The results of a broken world.

Its a story. Its the story of millions world wide, its the story of one person. Each story important, each a heavy yoke to carry alone. Its depression. I had depression, I have depression. I dont say this lightly or for attention, but for transparency’s sake. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t my fault. While recently comming to this realization, my heart began to shake at its inner core with the need to tell my story. To use love as THE tool, to make it tangible, to make availible to the hopeless. 

To expose my brokeness. 

Like crystal our brokeness is beautiful but made of something deadly. We choose to drink water from it, to create beautiful sounds or to ignore it all together out of fear of the deadly unknown. Drinking the water is the necessity for life, for repair. We will surely die without it.

depression.

Its a story of people not wanting to get up in the morning, its a story of insomnia and oversleeping, its the story of chronic lonliness. Its more than a bad day, or a mood…its a disposition, the physical feeling of heartache, and body ache, that takes people away to dark places, that lies to them, that harms them. 

Its a story of a physical presence of someone, and the abscence of their sparkling personalities. Its helpless loved ones, watching souls withdraw. Its epic disruptions in relationships, anger, and substitution for the pain. Its children, its parents, sisters, teachers, best friends, brothers, girlfriends, enemies, waiters, crushes, and gas station attendents. Sometimes its unexplainable, sometimes theres a trigger…but it always developes into a wound that only Jesus can heal. As Christ’s ambassadors we’re meant to delve into these rough situations, becoming vunerable revealing our brokeness, offering hope through our testimonies. 

God is love, and love is what is needed. 

 

Stats stolen from http://www.twolha.com

-121 million people worldwide suffer from depression. (The World Health Organization)

 -18 million of these cases are happening in the United States. (The National Institute of Mental Health)

 -Between 20% and 50% of children and teens struggling with depression have a family history of this struggle and the offspring of depressed parents are more than three times as likely to suffer from depression. (U.S. Surgeon General’s Survey, 1999)

 -Depression often co-occurs with anxiety disorders and substance abuse, with 30 percent of teens with depression also developing a substance abuse problem.   (NIMH)

 -2/3 of those suffering from depression never seek treatment.

Untreated depression is the number one cause of suicide, and suicide is the third leading cause of death among teenagers. (NIMH)        

 

 We were meant to love feircely, we were meant to attack these issues. This is a spiritual pit that is HUGE, but not insurmountable.

The victory is already ours.

   The enemy has been defeated.

  Death wont hold us down.

If you think you know anyone who may be affected talk to them about it rather then just misunderstanding them. Empathy is a terrific tool. Its bigger than we can handle though.

                      I will not be silent anymore. 

A peace and love that surpasses all understanding is God’s gift to freely give to 121 million world wide who desperately need it. Share it, live it.

 

love,

Meghan