OT - religion as a cure for depression

Yayayaya Nik!!!!  Exactly!!! I have been taught and truly believe that When Jesus Christ died for our sins we were saved and nothing can take that away from us ever!!!!  It makes my blood boil when people talk about having to be saved by works. That is so old Testament for how it used to be before Christ died for us.

Nik, I couldn't agree with you more. BTW, I'm Lutheran also.

Kelly

I, like many of the posters on this site, have experienced a major depression. My faith is important to me but I don't pu**** on others. As a nurse, I find it unacceptable to send a chaplain when you asked for a patient advocate, since there was one available in the hospital. While I was going through my depression, my prayers were for healing. Nothing happened and ultimately made me feel worse. I have matured in my Faith since that time. I don't necessarily pray for healing, but I pray that the tools I need to make myself better are placed in my life. I also pray for forgiveness of others who may have had involvement in my situation. Healing cannot occur until you forgive others and yourself and relieving yourself of that burden. I believe in miracles and that God can heal but I believe that he also wants us to work with what he provides. Look to your spiritual guide whomever that may be.

I hope you are feeling better soon. If you would like to personal message me, feel free. I promise I won't preach. Just someone who has been through a lot...abuse, nasty divorce, loss of my children, medical malpractice that caused permanent injury and inability to work, and not least...sexual molestation by a trusted co-worker, etc. And, I have come out on the other side, in one piece, albeit a LOT smaller!

Now stepping off my soapbox.

julie

I agree in principle that religion itself will not cure any disease or ailment.  

That being said, I do believe in the power of the mind.  Sometimes if we have the belief that something will assist us, or that something will work, it does.  For some folks they have the deep seated belief that prayer will help them through hard times or through their day to day life.  They need that reassurance or feel that reassurance of the higher power guiding them or giving them strength and I do believe that it helps them, whether to see what is available to them or just to find a sense of calm about a situation.

I believe that the same can be accomplished just through the power of positive self talk or unconditional love from an animal or many other avenues.  Though this is not always easy to accomplish, neither is prayer, in the sense of waiting for the 'positive to happen"  but I don't discount the power of prayer, necessarily. 

I do think it is wrong for people to tell you how you need to do things in order to 'cure' yourself, that is pretty bogus in my opinion.  

Gypsy

It's never easy to understand why we must go through these things that hurt us so much.  I prayed it seems like every waking minute for my 22 year old brother who suffered with manic depression, bipolar, and severe PTSD. He read his bible, prayed for God to save him from his suffering, he believed that God would save him.  He was never cured, he suffered with his diseases from the age of 5 when some of it was diagnosed until he took his own life at 22.

God never promised us that prayer would cure us, or save us from the pain of living this life. But he does promise us if we believe in him and accept him as our savior that one day there will be no more tears, no more, pain, no more suffering and we will live in paradise with him forever.

My grandmother was one of the most God fearing women I have ever met. She praised the LORD all day long. But It did not save her from the life she had to live. She raised seven children in extreme poverty, they lived in a one room chicken shed that had been somewhat been transformed into a " house". She was married to an abusive alcoholic, and most days her and the seven kids did not have food to eat. My Dad dropped out of high school because he did not have shoes to wear to class.

Prayer did not save them in this life, but can you imagine the reward waiting for them when they got to heaven? The lived in hell on earth, suffered, and cried, were abused and forgotten but praised the LORD every day anyway. What a testament to faith and belief that even thought this life was unkind, there was freedom, salvation and peace waiting for them in heaven.

People may forget, hurt, abandon, and wrong you. But God never will.

Just sharing some of God's love, and promise with you. In no way and I trying to impugn anyone beliefs or religion. But as a Christian I just get excited about sharing God's promise of Love, salvation, peace, and life everlasting.

Sending honest, heartfelt best wishes to you

LIKE

I have encountered a similar reaction from several people... And, unfortunately, they are significant people in my life.  They believe that my depression and PTSD could be eliminated (or significantly lessened) if I would just "turn it over" to God and ask for healing and deliverance.  I am apparently suffering needlessly (and will continue to suffer****il I address the "true source" of the problem.  I love these people dearly, but it is hurtful to be told those things and to have them be so dismissive of the two traumas I have been through.  None of them has lost anyone to a drunk driver (let alone with some "complicating" cir****tances)  and none of them has been raped (let alone one with the "severity" of my attack).  

Yes, perhaps there is help to be found in faith, and I definitely believe in God and believe that (sometimes) He answers prayer, but the honest truth is that I am angry with a God that would subject me to the things that I have endured.  What hurts me the most, and the reason that I stopped attending church, is all the stories of people *****ached out to God in a difficult or dangerous situation and received some kind of help that they attribute to their prayers at the time.  Well, I prayed for Shep not to die and he died anyway, and I prayed for help during the lengthy attack but had to just endure whatever they wanted until they were ready to leave.  I prayed daily for months for healing for Khan's hips because people assured me that God does care about things that are so important to me.  We all know how that turned out.  Pfft.  They do not understand how hurtful it is to either explicitly or implicitly tell someone that their lack of faith, or failure to pray, or "spiritual condition" is the reason for their suffering.

The last time I was in the hospital, I got badly triggered by the SCD compression on my legs (it reminds me of being grabbed by both ankles) and I had to ask the nurse to ask the doctor for an order for something to calm me down.  They gave me something, but also called the chaplain's office to have someone come talk to me.  I talked to the woman who came up, but when she said she would be back again the next day, I politely declined.

sorry.. Didn't mean to hijack your thread... Just wanted you to know that you are not alone.

Lora

See that's just the thing. And this is just my belief system.

God doesn't SUBJECT us to things. Everything that happens in our life is a result of something that happens here on earth. It might be a choice, it might be a genetic code, it might be an environmental advantage or hazard. This is why I whole-heartedly believe in the power of science. 

I think where God comes in is how we COPE with these things, the lens through which we see the events in our lives. It all sounded like a crock to me until I was blessed to work with a population of refugees called the "Lost Boys of Sudan."

These Sudanese children were robbed of their parents at early ages. Left alone, they traveled thousands of miles by foot to seek refuge in a Kenyan refugee camp. No sooner did they get there than they were driven out by the Kenyan army - guns on one side, a river full of crocodiles on the other. Many had to do unthinkable things to survive. It took nearly 10 years for the U.S. government to agree to welcome any of them as refugees and when they did, the organization I worked for helped resettle them.

When I met a group of young men (there were thousands and thousands but we resettled about 2,000-ish) they gave thanks and praise to God. This boggled my mind at the time. I said to one young man, "But after all you've been through? You can still praise God?" The young man replied, "Where do you think I got the will to survive? Where do you think I got the belief that I could ever get out of this situation? Where else could it have come from but from God? I prayed for God to help me believe I could escape and that drove me forward into another horrible day and another until I reached the day when I was rescued."

I literally cried. I felt like such a horrible person of faith. But the more I thought about it the more I realized God didn't put those young men in that horrific place, MAN did. God walked with them OUT of that situation. 

So all that is to say I RESPECTFULLY disagree with you on two points:

1. I wholeheartedly believe God answers ALL prayers. Maybe not in the way you want them answered but I do believe God does. Much in the same way as a parent I give my kids what they need but it isn't always what they want.

2. As I said, I don't believe God subjects us to many things on earth. God is not a puppet master and we are not puppets. We make decisions and have very earthly and human situations and cir****tances that affect our lives. I believe faith helps us cope, helps us see the bigger picture. But it's not God's job to be a delivery man picking people up out of bad situations and putting them into good ones. If God was that, how could we take credit for any of our own progress?

Not to be argumentative, I just wanted to share my reaction to your thoughts. :)

I really appreciate your thoughts, Nik.  

I have actually had people tell me that they believe God placed these things in my life to draw me closer to Him.  Maybe I need to start hanging out with Lutherans instead... 

Lora

I thought you were going to curse me out!!! (Wouldn't be the first time I got cursed out on this subject!)

I think everyone has their own set of beliefs. Some I find worthy of thought. Some I just shake my head. The notion that God places people in situations sort of boggles my mind. Even in the bible when prophets got arrested and martyred God didn't do that. They did by (albeit by listening to God). The larger point to ME is that we choose to have faith and that how we view what happens as a result is largely defined by that faith. I can totally see how people could get disenchanted with God and religion because, frankly, sometimes life just sucks! I don't disagree with that notion at all. 

But I deeply believe that faith is more relational. It helps define how we relate to others and the world. The ONLY thing God, as expressed through the Christian Bible, really tells you to do at the bottom of it all is to serve God and love others. The rest is us interpreting stuff. And when you look at the world through that lens, things look...different. 

When folks tell me that maybe X, Y or Z wouldn't be true if I prayed I respond by telling them that I believe that X, Y and Z would still be true but by praying I feel like I have help getting through them. I believe God has enough confidence in His own works (read: me) to simply give me the tools to deal and let me do it. :)