Four Key Ways to Love Someone with Depression
Today, my devotional is the featured blog on my friend and fellow Christian author Alexis Goring's Devotionals for the Heart "God is Love" blog.
By Jessica Brodie
Have you ever tried to love someone with depression but it feels like there’s a wall between you? Or maybe it’s you who has depression, and while your heart longs to love well, the depression feels like a barricade so thick and high you can’t possibly overcome it.
I’ve shared before that I have a number of close family members with depression, and there have been seasons in my own life when I, too, struggled with depression. It’s a rough situation—sometimes it’s genetic, sometimes it’s because of a tough situation (such as mine, after my divorce), and sometimes it’s a combination of these. Sometimes someone’s depression responds to medication or other aids, and it’s manageable—you can reasonably function in the midst of the dark spell, even though you are at an emotional low. Other times, you’re on the wrong depression medicine for your body, or your medication stops working or you can’t afford it anymore, and you spiral ever downward until you fear you’re headed toward rock bottom.
If you have depression and you are struggling to love your people well in the midst of it, please know your efforts and your suffering are seen and appreciated.
Understand you are like a battery that has run out of a charge, or a cup of water that has been emptied. You need to be recharged to run again, or filled back up with water again in order to pour out that love upon the world. Accept the grace God’s love gives you in this time. Love is, whether we can show it or not.
If you love someone with depression, here are four key things that can help:
1. Love with acceptance:
Depression isn’t something you can “get over.” It’s not ….
READ THE REST OF THE BLOG, HERE.
