My Take: Sadness And Depression Among Christians

I apologize in advance for the heavy subject matter, and for my rambling.

As a Christian, I am supposed to be "joyful." In practice this means that I'm not supposed to look sad or depressed, especially in front of anyone who's not a Christian. Yet rarely do I see any group of people more cynical and willing to look for the bad in a situation than Christians. 

Kind of counter-productive, isn't it?

On top of that, many Christians still claim that if you're unhappy or depressed, even for a little while, it means that you're sinning and "need to get right with God"

I wonder sometimes if they aren't right. I've hit every point along this spectrum, from being so happy and in love with my faith (My faith, not God. More on that in a later post.) that I couldn't imagine being sad ever again, to barely being able to get out of bed and feeling like God had forgotten me.

The hardest times were when I did think depression was a sin, but I was depressed anyway which made me feel even worse. Now I think we've had it wrong the whole time.

The Bible mentions "joy" many times, but I don't think all of them mean "happiness." In many cases, I think "contentment" is a more accurate term.

The problem I see is that we don't recognize different levels of emotion. What I mean is we see the moment-to-moment feelings as being more important than the slower, deeper stuff. "Emotion vs Mood," I guess. We say that joy is an emotion, when it's actually deeper than that. It's a mindset that influences everything else we feel and do. Happiness is to sadness as joy is to depression.

Another thing we get wrong is telling someone to be joyful, then not giving any support other than that. Christians are notoriously bad at helping others to work through their issues, and really prefer not to see them at all.

"Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy." John 16:20

I guess that's what I'm trying to say. We will have times of sadness and depression, but it will not last. We are called to joy, but we are also called to help others in their time of need, emotional or physical.

Don't judge others for being sad. Remember when you've been sad, and have a little empathy.

Above all, remember that God loves you even if you aren't happy in every waking moment.

God bless.