Here is the first blog post I will be posting on my website tomorrow when it launches! Please give feedback and let me know what you think! As always if you enjoyed the article, upvote and resteem! Thank you for all of your support!
Depression is one of the largest epidemics in the United States today, especially among teenagers. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) suicide rates have been slowly increasing to 13.26 individuals per 100,000 across the United States in 2015. Which means that approximately 44,193 committed suicide in the US alone. Depression is a major factor in suicide, and it seems to be affecting much of today's future adults regardless of religion, gender, social status, or financial status. It's been on the rise for many years, and it doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. So how does this affect us as Christians?
Depression is a feeling that becomes a lifestyle of hopelessness. It begins when one person becomes so frustrated and beaten down by life that they start to despair over everything. Even when they do get through that hard time in their life, that mental state sticks. It applies itself to other parts of that person's life to the point where the victim starts feeling this overbearing weight in their life, holding them down from accomplishing even everyday tasks. Everything becomes hopeless and nothing seems to go right. How do we heal from such a daunting wound, from this feeling of impossibility every day? It gets to the point where they lose hope that it will go away.
Personally, I struggled with depression for a long time. I sometimes thought that I had beaten it, and just as I got to share it with some people it would hit me again, harder than before. Feelings of inadequacy and loneliness surrounded me, even around my closest friends. I experienced it every day for about 4 years and it became so overbearing that suicidal thoughts set in.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
— Galatians 5:22-23 (NKJV)On the contrary, God is hope, love, and peace. Nowhere in the Bible does it say for us to be discouraged. Furthermore, if you are experiencing depression in your life, there might be something keeping you from God. Examine your life. If you have something keeping you from your relationship with Jesus, give it to God and use it to draw nearer to Him.
But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
— Isaiah 40:31 (NKJV)