Depression: A Stubborn Darkness

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Summation:

Edward Welch gives a phenomenal point of view on ways in which depression feels and ways to conquer the feelings. He starts out explaining how depression feels. He explains that depression involves a complete absence, including absence of feeling, absence of affect, absence of response, absence of interest. He gives quotes from people whom are depressed to show the reader they are not alone. Through the quotes given from people whom were depressed Welch mentions, “They are telling what was rather than what is.” This can be very inspirational for people.
There are many different questions that people raise to God when they are suffering. People that are depressed ask questions such as: How could God do this to me? Why is God causing me all of this pain? How could such a God care? Welch mentions there are two ways to ask these questions. The first way is to ask with a clenched fist and the other with an open heart. The person with a clenched fist does not listen to God or want to hear any answers from God. The person with an open heart is listening to God. This puts a great perspective on the way you look at your own suffering and how you ask God questions.
Welch writes about the importance of scripture. He mentions that we shouldn’t wait to have faith inserted into our heart. We should reach out to God to help us through our pain. The Lord helps people who reach out to him in scripture. This is the closest way to be near the Lord. We shouldn’t be put off by the word “fear” in “fear God.” The fear of God is knowing that God is greater than we are in all things. Even the bible mentions about suffering. Sometimes it feels like God is nowhere near us and we want to give up. When we want to ask our...

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...ook at the positives as well. This is showing that we are turning to our Lord to help us get through this pain and misery. I really enjoyed these last few chapters. I found them to be very uplifting and they gave hope to the reader.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. If I were the writer I would have added a couple of chapters at the end including ways to heal. Welch focused a lot on the depression, which was very beneficial, but I think he should have added more chapters about how to get through and to heal. People that are down and depressed want to know that there is hope. They want to know ways to get out of their depression. I think it would have been beneficial if he had added a little bit more of positive aspect towards the end of his book. Other than that, I thought Welch gave a great amount of detail on the topic of depression.

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