Devotional: Dealing With Depression

Depression: A feeling characterized by an inability to concentrate, insomnia, loss of appetite, feelings of extreme sadness, guilt, helplessness and hopelessness, and thoughts of death.

Hope: To look forward to with confidence or expectation.

Bible Verses: Proverbs 42:5, Jeremiah 31: 16-17

Being a teenage girl can get pretty tough, even more so when we have parents and teachers telling us that it gets harder as we go. How could it EVER get worse than this?!? When your boyfriend dumps you, someone dies, you fail that Spanish test or you move, things can seem almost unbearable. Drs. call that feeling depression.

Sometimes when you are depressed it seems like no one else can or ever will feel as bad as you do. So let me start off with my story of depression. I was 15 when I moved from Georgia to Michigan. It was a new place and definitely different. I felt pretty lonely, but I always had my boyfriend back in Georgia to call. After a week my boyfriend decided that he didn't want to date anymore. I was devastated. Now I had nobody to talk to and I was heartbroken. So I became depressed.

After about a week of laying in bed all day, eating lots of chocolate and not taking a shower (ewwww!!) I decided to look at what God says about depression.

Psalm 42: 5
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my savior and my God.

Jeremiah 31: 16-17
The Lord says: " Restrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears, for your work will be rewarded. �So there is hope for your future" declares the Lord.

God tells us there is hope. We endure a lot as teenage girls that many adults cannot understand, but our Lord can. He doesn't leave you in your times of trouble. So when you feel down trust in him. Pray and show him your troubles, for only he can fix them. Bow at his feet and praise him because he deserves it. Then watch and see the great rewards he can do you in life.

Want to see who in the bible suffered from depression? Look up these verses to find out more:

Numbers 11: 10-15 (Moses), 1 Kings 18: 3-5 (Elijah), Psalms 34:18.
The book of Job also helps me.