It Will Be a Blue Christmas . . .

The occurrence of depression is something that seems to spike around the holidays. And those who have gone through serious bouts of depression know that it can be quite life disrupting. According to current statistics, approximately 15-20% of Americans will go through a serious time of depression at some point in their lives. And no doubt ALL of us will go through significant bouts of discouragement throughout our life times. So what should we do? For serious cases of clinical depression, professional help is in order. If you think you might be suffering from clinical depression, a trip to your family physician would most certainly be in order. But what if you are not suffering from a clinical depression but you are experiencing "the blues." What steps can you take to rid yourself of discouragement?

Consider Psalm 13. In this psalm, King David is down in the dumps. This is clear from what he says in the first two verses. Then as he moves on, he gives the path we must walk if we are to encourage our downcast hearts. Take a moment and read the psalm ... and then I will share a couple more thoughts:

Psalm 13

How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? ²How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me? ³Look on me and answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; ⁴my enemy will say, "I have overcome him," and my foes will rejoice when I fall. ⁵But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. ⁶I will sing to the LORD,  for he has been good to me.

David takes two steps to get beyond his blues. First he prays. He asks God to give light to his eyes. I believe what he is asking for is that God would grant him His perspective on his, David's problems. It is so easy to lose perspective when troubles hit. To see our problems as God sees them is a big part of overcoming discouragement. Secondly, David chooses to trust God - specifically God's unfailing love and salvation. Friends, when difficulties hit and we grow discouraged, it is easy to doubt God's love for us and his goodness toward us. We must refuse to go down this path and instead choose to go down the path of trusting our loving and our good God. When we take these two steps, our hearts will begin to move from sadness to singing!

Thanks for stopping by . . .

pj