On the Upswing

Last week and I had too much free time to feel sorry for myself and "enjoy" being depressed.  This week things are getting busy and it is great!  So far I've cleaned up great messes in my house, turned a trash bag + some of apples into apple butter, gone to a Bible study, deep fried wontons which took a while to assemble, grocery shopped, and now I have to go do more cleaning, make some pot pie and prepare to teach tomorrow.
At the Bible study I went to this week, a young mother was talking about how she dealt with the overwhelming anxiety she had after she lost her young child.  Even though I rarely feel anxiety, so much of what she said applied to how I had been feeling last week.  Isn't amazing how God sends you the encouragement you need from His Word just when you need it?
Here are some thoughts some hers and some mine about dealing with anxiety and "depression."

• One of the best tools we have for defeating these dark feelings is praise.  One thing the woman said, which I loved, was that the deeper we breath in God's grace, the more praise we will be forced to exhale or that the better we understand God's radical grace the more extravagant our worship will be.  She quoted Job 35:10 which talked about God giving us a song in the night and recommended that when we feel overwhelmed, we should worship God by physically singing a praise song or quoting Scripture.  
• In order to be able to encourage ourselves with Scripture, we really have to have it memorized and be surrounded by it.  My new to-do list includes memorizing Romans 8 and listening to sermons more throughout the week to help immerse myself in God's word.  This week I've been listening to some Piper sermons on Romans 8 and I love it!  Piper is amazing because he can spend to 40 minute sermons just talking about 1 verse.  Which reminds me, how can I possibly feel sorry for myself when I now have NO condemnation in Christ Jesus?  What more could I need?  If you haven't read chapter 8 in a while, go take 5 minutes and soak it in.  
• Boredom gives me too much time for me to feel sorry for myself so I'm going to attempt to stay busy. Some weeks this is easy, but other times it is harder.  This week I'm going to write an encouraging hand-written letter to someone who might need some encouragement.  I'm also going to challenge you to do the same! If you do it, please comment to let me know so that I can be encouraged that you encouraged someone else.  ; ) 

Thanks for you kind words and thoughts.  We will keep plugging on and forward.