on depression

As I learn more about the disease of depression, I can see how it takes over the brain and the heart.  C.S. Lewis said, "If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them... They are a great fountain of energy and beauty spurting up at the very center of reality.  If you are close to it, the spray will wet you; if you are not, you will remain dry."  The problem with depression is that it is an illness that makes you believe you are not near that glorious and joyful fountain of God's love, when in reality you are!  You are.  But depression lies and says we aren't, it separates us from the love of God by creating a completely untrue reality within our own minds.  The enemy fills all the holes in a person's soul with sadness as those lies become a reality.  And it sneaks itself into the subconscious until you think it is you having these thoughts, not it.  Depression once it is inside, can spread like fire, taking over the mind and the heart and the soul with this awful disease.  It is a persistent and stubborn, causing physical pain.  It holds on tight when we try to fight against it with truth and it whispers its lies even more insistently, to keep the truth from defeating it.  And its whispers can become shouts as you get closer to defeating it, as the enemy desperately does not want to give up the foothold it has gained.  Pills, prayer, exercise, mindfulness, supplements, sunshine, therapy, but if you loosen your grip, even just a little, then it weasels its way back into your brain and you spin out into that painful consuming fire once again.  Depression lies.  So Much.  It tells you all the right things to make you feel like the worst person in the world.  It knows which buttons to push and which wounds to poke.  It fills your head with horrible things, clouds your vision from God's truth, and then convinces you that its lies are the absolute truth.  Day after day.  Sometimes the fight becomes too painful and awful and consuming to endure, to the point that you begin to seek the only emergency exit you can see to escape.  This is an emergency, in the truest sense of the word emergency.  A person enduring depression can spiral to this hopeless point unexpectedly and they need immediate intervention and help.  They need the life-giving truth of God's word and love poured into them in the most urgent of ways.  If you know someone suffering depression, ask them if they are "okay," but wait for their answer and be ready to help them get emergency help if their answer is anything less than, "yes."

Someone in this country dies by suicide every 12.8 minutes. 

22 veterans die by suicide each day in this country.

12 people harm themselves for every reported death by suicide.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Phone Number: 1-800-273-8255