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Overcoming depression with God’s love

We can rise into a more permanent joy through learning of our unity with divine Love. 

  • By Diahana Barnes

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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There was a time in my life when I experienced a deep depression. There were days when I didn’t want to get out of bed and completely lacked motivation. It was a dark sadness that seemed to be sucking me under. I was not my usual self.

Desperate to feel happy again, I decided to turn to God for help through prayer. Using a foundational truth of Christian Science – that all is created and governed by the divine source, God, Love – I began to pray deeply. With support from teachings in the Bible and its companion textbook called “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, I started to deepen my spiritual understanding of God and my unique relationship to our source.

What I was learning included the fact that God is all good and only good. And we, as God’s likeness, are entirely spiritual and also only good. The book of Genesis states, “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (1:31). And Science and Health says, “God is Love” (p. 2), echoing the first Epistle of John.

Thinking about all these ideas, I replaced any depressed thoughts with “God is Love.” I thought about what that meant for me, reasoning that since God is Love and created all things, then that creation is good and includes me. If I am one with my spiritual source, how would it be even slightly possible to experience anything unlike Love? Could the source of all goodness also create a feeling of sadness?

I knew the answer was no. Divine Love couldn’t create sadness or depression. And that meant it wasn’t possible for me to be bogged down with depressed thoughts. So I could find the freedom that was always truly mine by focusing on spiritual thoughts and qualities – those that come from God and are harmonious, loving, kind, gentle, and caring.

Depressed feelings are like sludge or mud that tries to pull us down, preventing us from seeing and experiencing the love of God. But the love of God is amazing, all-powerful. We can wash away the mud of depression and negative self-talk, which are false in the light of divine Love, by prayerfully deepening our understanding of the love of God. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (I Peter 5:6, 7, New International Version).

As I continued to pray with these ideas, my thinking became more spiritualized. Thoughts of depression and sadness were increasingly replaced by spiritual thoughts of love, goodness, and joy, and I felt more and more like myself until the sadness was completely gone. The depression has never returned.

We are created, expressed, and composed solely from Love, which means we are now and forever living in harmony. By understanding God’s love for us, we can find peace and joy, even in the midst of our struggles. And, if we’re feeling depressed, we can overcome this and experience more fully our inherent happiness.

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