand it unless you’ve been there. Think of your very worst day of your whole life—someone passed away, you lost your job, you found out you were being betrayed, that your child had a rare disease—you can take all of those at once and put them together and that’s what depression feels like.”
Depression now affects one in three US adults
Naomi Judd’s struggles are far from unique. Depression rates among US adults tripled when the pandemic first hit, jumping from 8.5 percent to a staggering 27.8 percent. However, new research from the Boston University School of Public Health shows that depression has now climbed to 32.8 percent, affecting one in every three American adults.
According to the World Health Organization, “Depression results from a complex interaction of social, psychological, and biological factors.” It notes that people who have gone through adverse life events such as unemployment, bereavement, or other traumatic occurrences are more likely to develop depression. This can be a vicious cycle: “Depression can, in turn, lead to more stress and dysfunction and worsen the affected person’s life situation and the depression itself.”
How can we help those suffering from such devastating pain?
I am emphatically not a mental health professional and do not intend to offer clinical advice today. However, I have been a minister for over forty years and have walked with many families through deep valleys of mental illness. Across these years, I have learned this crucial fact: faith in Christ does not exempt Christians from profound suffering, mental illness included.
“Seven saints who struggled with depression and doubt”
God called David “a man after my own heart” (Acts 13:22 NIV). David was Israel’s most beloved king and the ancestor of our Messiah, and yet he nonetheless prayed in Psalm 13:
