"My spirits were sunken so low that I could weep by the hour like a child, and yet I knew not what I wept for."                                                                                                                             Charles Spurgeon.

If the statisitics are right 10% of people in Ireland at any given time are struggling with some form of depression.  If the statistics are right 2 out of 3 of us, at some point in our lives, will face this battle.

It's complex - its causes and its cures can be baffling.  It can come because of grief, a physical disease, a spiritual disease, a hereditary problem or a combination of these.  If you are drowning in your tears - talk to someone.  Someone you trust, a Friend, a Pastor, a Doctor, try and find out the cause.

Maybe it can be treated, maybe it can't.  But while we have it - how do we live with it?

In God's wisdom sometimes he cures us, sometimes he lifts us out of our hurt and pain and sometimes in his wisdom he carries us through some deep & dark waters.

In interactions I have had with people here are 4 marks that often describe the feeling of depression:

1. "I feel numb but my head hurts - my mind is all in a fog."
2. "I feel empty on the inside, like a hollow case - yet by body is full of screams"
3. "I have nothing to look forward, no satisfaction, nothing to get me out of bed,  yet I'm exhausted, I cannot find rest."
4. "I feel like I am drowning, slowly sinking ... until no-one can reach me."

Trite answers gets no-one through these tough times, but there is one assurance that Christians can hold onto with utter certainty.  No matter how we feel, or how far we sink... there is no chance that we will sink so deep that God can never reach us.

Do you know why we can be so sure of that? Why we can be so sure that we will never fall so deep to be out of God's reach?  - Because we never left his grip.

Sometimes God carries us on the crest of the wave, sometimes he carries us through the depths of the sea - but he always carries us.