Oh for 70 billion tongues (or so)!

let us always have in mind the eternal happiness, the goal of resurrection - a happiness of whose excellence the minutest part would scarce be told if all were said that the tongues of all men can say. 

Calvin: Institutes of the Christian Religion (2 volume set) p1004

Feeling the love right now?

Alasdair Groves - What do feelings have to do with love? from CCEF on Vimeo.

Help ... I am always sad!

Dr. David Powlison - Help! I'm Always Sad from CCEF on Vimeo.

Is Depression Purely Biological?

Dr. David Powlison - Is Depression Purely Biological? from CCEF on Vimeo.

unhappy times

The great thing with unhappy times is to take them bit by bit, hour by hour, like an illness. It is seldom the present, the exact present, that is unbearable.

Remember one is given strength to bear what happens to one, but not the 100 and 1 different things that might happen.

C.S. Lewis, Letter to An American Lady

Bipolar

Ordinary faith

The truth is that faith often feels like the very ordinary process of dragging one foot in front of the other because we are conscious of God. (Depression - A Stubborn Darkness by Welch, p 31)

No silver bullets

Depression is a form of suffering that can't be reduced to one universal cause. This means that family and friends can't rush in with THE answer.

Like most forms of suffering, it feels private and isolated.

When your emotions feel muted or always low, when you are unable to experience highs and lows you once did, the important questions is, 'Where do you turn - or, to whom do you turn - when you are depressed?'

Suffering is not a journey we should take alone. There are too many places where we are tempted to give up and too many times we can't see clearly.

(from Ch 1 of Depression - A Stubborn Darkness by Welch)

Why?

So, on the path ahead, look for a partnership between whys and how tos. When the why questions appear, they will be religious - as all why questions are. They will be about God. Depression, of course, does that - it takes you back to the basic questions of life. Ignore them to focus on the how questions and you might find a temporary shortcut to mental relief, but your heart will still be famished. (Depression - A Stubborn Darkness, Welch, p14)

Checking in the mirror

(p4-5)
We are more feeling-driven than we think.

But in depression you don't feel. (Or, whatever you do feel isn't going to motivate you to do anything profitable. It's more likely that you feel like dying, crying, running, disappearing, avoiding). How can feeling-driven people set goals, have purpose, or get motivated when they don't feel?

Initially, you will have to learn another way to live. You will have to be like the woman whose muscles still worked but they stopped giving her information about her limbs. She wasn't paralyzed, but if she closed her eyes she couldn't tell if she was standing, reaching, or resting. Gradually, by looking in mirrors and seeing her body rather than feeling it, she began to walk again. After much practice, walking began to feel natural again.

In depression, the new way of living is to believe and act on what God says rather than feel what God says. It is living by faith.