Passionate Homemaking

I wrote this note to some­one very near and dear to my heart this morn­ing who is strug­gling with depres­sion, and wanted to share it with you, in hopes that it might edify us all.

Dear Friend,

I wanted to share with you a verse that has greatly encour­aged my soul when I have gone through bouts of depres­sion, lack­ing joy and pur­pose­ful­ness. Some­times I just wake up in the morn­ing and feel this over­whelm­ing weight of dis­cour­age­ment. I don’t want to get up and face the chal­lenges of the day. Or when chal­lenges come my way with fussy babies, dis­as­ters in the kitchen, finan­cial wor­ries, etc. No matter what they be, this verse has been a source of great encour­age­ment to my soul.

Ps. 42:5
“Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become dis­turbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence.”

The encour­age­ment I have found over and over again has come from taking this verse and lit­er­ally talk­ing to my soul. Prob­ing my soul, and asking myself, “why are you in despair, o my soul? why are you depressed and dis­cour­aged? Is this an attack of the enemy? Or am I just wal­low­ing in self-pity?” I have found it so help­ful after prob­ing my soul, to reflect on the next por­tion, “Hope in God!” We are not to dwell too long on this despair or depres­sion, but rather turn our eyes to the Savior and com­mand our souls to hope in Him!

We must take a hold of our feel­ings, as they can change, and med­i­tate upon rock solid truth, He is our hope and our help! He will not let you wallow in despair, but will bring you up again from this pit! Tell your soul to praise the Lord! Turn those thoughts of depres­sion into pur­pose­ful words of praise to our God! I have found talk­ing to myself in this manner has lifted me up from over­whelm­ing thoughts of despair and hope­less­ness. Keep talk­ing and speak­ing the gospel to yourself….even out loud! Speak out the truth and do not let the enemy fill your mind with thoughts that will not lead you any­where but fur­ther despair.

Praise God that He uses such means to fill us once again with His praise!

I am pray­ing for you…

Lind­say

It is funny…after writ­ing this the Lord tested me. I had a long list of things to do today, and they were not start­ing out right. The smoothie I made for break­fast tasted nasty (come to find out my coconut milk had gone sour in the frig…), I was feel­ing sick from tast­ing it, and I was in a rush to get over to my dad’s house and help him with some book­keep­ing, and plans keep chang­ing as to timing, work­ing out the sched­ule for the use of our one car, in addi­tion to doing my errands, gro­cery shop­ping, etc. The day had barely started and I was already start­ing to go hay wired! The Lord brought these thoughts again into my mind, and I was com­pelled to prac­tice what I preached. I con­fessed my frus­tra­tion to the Lord and spoke the truth to myself…taking hold of my feel­ings, and direct­ing them to hope in God! How much more peace­ful this is!