Depression is not a sin

This fact is something I've wanted to shout from the rooftops for years. Let me first get a few facts straight.

1. Depression is not a sin.

2. You can't shake yourself, read your Bible out of, pray yourself out of, or make the right choices out of depression. Won't work. Ever.

3. A person who struggles with depression is not an inferior Christian.

4. It is NOT their fault. Period. End of discussion. 

That being said, I recognize that the person who struggles with depression often struggles with a sinful response to that depression. There lies the problem. How does one separate feelings from sin?

That process was the toughest one to go through. I'm thankful for a godly Christian counselor who never once blamed my depression on me, nor did he ever discount it in any way. However, what he did do was methodically question the choices I was making while depressed. He never once indicated these choices would change my depression; in fact, he often reminded me that the right choices would probably have no bearing on my feelings at all. However, in my depression, I was still responsible for my choices. Ay yai yai. That process was painful and difficult.

Thankfully my reformed counselor treated depression very differently from the treatment of depression in fundamentalism. I hope not to offend any fundamental Baptist readers that may come along or the friends I have that are still there. However, being depressed most of my life and being a fundamental Baptist until three years ago, I stand by my opinion. As a whole, fundamentalism treats depression as a sin, and fundamentalism often implies or even states that if a person just makes the right choices, the depression will magically go away. They also treat depression as "feeling down" or a "spiritual depression." I even had a well meaning sister in Christ say to me once, "I was once feeling depressed but quickly I realized I needed to surrender myself to God and really bathe myself in His Word and then I was okay."

Oh sister and brother in Christ, NEVER say these words to a depressed Christian. The effects can be devastating. If a depressed person believes this, and that person starts reading the Bible regularly and growing, and the depression doesn't change. . . you get the picture.

I begin to realize the horrible effects this can have on a depressed person in the church. A few years ago, I was ready to walk away from it all. From God, from the church, from everything. Thankfully, God was bigger than my picture of Him, and He wasn't about to let go of me. I hope and pray that God will now lead me along a path of helping others who are depressed. Not making them feel inferior, or like a sub-par Christian, but helping them learn that they can make the right choices along the way. And by the way, I'm still learning that every day.