to reassure depressed hope

Spiritual resource to share: hope

Spring has sprung in the northern hemisphere and with it, nature is sweeping away the cold and muddy, and is persistently bursting forth with new growth.

Sweeping away what is muddy to reveal new growth reminded me of healing depression. I came across this quote from Mary Baker Eddy's primary work, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

Instruct the sick that they are not helpless victims, for if they will only accept Truth, they can resist disease and ward it off, as positively as they can the temptation to sin. ....... The fact that Truth overcomes both disease and sin reassures depressed hope. It imparts a healthy stimulus to the body, and regulates the system.

I found it helpful to break down this whole paragraph - to get a deeper look at its healing influence. Walk with me on this one:

Instruct the sick that they are not helpless victims,

This has to do with rightly identifying ourselves - we are not thrown to the winds of chance, bad luck or bad circumstances - but have the ability to think, to choose, and to love. The qualities of intelligence, discernment and authority are spiritual, not subject to limitation.

...for if they will only accept Truth...

Openness or receptivity to Truth keeps the channels of thought open to receive new ideas. Accepting Truth, we give our consent to Truth and open our thought to the power of Truth and Love in our lives.

...they can resist disease and ward it off, as positively as they can the temptation to sin.

Truth is not a naive brush over illness, maliciousness or lack. Truth is active and transforming. Just as light dissolves darkness, Truth annihilates anything untrue. Love annihilates anything unloving. Life destroys death or anything that limits or restricts good. Physical disease can be resisted in the same way that the temptation to sin can be resisted.

The fact that Truth overcomes both disease and sin reassures depressed hope.

The active expression of Truth (of purity, honesty, principle, Love) is the antidote to depression. Understanding the omnipotent nature of Truth lifts off the burden of self-doubt and of thinking that evil has power. Hope is released.

It imparts a healthy stimulus to the body, and regulates the system.

Seeing that Truth is always operating on our behalf, frees up our thought which leads to expressions of freedom, flow and growth. Circulation of new fresh ideas becomes the norm. Balance is achieved. Systems in the physical body and systems of organization are regulated in accordance with efficiency, harmony and progress.

Check out these links to read about how people have overcome depression in their lives:

Drug-free answers to treating depression
What got me going again
Freed from depression
I shone a spiritual light on Seasonal Affective Disorder
A healing of manic depression

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

Just Trust

Spiritual resource to share: yielding to God

“Nothing I do has any impact.” Have you ever said that to yourself? The answer to that may be “You’re right!” Christ Jesus’ remark “I can of mine own self do nothing” has helped me overcome discouragement, disappointment and situational depression a number of times. The simple understanding that God (all-powerful and all-knowing) is the One who is governing shifts thought away from the small ego or self and moves it over to God.

Some years ago, I was increasingly getting tired and it was getting harder and harder to be inspired about the day and even get out of bed and go to work. Soon, I simply felt depressed and depleted. It was subtle at first, but I later realized that I had accepted that there was some opposing force to the work I was doing. Believing this to be possible had a demoralizing effect. MBEddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures “By conceding power to discord, a large majority of doctors depress mental energy…” I’m not a doctor nor was I going to a doctor at that time, but I could so relate to that sentence. It continues… “Knowledge that we can accomplish the good hoped for stimulates the system to act in the direction Mind points out.”

As I continued praying, I didn’t dive into reasons why I continually felt this way, or try to change those things or people I thought were opposing me. I dropped the focus on me and attempts to sleep or find other ways to flee from this gnawing negative feeling.

I focused instead on the nature of God as Truth and Love. Truth is the quality most associated with purity, steadfastness and stability. I thought about (and still do think of ) the nature of God as Love: it is inclusive, intimate and works unconsciously in the human heart.

Love and Truth are forces always operating, always transforming, and always expanding from a permanent basis. Much like light entering a darkened room.

I could trust the light of Truth and Love. I gained a better understanding of MBEddy’s statement that “(evil) is neither person, place or thing.” In the omnipotence of Love I saw that there were no lesser minds spewing out opinions that could ever obscure Truth. I realized I could not be targeted nor could I target any one thing or person.

It was my trust in Truth that helped me see that good works are possible. In another idea from Science and Health, MBEddy writes, “Truth overcomes both disease and sin and reassures depressed hope…It imparts a healthy stimulus to the body and regulates the system.” And in the organization I was working in, there soon grew a healthy stimulus to the organizational body. And I could go forward trusting Truth and Love to regulate the system.

So my answer to the feeling of futility and depressed thought? Just trust. Amazingly simple. Profoundly effective.

Picture by Sonja Maneri "Omnipresent" copyright 2004



To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.