Sometimes, when we’ve been through so much in this life we can have moments that are full of great sorrow. Sorrow is nothing more than intensified sadness. The thing is: Sadness is supposed to pass, not linger and transform into depression or oppressive heaviness. God’s will for us to not have to rely on medications, but to find our complete joy in him. I don’t know where you may be right now, but I’ve had some “extreme” times in my life as an unbeliever AND as a believer in which I thought heaviness (deep rooted depression) would literally overtake me. Have you been there?
If you have and if you are, I want you to know that Jesus Christ can heal you from it.
I’m not sharing something with you that I made up. I’ve lived this. I’ve walked through the medications, the counseling, the frustration and all the “stuff” that comes from living this way. But by moving and living in the Father, and casting all my cares on him — I no longer deal with these problems. My battle over depression and sadness is concerning past traumas are gone. Yours can be to. I mean it!
The Word of God has given us two key promises that I want you to remember:
1. Psalm 147:3 says, “He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds.”
For the believer, this means that the Lord is aware of your inward pain, and that He has promised to help those who belong to him. For the believer (those who have given their lives to the Lord), this means that we can access this promise by seeking Jesus.
2. Matthew 5:4 says, “Bless those that mourn for they shall be comforted.”
Look at this! For the believer, the word bless as it is used here means “to praise, celebrate with praises, to cause to prosper or to pray that the Lord causes someone to prosper.” In other words, we are to celebrate those who are in mourning because they are guaranteed to find comfort in Jesus Christ. The key is this: “Do you want the comfort bad enough to pursue Jesus with everything in you to obtain it.”
For the unbeliever, this is just one more reason why it is necessary to obtain salvation.
For a long time, I didn’t believer “salvation” could bring me anything. It wasn’t until I had tried everything else that I ultimately came to the Lord. Prayerfully, someone reading this will not need to come to the end of the line to make this realization. I would tell the Lord that I wanted to be free of this great sadness, emptiness, anger and frustration on the inside of me. Yet, I found myself falling into these bouts of depression and battling all kinds of thoughts in my mind.
It was only after being taught in the local church concerning the process of letting the past go that I realized that “I – Theresa” was the one holding on to pain. I was using my past as a crutch and instead of dealing with certain things, I buried them inside and indulged in self-pity when I should have been grieving.
Self Pity is an overwhelming feeling of great sorrow in which one indulges themselves in it. In other words, you spend so much time focusing on “the situation” past or present that you can’t put it behind you and make forward strides. It is the owning and claiming of the pain and the commitment that is made inwardly to hold-on to it.
You see, self-pity is unhealthy. It is destructive because it halts progress. The message of Jesus Christ teaches us how to GRIEVE instead. Let me explain this.
Grief is a natural part of life. Grief is an intense sorrow for something we have lost — not for what has happened to us or what was done to us. Grief is the natural reaction of a person to life’s losses. We all have them whether we are dealing with death, the challenges of losing the quality of life due to illness, or having our innocence taken in childhood due to responsibilities or traumas.
When you are in grief, you are void or empty in a place as a result of what has been taken from you. When you are in self-pity, you are filling that void or empty place with negative thought patterns and behaviors. Those empty spaces become consumed with this self-indulgent sadness.
You see, Jesus can work with the void by filling it with His love and kindness; but when the void is filled with all of the things that come with self-pity, there’s absolutely not room in that place for him. The bible teaches us about overcoming grief! Many can’t get healed because they won’t let the self-pity go when the Lord is trying to get them to grieve!
1 Corinthians 1:4 tells the believer that the pain they experience and overcome, can then be used to help others over come their pain and sorrows. The scripture says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4who fcomforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any 1trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
Again, you can clearly see that our Father in heaven is concerned with our grief. He knows that this is part of life, and not only does He want to help us get through it, but he wants us (those in the faith) to help one another.
John 8:12 tells us that when we walk with Jesus – meaning have an intimate relationship with him – then we will never have to walk in darkness. This means that when we experience challenges in our life we do not have to “wallow” in them and stop at “I’m hurting.” He is saying that He will guide us through the process of the loss every step of the way until we can overcome it.
I’m here to tell you that you can’t ask for more than that. I’d love to have the Lord come and take every obstacle out of my life. I’d love to have everyone around me like me and love me. I’d love to wipe away the memories that are unfavorable in my past — but that’s just not realistic. The reality is — that things happen in our lives. The reality is — we still have to live this life.
What I want you to know today, however, is that you don’t have to live it miserably. You can have joy AND peace in the Father. I tell you the truth, you have NOTHING to lose by accepting Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, but everything to gain. If you already believe, then take the next step and become fully committed to your own healing process.
Only YOU can change your circumstances. The decision will always be in your hands. To accept Jesus Christ, pray the Prayer of Life with me.
