Q & A Archives
These are Questions & Answers posed by ordinary people looking for guidance. Dr. Judy Baus has thoughtfully answered each person and feels that these responses just might help someone else in their time of need.
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10/06/2008 09:04 PM
Dear Judy,
What do you do when you need help, but everyone you go to keeps passing you off onto someone else? I had hit bottom and my faith was on low. I asked God to guide me through depression and got an appointment with a Christian in the counseling center. It was someone I knew and trusted. But then that person suggested I see a different counselor. Should I take that as God’s guidance? I don’t know where to turn.
Dear Depressed,
A wise man once told me that people are just people, and people will always be people! That was my husband, Vic! These words have helped me time and again. Before I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord, I was in a deep depression and I felt no one could help me, or so it seemed to me. No amount of conversation could bring me out of the dark hole I was in. The doctor’s answer was pills. Soon I was on pills to get up, pills to stay up, and pills to bring me down so I could sleep. Others insisted a drink or two of liquor would take care of my problems, but wow was that an untruth. I became addicted to both!
As Christians, it doesn’t mean that we don’t have the opportunity to get depressed, but it does mean that we have the opportunity to trust God and His Word. God never said that people are to lead us out of or into something, or that they would never forsake us. The only one who will NEVER forsake us is God and He says that in Hebrews 13:5 “…..I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
You seem to put a lot of faith in people and what they say to you and how they say it. Sometimes people move away from a person who is depressed because they can’t deal with it in their own life, or they don’t know what to tell you, or they feel inadequate to give you counsel. I do believe a Christian counselor is the best one to talk with because he or she relates to our belief in Jesus Christ and know His words have the answers, but even then we have to realize that they too are fallible! God never said to put our trust in people. He said in Proverbs 3:5, 6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your path.”
God uses doctors to help us and many times a doctor will put a person on pills for depression but this should only be for a short time so that it doesn’t become a lifestyle. During this time, it’s very important to read the Bible and mediate on what God says about you and what He has for you. The Bible also tells us what the enemy’s plans for us and what he says about us and they are not good! I have a choice to believe what God says or what the enemy says.
Depression is not of God but it’s from the dark side and that is why depression is like a dark hole. Once we have been in that dark hole for a length of time, we build up a stronghold in our mind concerning depression. Jesus Christ is the light and wants us to walk in that light. The key to having a life without depression is found in the words of the Apostle Paul, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal (fleshly) but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing
that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:4, 5).
God’s Word is truth and it brings hope and deliverance from depression. I learned this myself. So take hold of the Word. By believing or putting your confidence in God’s words, you will bring that stronghold in your mind into submission to what the Word says concerning who you are in Him! Take your trust off people and place it in the Lord by knowing you are His child with a future and a hope!