Dealing with depression

It's not something we talk about much is it?
Depression is one of those things we like to brush under the carpet and not talk about, nor want to get involved with. When you tell someone you have it, immediately their behaviour towards you changes, you are now treated like you are a ticking bomb ready to go off as soon as something is said.
Be prepared, this is not easy reading, nor indeed easy writing, but hey, depression is a fact of life for so many people, so many students as well as non-students. You are going to come across it sooner or later. I pray so much that you will never experience it, but you will probably know someone who has it, or has had it. Those of you who know me fall into that category.
I can't put a definite time line on when I had depression from, but I can make some educated guesses. I apologise now, for the next few paragraphs are going to be about me, my struggle with depression, and how God has brought me out of that struggle. I write this to make people aware of depression, and how they can encourage those Christian brothers and sisters they know who are struggling with it.

I am not a doctor, so I do not have a medical definition of depression. It is an illness that completely consumes every fibre of your being. It is inescapable, and having it was the hardest time of my life.
I guess the roots of it first came about in 2003. I was not having a good time at school, I had been bullied for two or so years at that point, and I felt like there was no way out. I had not accepted that Jesus was my Lord at that point, despite what I may have told you at the time, and I therefore viewed my situation as completely hopeless, no way out. So I tried to make a way out, and harmed myself. Was it a suicide attempt? Well, I guess not, it was just a cry for attention.
I repeated that a further two time in that year, and I guess I just settled down, things got less intense, and of course, when I was 17 years old, God brought a friend into my life who told me the gospel, brought me to our school CU, and indeed, thanks to the fact we started dating, ended up making the same university choices, and eventually going up to Lancaster becoming a part of Moorlands Evangelical Church and Lancaster University Christian Union. I am so thankful to God for instigating that. It's so awesome to see and know that He is in control, and working all things together for His glory and our good (Romans 8:28-LOOK IT UP-GOD IS AWESOME!)
In between becoming a Christian and coming to Lancaster, there was a hard period of my life. That friend and I split up, and yes, that was hard. My first girlfriend, my first break up, it was horrible.
It was also at that time that I had been really challenged to read the Bible for myself, and take it seriously. This challenge had come from meeting my future Pastor, Danny Rurlander, on the Lancaster University open day, where all the conversations had been about God, the Bible, and the church.
I took that as a challenge to read the Bible, and therefore, during that long period of sadness, I got to read of God's goodness and wisdom, His sovereignty and complete control, both in the book of Job,and the Psalms.
God, by His Spirit is constantly at work in our lives, changing us and growing us to be more like Christ (Romans 8), and by the time I reached Lancaster in the autumn of 2006, I had grown, but was still fragile.
My parents split up on Christmas day 2006, and I thank God that I had been at a Bible-teaching church for so long at that point, otherwise I don't know where I would have been. God is good, and I am not. My initial reaction as I stood in my parent's bedroom hearing all of the lies, the rows, and now the fact that their marriage was over, was to walk to my own room, and stand there for a while, and decide NOT to read my Bible that day, nor for the next 5 days.
That was a bad move. When we suffer, how can we turn from the God of all comfort? (2 Corinthians 1:3-11). By God's grace, I picked up my Bible again, and was encouraged by glorious future we have who hope in Christ (Revelation 21-22)
I returned to Lancaster, shattered, but still standing, by God's grace alone. As news from home kept coming in, I was being battered. What was an awesome encouragement was the reaction of Moorlands.
When one is depressed, it is vital to get alongside and support them. And that is what my church family did.
I had emailed Danny about it over the holiday, and the first Sunday I got back, I had so many people come up to me, offering their support and prayers, and it was awesome. God is awesome.
That term flew by, and thanks to God through Moorlands and the CU, I was able to get by. That was the term that Jo and I got together, and there were such happy times.
Then I went home for Easter.
On reflection, I am quite surprised that not once during that holiday did the theme tune for Eastenders blare up during the many nights at home, it really was just like a soap opera. Previous marriages that my parents had had came to light, doors were slammed, I was even close to being thrown out at one point. My younger brother was finally told that my parents were splitting up (!) and at the end of the holiday my mum moved out.
I was lucky, I had Lancaster to escape to, I had a loving Church Family and CU who reached out to me with open arms as I returned. Most of all, I had the God of the Universe who had stepped into history as Jesus Christ to die for me. My brother had none of those things. He is still an unbeliever, and that is so hard...
Here comes the turning point, from bad to worse, for it is at this point that I think depression came, and to a certain extent, it was my fault.
I returned to Moorlands, hard and cynical, just not vocal as of yet. That was my choice. God had done nothing wrong, He never does. Although we may not know why we suffer, it is not a vindictive God inflicting us, after all, we live in a fallen world with fallen people. Suffering is a given, especially as Christians we are to stand out for Christ our Saviour. Suffering is inevitable, it is how we react that we need to focus on. Not 'Why God?' but 'How can I glorify you God?'
That first Sunday, the sermon was on Psalm 22 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'. "Very apt," I whispered to Jo, and her face bore a look of horror.
This was my active rebellion against the God who had died for me, and it was from here I began to succumb to my own selfish thoughts and desires, which, combined with harder and harder external events cemented depression in me.
This would last a long time. Sermons would go over my head, my Bible time, though continuing, was again going in one ear and out the other. It is indeed by God's grace alone that He used me as a CU small group leader at the time.
The summer came and went, and back again for a second year. Now, my work ethic has never been exactly brilliant, at all. My apathy in second year however, reached new heights. i barely attended any lectures or seminars, did no work, and ended the term earning four zero's for all my, not done, coursework.
At this point I must note, with pain, that my behaviour was atrocious. I got sickeningly drunk, twice, in the space of one month, and I was taking out all my frustrations out on Jo, my own girlfriend.
Again, it is God's miracle that He used me as a CU leader at the time. To be honest I should have been sacked, but thankfully God uses for His glory. We can do nothing without Him.
We are now at around February time, I was using Jo as basically an emotional punchbag, while turning my attention on to other things, and hating my own church.
A paraphrase of an MSN conversation that Jo and I had at the time, when she asked what was wrong went something along these lines. "This is my life, I go on unscheduled set up, ending up standing alone and threatened with excommunication if I don't talk to people. Talk unhelpful, stand alone and go home. Then back for Real Food [our small group Bible study] again unhelpful. Then I go back to my academic week which I love so much...do no work, feel crap, and then we are back to Sunday again...because I know [Moorlands] hate me, and want me out of their church, and to be honest, I may just give them the satisfaction."
This is depression, getting sucked into your own negative thoughts and feelings, getting extremely paranoid, and losing your focus on God. A depressed person is a haven for the devil, accusing us and burdening us with our guilt so we forget God's grace, and focus on what we want in a desperate bid to be happy.
I mean, look at me, I had an amazing church, which I was saying such horrible things about!
Everything culminated around that time. It was obvious now how I was treating Jo, and how my behaviour was frankly shocking. Danny called me round to his house one Wednesday morning, and laid it all out for me. He never shouted, not once, he clearly pointed out what I was doing, and why it was wrong. I shouted, I blamed him, I blamed Moorlands, I blamed everyone except myself.
Danny told me that the best thing to do was finish with Jo, as I was treating her badly. I did not want to, I begged not to. But it was the best thing. So that evening we finished, we needed space, and I needed to do a lot of thinking and doing.
I saw a doctor, and was put on anti-depressants.
That week I read the Bible, and prayed, I was challenged to change, and by God's ultimate grace, I was able to repent of nearly a year's worth of pain, of hurt, of sin.
God brought me out of that dark place, and by the summer, I was off the drugs, and God has been strengthening me always. Even though times now are so hard, postponing the wedding, stuck in unemployment, not knowing what will happen, I know God is in control. "The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD" (Job 1:21).
God is the God who made the world, gave us life, took the punishment for our own rebellion by sending Jesus to the cross, and is bringing us together under Him, a new land, His people being blessed by Him. One day we will live with God as God, sin will be no more. There will no longer be any pain or crying. Jesus blood has washed away my sin. All those horrible things I did when i had depression, all that guilt, we need not feel it, for God has rescued us, and we will be made perfect by Him.
We are part of His plan, chosen from the beginning to be made perfect by Him, through Jesus' blood, bringing about God's ultimate plan in uniting all under Him, for His glory. And we have His Spirit in us, the guarantor of that promise. (Ephesians 1:1-14).

When one has depression, they are apathetic, not enjoying what they usually enjoy, always sad, feeling worthless, like they want to die, feeling so far from the God who died for them. We need to get alongside our suffering brothers and sisters, and care for them. We need to keep gently reminding them of that eternal hope that we have, the gospel, keep loving them and supporting them as the grapple with the horrors of their own thoughts and feelings.

Romans 5:8 says "but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." We are loved and cherished by the God of the universe. We are hated by the devil, who poisons our vulnerable minds with his accusations. But we have that eternal hope, that blessing, that love that will NEVER be extinguished: the love of God, through Christ, to choose us before the foundation of the world, to set us apart to be made holy and blameless, and share in that painless New Creation, all because of God's grace for God's glory, not by anything we have done, or will do. The love of God surpasses any suffering we can ever face. One day we will see it fullfilled. Reflect on my favourite psalm "Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!" (Psalm 27:14)
God is in control, keep reminding each other with that, take sufferers to the Bible, and assure them, not with glib words or oft-quoted verses, but sit with them, love them, and point with them to the Bible, and show them again, the good news of Jesus Christ.

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." (Romans 5:6-11)

We are sinful scumbags, whom God in His love died for us in Christ, so that we can be reconciled with God, safe from His wrath, safe in the knowledge that one day, we will see sufferings cease, sorrows die, the end of depression, the end of evil, for God has promised it, and He is God, trustworthy, reliable, awsome and merciful. Look at the ways He has been merciful to me, what I did was awful, yet God has kept me His, kept me going, used me, grown me, put me and Jo back together after everything, allowed me ears to hear and understand sermons, and strength to say no to those thoughts. Sometimes I'll fall into a slight relapse on a bad day, but I praise God that it is slight, that I can repent in an hour rather than in a year, and I praise the wonderous God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, the God of all comfort and reconciliation, the God of grace, our Rock of Ages, our Saviour and Redeemer, for laying His life in Christ down for me, for us all, for His glory, and for our good. Thanks forever be to God, for He has cleansed me and clothed me in righteousness. And I am no different from you, why should He save me and not you? Get repenting, get believing, get trusting our might, sovereign God.

Oh, and don't treat people like time bombs about to go off, it makes it feel worse. Love them by showing them the love of God in His word and in your life.