Depression

“As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So my soul pants for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God;
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
While they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’
These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me.
For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God,
With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him
For the help of His presence.
O my God, my soul is in despair within me;
Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan
And the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.
The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime;
And His song will be with me in the night,
A prayer to the God of my life.

I will say to God my rock, ‘Why have You forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?’
As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me,
While they say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’
Why are you in despair, O my soul?
And why have you become disturbed within me?
Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him,
The help of my countenance and my God.” Psalm 42

Deep despair and depression are detectable - not only by the one suffering from it - but also by those who know or deal with that person. How can you break the hold despair sometimes has on you? How can you fathom the depths of depression?

Step one is simply to do something. Inactivity only increases the depth of the mire in which depression wallows.

Step two is to praise the Lord. Try it. When you praise Him, you are looking to Him, trusting Him, relying on Him. Through that activity, you get your eyes off your concern and realize there are infinite, limitless resources of Almighty God that are at your disposal - to help you stand and face anything in life.

When we realize that the omnipotent God of the universe is interested and involved in the events of our lives, our burdens can roll onto His shoulders; our cares can fall at His feet; our troubles can rest in His hands; and our fears can find calm in His peace.

Depression is a debilitating emotion experienced by both men and women.