depression

Faith takes over…….

Sometimes the words aren’t there, but the gratefulness still is.
Sometimes faith has to take over when you have momentarily misplaced hope.
Sometimes you have to be reminded that God is still God, and that
everything is going to be okay.

And things are still very good indeed, it is your mind that is
temporarily looking at things askew. Temporarily is the key.
Because things always turn around, I know that for a fact.

I am so thankful for those in my life that have surrounded me over the years,
when I have felt like this, come alongside and believed with me…..

Yes, it will be okay.

There are many more reasons for praise than for despair.
You start counting, and before you know it,
you are restored, I am restored.

Thank you to all of you……….you know who you are.
This post is dedicated to you today.

sun through clouds, voices of hope, hands grabbing mine, prayers sent with my name on them, smiling eyes over lunch, beautiful songs that leave you breathless, God in the silence listening always, listening, dawn breaking inside and knowing where it is coming from, blogger friends, friends old and new, memories that bring smiles, laughter in the midst of tears…….#609-621

The LORD is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.
The LORD protects the unwary;
when I was brought low, he saved me. Psalm 116:4,5

holy experience

photos: google images

Walking in His light…….

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” Matthew 6:34

I awoke in a cycle of worry this morning. Some days start like that. It is the same worry loop my mind runs through, has been running through for several years now. It is familiar to me like an old song. In the days of phonographs and records sometimes there used to be a skip in a record and you would have to go over and reset it back into the right groove or else start it all over again from the beginning. I realise that I have to explain that, and it is funny to me having grown up before the era of CD’s.

Sometimes worry is like that old song, that groove in the record. But I am tired of that song. I made a decision this morning to reset the record. I got up and got dressed in the dark and went out and walked. I put my IPOD on “Praise” and as I listened to songs like….”All of Creation” by Mercy Me, and watched the sky fill up with glorious color, the color of the Master Artist. By the second time around the park, I noticed something start to happen. My spirits were lifting. I was not so worried anymore.

They were being choked out by the praise!

When you fill up your mind with praise to Him, it tends to crowd everything else out. My circumstances didn’t change, the worries are still there, but God is covering them now with promises from His word. Instead of listening the recording in my head, I listen to what God says. He says: “Don’t worry!” He said it often because He knew we would be a recurring problem for us.

I thought another thing this morning too. During Christmas, I tend to put worry and stress on hold and just focus on Christmas and the wonder and joy of it all. Christmas is for me a timeout from all that, a chance to focus on something else. When it is over I tend to go back to my worrisome ways. But why can’t I adapt a Christmas attitude all year long? Well, God says I can!

Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? Matthew 6:27

Jesus had to walk a lonely road to Calvary for us. Sometimes its the small calvaries in life that get to us. But when we look to Him and keep walking, He will reward us with His hope, His joy, His victory.

If the world is threatening to choke out the Word in your life today, don’t despair. He will come, He will see you through, one step at a time!

photo from my iphone

He will see you through

“I call on the Lord in my distress and He answers me…….” Psalm 118:1

Let any words that do not encourage you upward–toward freedom from this world–be put far from you. They are shameful, they are criminal. Defend yourself from these words by being steadfast in prayer. Cry out to your God, who is your shield: Deliver my soul from treacherous tongues.” Homilies on the Psalms” Augustine

My thoughts are scattered today.  I am trying to help my dear friend out of the shadows. Trying to make sense out of something that makes no sense at all. Trying to help her see daylight through a forest that refuses to yield its light. I have traveled through the shadow lands myself and that is why it is so painful to watch. I recognize the paralyzing fear that colors everything. Fear that makes it impossible to move, that makes you look forward to a day off so you can just sit alone and cry, and that makes you angry.

Angry that someone has the power to do that to you……to throw their blackness, their lies, their misery onto you. Especially since you have cared for them, shined the light of your kindness on them for years. Angry and sad because you thought that fear was gone forever…..buried deep, resting in peace. You even had a funeral for it all those years ago, but now circumstances have pulled it up out of the grave, resurrecting old feelings.

Behind the anger, sinking like a small stone at the bottom of your heart there settles grief, for things have changed and they will not be the same again. For that, you grieve. But here is the reality that is true despite everything we feel……The fears, anger and grief were and remain buried with Christ forever. Not only were they buried for good, everything that resembles death was done away with when He rose again. No one and nothing can ever snatch that away from us. Though they are part of our reality now, they have no power over us, they can never again destroy us.

And I know one thing…….about blackness and forests and lands of shadow……they don’t last forever. Mine didn’t and neither will hers, or yours, or mine. I know another thing too, that my own times of darkness can help someone else out of theirs. I can say this with full confidence because I know who My deliverer is. Malachi 4:2 “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.”

Each moment of the year has its own beauty . . . a picture which was never before and shall never be seen again.- Ralph Waldo Emerson

My walk in the woods


July in the desert and everyone is dreaming of the cool breezes that left in early May….heat is everywhere and there is no escaping it. I go out to pray and my mind tells me 6:00 should be bearable, but its not.

My mind wanders, I pace inside like a caged animal.
I go to the secret place where He resides, My own Living water that springs eternal.

Lord, I ache for green, and air that carries the scent of pine, and the spray of surf pounding on the shore. Be my walk in the woods, the little stream that I long to sit by and write, my thoughts and the ones you give me….

Be that porch that I dream of, the one with three steps up…..surrounded by hydrangeas of violet and blue, and the wind chimes gently revealing Your wind, Your voice.

I am in another garden today, the one that resides in the Spring of His Word. I am there watching green leaves toss against a canopy of blue from a hammock that swings in the playful air.

My heart is greatly refreshed.

A bird calls and another answers across the yard and I am filled with the peace that passes understanding.
Help me remember God, that You are always more than enough. Help me to remember, like Paul to be grateful for chains, and help me to remember also that my small chains of inconvenience are nothing compared to the chains that bind others.

None of them are any match for Your strength!

Thank You for being more than I can ever ask or think.

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:12,13

Help for depression


A prayer for those depressed today…..
You feel just getting out of bed is a tremendous struggle, and small decisions are overwhelming. It is tangible, this presence, like a heavy cloak you can never get out from under….You are tired of carrying sacks.

Tired of carrying heavy sacks. Sacks of regrets, sacks of wrong choices, sacks of guilt for not feeling happy, not feeling like the free child of God that you are.

Life has become like flat gray fog of going through motions without joy; limbs feel impossibly heavy, like slogging through mud. You feel sad about this but helpless to do anything about it.

Even things that you should be looking forward to have become a burden and a worry.

Startlingly, you realize that it has been an incredibly long time since it has been springtime in your heart; although you can remember when it was and it feels like a distant dream, like maybe it happened to someone else, not you.

Take hope today, for He has heard you and already answered.
Please know that it will not always be this way.
Especially know this, you are not alone.

It takes tremendous courage to keep going, know that about yourself, you have not given up! Take hold of this one shred of evidence and take comfort.

And never believe the lie of Satan that tells you that you are this way because you don’t love God enough, or not as close to God as you should be, that you are doing something wrong.

Most of all, do not try to go through this valley alone. It may be that God’s answer to your prayer is the hand of a friend or loved one helping you out of the pit.

Get help from others who have walked this path and found their way to the other side. Most of all, know that you have placed your faith in the One who has conquered all shadows forever!

Remember the stone that was rolled away for you and me; may His healing power bloom life back into your heart today. Amen

Romans Ch. 8 v. 38-39. “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Depression comes in many forms. I am no expert, just one who has felt these feelings from time to time in my own life. Sometimes it comes as a result of a tragic circumstance; sometimes it is a result of habitual negative thinking that forms a lifelong pattern. Hormones can play a big part too especially for women. The kind I am writing about today is the kind that comes for no particular reason, it just comes. I pray that if there is someone reading this that they confide in someone and get help, not try to fight this alone.

For one Pastor’s experience, go here