Invite Jesus to Heal Your Negative MindsetНамуна

Lift the cloud of depression

When we look at the state of the world it is easy to become depressed. Wars. Hunger. Man’s inhumanity to man. Then we look at our own lives. Perhaps we are in a dead-end job. Perhaps we have relationship problems. Perhaps we look at our life and think how much better it could have been.

The world tells us:  “cheer up, go and do something amusing to take your mind off it.” But Jesus gives us the precise opposite of worldly advice: “Blessed are those who mourn.”

So is he telling us to be depressed? No. In the early Church, a crucial distinction was made between depression and Holy Sorrow.

Depression is numbness, despair, lack of direction.

Holy Sorrow is quite different. Yes, we feel the pain of the fallen world. But instead of despair, we have firm hope. We know that however bad things are with God’s help we will weather the storm. Instead of the confusion of depression, we see clearly what we are called to do: strive to put Jesus at the center of our lives each and every day.

Yes, we still feel the darkness. But “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.”

God allows us to feel pain, in order that we realize our separation from him. If we feel happy all the time, we forget God. So God gives us a sense that something is missing. The way of the world is to go and party or take drugs to blot out the pain. The way of Christ is to allow the pain to lead us to God.

If we take this route, something remarkable happens.  Our pain turns to joy:

“Blessed are those who mourn… for they shall be comforted.”