There is no getting around the fact that losing a loved one is a painful experience and a legitimate reason for being sad. Sometimes, (especially when we have been hurting for what seems like a very long time), we, or someone who cares about us, may wonder if we are OK.

I am not a mental health expert and I do not presume to know the difference between clinical depression, unhealthy sorrowing, and plain old regular normal sadness. But the following article by David Cloud contains many good points on this subject. I hope you find it useful.

“Following are some biblical truths that we must understand about depression and emotional melancholy. The quotes from Charles Spurgeon are from Lectures to My Students unless otherwise noted. We quote him because he described his depression so plainly and gave some excellent instruction about it.” Read the entire article by David Cloud here.

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“I would, therefore, try to cheer any brother who is sad, for his sadness is not necessarily blameworthy. If his downcast spirit arises from unbelief, let him flog himself, and cry to God to be delivered from it; but if the soul is sighing–‘though he slay me, yet will I trust in him’–its being slain is not a fault. The way of sorrow is not the way of sin, but a hallowed road sanctified by the prayers of myriads of pilgrims now with God–pilgrims who, passing through the valley of Baca [lit: of weeping], made it a well, the rain also filled the pools: of such it is written: ‘They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God’”

-(Spurgeon Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, 1881, vol. 27).

Enlarged October 13, 2020 (first published March 23, 2017) David Cloud, Way of Life Literature, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061
866-295-4143, fbns@wayoflife.org Used with permission.

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