Can God help my depression?

First we need to ask ourselves why we are depressed? This can be due to a number of different factors, physical, emotional, psychological or spiritual, or a combination of all of them. There are varying degrees of depression and it can result from bereavement, ill health, disappointment or through difficult circumstances.

It may be that by asking this question we recognise that we do need some help and our GP may be the person to whom we should turn first.

Sometimes however depression comes from the nagging guilt of realising that we are not the people we ought to be, that we have fallen below our own standards, that we have missed opportunities, that we have wasted our gifts and talents or even the feeling that we have not achieved all that we would have hoped or wanted for our lives. In those situations, finding a quiet place and time to pray can help us address the problems that can arise through leading lives that are too busy, too noisy and too stressful.

The words of this hymn can help us

Drop thy still dews of quietness
Till all our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of Thy peace.
    (From the hymn ‘Dear Lord and Father of Mankind’)

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