Specific Strategies to Try Pt. 2

11. Since the label “depression” cannot capture the complexity of your experience, what other words (especially words that can be keyed to Scripture) more concretely capture what is going on in your heart?

12. Get help. Ask a few people to pray for you and speak the truth to you. When you ask for prayer, ask for more than just the alleviation of depression. Use this as an opportunity to pray big prayers. Find some of the prayers in Scripture and pray them. For example, pray that you would know the love of Christ (Eph. 3); pray that you would look more like Jesus (Rom. 8:29); pray that you would love others; pray that you would discern what it means today to bring glory to God.

13. You can’t always change the way you feel, but you can change the way you think. What thoughts have to change? Start saying an emphatic “STOP” whenever you notice them.

14. Ask, What am I getting out of my depression? You might not have any answers, and the question might not be relevant, but it is a reminder that we are often doing more than we realize.

15. Write up a depression flow-chart. Begin with a recent event that sent you into a tailspin. Be as specific as possible about the steps you followed to restore your equilibrium.

16. What options do you have? You may feel like you are stuck on one long, hopeless path, but that isn’t true. You are making decisions every day. Right now you are at another crossroads.

17. Search for a depressed person. Speak a word of encouragement.

18. Never go to Scripture without finding Jesus in it.

19. Be careful about analyzing on your own. Run your analysis by someone else.

20. Walk as briskly as you can with another person.

Now, with the pump primed, what would you add to these lists?

(Ed Welch, Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness, p. 211, 212).