To say last week was tough- is an understatement! I am still not feeling like I am on solid ground but I am not on sand either.  I am better.  I was re-reading my posts from last week, what an unbelievable place I was in. Last week was not a wave it was a tsunami, however, tsunamis’ waters do pass on and eventually there is dry ground.   My ground is muddy but drying up.

I wanted to talk about this thing called depression.  (ya like all these posts are not!!) but from a different perspective.  A bible perspective.  Was there depression in the bible.  How do you not see it?   Think of every bible story you know. If you do not know find a bible and read.  King David who gave us so many psalms and writings that show us his ups and downs.  He also shows us his faults and sins in the books about his life.  He crys out for God from the pit, he praised him from there too.  He danced on the streets to show his love for God and he boldly spoke of a loving God who looked after him.  Much of David’s life was spent fleeing from someone trying to kill him. Hiding in caves, fighting great battles against all odds, like Goliath there was always a bigger foe to fight. Sometimes that foe was man, sometimes that foe was evil, sometimes that foe was in his own mind.  What I love about David was his great love for God and not afraid to show it.  He also showed us that God does and will prevail and God’s promises are never broken and true.  Jesus states a lot of his most important messages to us in the bible with the words” truly  I say to you.” God is truth, love, peace, joy, strength, and sometimes God’s truths are just covering you over for protection and fighting darkness when you have no strength to do so.  I am only human and incapable of doing anything with out God.  Some may say well you were doing things last week without God. You were suffering a breakdown without God.  You go to work and shuffle through the day without God.  truly I say to you, no. God gave me life, breathed in my breath.  I could not have made it through some of the pitiful days at work without God’s help.  I would not be here without God’s help.  In the pit I was in God protected me from evil, it was not a dark pit, just a pit that my chemicals in me lead me to.  God did not give me this chemical imbalance , this world and the chemicals in it caused me to be off. If I did not have God I could not have returned from the brink of darkness.  Without God I have no power to forgive, love, have relationships cause God is love and we love cause he first loved us.  As John 15 says, If I remain in Jesus and he in me I can produce good fruit.  That does not mean I will only do good things and only do what God wants me to do, sometimes it means that God protects us by remaining in us to fill us with him so the devil and his thoughts can not take us over.  Depression can blur those lines sometimes but in the end God’s got your back.  God always watches out for his children, and through Jesus I am God’s child and apart of the family.  Jesus died to make me God’s child so the void from the first sin of Adam which separated me from God needed to be bridged and the cross allows us to cross over (no pun intended) to God and be in his Glory, a forgiven child of his family.  By remaining in him and I mean praying, meditating and just continue to work on my relationship with him I am able to feel the Joy that God wants me to have and lead the life he wants me to live by listening to his quiet voice always leading me to a better place.

That is the joy of being a christian, having a loving father to care for me when I can not care for myself.

Lord Thank you for your forgiveness and constant attention to my needs.  When I was unable to praise or pray to you your spirit within me groaned prayers of needs to you.  You heard them and in my pain covered me over with protection and sat with me till the wave left.  Thank you for allowing me to be a child and crawl upon the lap of Jesus and sit with my head on his chest and just be.  Lord all these things I thank and ask for you the name of your son Jesus — Amen.