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I have depression, but Jesus has me
I have depression. Which really means that depression has me. It owns me.
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Thursday. I want to do nothing. A pressure pushes down on my neck and back, bending me over. Breathing becomes toil. My bride looks at my expression and knows: Today is a bad day.
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I hadn’t called up the friendly neighborhood depression salesperson and said, “Yeah, Thursday? Could you stop by? I’m a little low on purposeless gloom.” And it’s not even that I forgot to pay the happy man. “Oh, sorry, I did not send the check for my monthly supply of glee. Can I make up the difference on next month’s bill?”
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Nope. Depression owns me. And Thursday it decided it would be nice to pay a visit to its little slave and maybe hang around for a while.
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But I’m a Christian. Okay, I’m not supposed to be a grinning idiot at all times. I’m not some mega-church preacher who always has to look smarmy. I get that. Sadness is a part of being Christian. Jeremiah wrote Lamentations. Martha mourned at the grave of her brother. Christians suffer. It’s part of who we are.
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But shouldn’t I have joy, no matter my emotion at the moment?
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The first lie uttered in Scripture comes from the devil: “You will not certainly die” (Genesis 3:4). Satan lied in the Garden of Eden and has been lying ever since. Jesus said, “You belong to your father, the devil. . . . He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding . . .
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In January 2019, Forward in Christ featured Grace, Tucson, Ariz., in an article discussing the blessings and challenges of mergers and multi-site ministries. Two small struggling congregations, Peace, Sahuarita, and Bethlehem, Benson, merged with Grace in . . .
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In the conclusion of her second book, Mary: Providential Earthly Mother of God, Lou Ann Mokwa celebrates the study of Mary with her readers, saying, “Looking at Scripture from the perspective of her life has required us to be faithful, discerning students, focusing on . . .
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