I spoke at an American conference on ‘Depression’ and there was a positive response. Some men wrote to me about their problems in that area and I have become their friend. I am increasingly aware of how thoroughly the person who battles with depression has thought and prayed about it. How well he knows and describes his own condition.
When people come to me for counselling I normally begin by asking two questions: ‘What do you believe is your problem?’ and then, ‘What are you doing about it?’ I often get such comprehensive answers that I feel there is little I can add to what they are already understanding and doing. I do underline the importance of daily trusting and looking to the Lord Christ, of being always present at the means of grace and assured of God’s love for them before, during, and after bouts of depression.
I have had help to understand and sympathise with the depressive from Donald Macleod, Dr Lloyd-Jones, Jay Adams, Philip Swann, and such Puritan works as A Lifting Up for the Downcast by William Bridge (Banner of Truth). Edward Malcolm gave three excellent lectures on this book at the lunchtime meetings of the Protestant Book Shop, Fleet Street in recent times.
