Depression

I just went back and read all of your posts, I don't see where you have directly repsonded to any of the comments about chemical imbalances, clinical depresion, other mental disorders like bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

You simply keep posting "peace that passes all understanding" and stating how you were able to pray through your depression so everyone else should be able to as well. You are dodging the real issue and making dangerous blanket statements, I pray that God never allows anyone suffering from a real mental disorder to come to you for help, you would simply push them over the edge.

You accuse us of ignoring what the Bible, because we refuse to accept your twisted view of the Bible. In a perfect world with perfect bodies and perfect minds we would all be 100% healthy, we are not in a perfect world and none of us, including you my friend, are 100% healthy in body, mind or spirit!

 

Mark,

Your lack of knowledge about depression, especially major depression is leading you to make very inaccurate and dangerous statements.

For instance: You suggest that depression is caused by people refusing to turn their worries over to God. The fact is, if an individual is clinically depressed it wouldn't matter if they didn't have a single care in the world. It isn't about "worry".

Someone said it isn't like a broken bone, so let's compare it to something we DO acknowledge.
Diabetes, out of control, causes mood swings, coma's, convulsions, dillusions, and many other things. I doubt any of you would suggest telling a diabetic, "Just dump your insulin, if you are a real Christian you won't need it."

When my kid's Dad was at his absolute WORST he was absolutely HORRID to my son. To the point my son crawled into my lap and asked me why I was the only person who loved him. I went to an amazing friend and an amazing psychologist and said, "How do I help my son through this nightmare?" His answer was, "You broke your arm recently and had surgery and pins to rebuild it. He could see that. He could understand that. Explain to him that just like your arm had to have time heal, and that even though he couldn't actually see the shattered bone inside your flesh, he knew it was broken. Then explain that Daddy has an injury in his brain that needs to heal, and that is just as broken as your arm was."

That message became my son's mantra when his Dad went into rages. Instead of finding my son curled up in a ball crying, he would come to me and sigh and say, "Mom? When is Daddy's head going to get better?

YES - we prayed through all of it.

But I'll tell you honestly people. God's answer to those prayer came in the form of Christian Medical Personnel and Christian TRAINED psychologists and psychiatrists. Without them, I would be dead as the psychosis lead to him making suicidal-homicidal threats. Without them HE would be dead. Without them my kids would have absolutely NO loving relationshp with their father.

The answer to the prayers WAS medical.

And we SAW what theories like Mark's gives the world in the Andrea Yates case. Refusing medical attention to severely depressed people on the basis that "they don't have enough faith" leads to five children drowned in a bathtub by their own mother. I blame people who send that, "You shouldn't seek help, you just need more faith," crap for those deaths MORE than I blame the mother.

 

Actually Mark,
There's a case in my family where that happened because of an illness, as well. An older man had a stroke that affected his brain. He became very paranoid. This was years and years ago, so the medical community was not sure what to do. They had him in an institution, but it was voluntary, so he walked out. He went home and shot his wife, then tried to commit suicide himself. He was convinced that people were out to get him and that he was protecting himself.

 

Mark, you are showing how little you know about mental disorders, I will agree with you that not everyone who is "depressed" has a mental disorder, but you can't deny the fact that there are real mental disorders that are physical and not caused by sin or "evil spirits". These disorders if not properly treated will only escelate and can lead to other more serious mental disorders. Someone who is bipolar who doesn't receive proper treatment can become scitzaphrenic and loose touch with reality, they can start having hallucinations and seeing things that aren't really there. You can't just tell them to pray these hallucinations away, they need medical treatment.

 

...with my Nyquil and multiple years of deep soul searching and prayer and frustration...

 

Consider both Bro.

 

I have seen some cold and callious replies in the areas of theological debate, but you sir have taken coldness to a new level. I am ashamed that I am Baptist because of the heartlessness that you have shown. I believe that you owe everyone, especially Texasky an appology. I also believe that you have fallen into a herosy (?) that almost always leads to death for those who are not able to make their own choices.

You say that it took some time to overcome your "so called" depression. If you had only considered the gift of knowledge that God has given to man through wisdom in medicene, your prayers may have been answered, no, they would have been answered much quicker and you may have been able to reach people that will now be lost forever because you rejected God's gift of wisdom.

I pity you and am praying that you will not hurt anyone.

 

So if that's true, all mental illness such as depression or bi-polar disorder is a spiritual problem that are cured by focusing our thoughts on the pure things of God, then you have to believe that James 5:14-15 is just as true.

"14Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. 15And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven"

Please tell me that no one in your church has suffered from cancer or heart disease, or the flu, or common colds, or broken bones, or chicken pox or allergies or migrane headaches........

 

Whether you accept it or not, God also didn't reveal the "cure" to many maladies that man suffers from. Plague killed a third or so of the worlds population, smallpox, diptheria and even the plain flu killed many more, yet God in His wisdom waited and let man discover the "cure" for himself. Many of those cures weren't discovered until the last hundred years or so.

Depression wasn't recognized and treatments found until the last 20 years or so. There were drugs out there to treat the really severe cases, but many times the "cure" was worse than the cause.

There was a time in this world when everything was perfect, when man didn't have to work "by the sweat of his brow" for his living. That time didn't last long because Eve was deceived and Adam disobeyed. Since that time, man has to work for what he gets, and that includes any cures for diseases that we may want.

Occasionally, God will directly intervene in illness if that intervention will suit His purposes. We aren't gaurenteed that intervention, it happens only by His own providence. He has allowed man to make some amazing discoveries about the human body, and through such, much suffering has been allieviated. PTL! Be thankful for that and use the knowledge that God has allowed us. He put it there for our benefit.

That poor suffering Phillipian who struggled through depression that had no cure, will have his reward in heaven if he remained faithful in what he had control over. God knows the condition of the heart. He knows when our brains malfunction and cause us to do or say things we wouldn't normally say or do. That, Mark,is the peace that passes all understanding. That even though we may do something because of tricks of the mind(brain malfunctions) that God knows the difference between what we can control and what we can't. His strength will bring us through to Him, even when we can't fathom why He would want us when we don't even want ourselves. This is called grace and mercy, and we puny humans can't understand the depth of it.

 

Mark...how do you know they didn't use anything else besides pills back then? St.John's Wort? Any myriad of other plants, etc.? You don't.

You made me think, with that scenario though. My question in response to it...what if someone does pray and God doesn't answer them? He may choose to LEAVE them in that depression (He doesn't promise us an easy life) or He may choose to heal that person through natural (medical) means. After all...His peace beyond understanding could be given through the use of medicine. He never said it couldn't.

How's your Nyquil holdin ya up?

 

Actually,

The bible indicates that they did use some of the herbs and things for some medicines in those days. There are references to making the holy oils of priesthood in a fashion simliar to those made by apthocaries and used by physicians.

 

First question, no.

Your arguments are based on the unproven and unprovable pre-supposition that depression is not a physical, but a spiritual, malady.

KingJames

 

Wonder what Luke did in his previous job?

 

Mark, the peace and rest that is promised in the Bible is not a cure for depression. It's the cure for spiritual death. The same death that all from Adam suffer from and seek a cure for. That death is separation from the Creator of our souls. We start suffering from that separation as soon as we are old enough to recognize right from wrong and feel guilty when wrong. We feel as though something is missing, and it is. What's missing is that lost connection between us and the Father. People spend long years searching for what is missing in their lives and never find it until they accept the payment Christ gave for us. Then they have peace for thier souls.

The rest that Christ is speaking of, is His complete work on the cross as payment for our sins so that we don't have to go though life wondering if we are being "good" enough and knowing that it is impossible to be good enough to please God.

As Christians we can be at peace with God through Christ(peace meaning He hold nothing against our souls) and at rest(meaning that everything that we should have done has already been done by Christ), but that is no gaurentee that we won't suffer from some sort of mental illness.