Are you counseling a mother who feels depressed, discouraged, and desperate to feel better again? Those are common sentiments to hear from a woman who feels imprisoned by the darkness she’s in. Maybe she yearns to be strong and stable, but she can’t shake the sense that she’s failing at life. She’s not “rising to the occasion” as she hoped. She’s frustrated with herself for not “suffering well.”Among all the other mental, physical, relational, financial, and circumstantial loads she carries, she also feels crushed by a burden to perform—as if faithfulness means faking her way through her feelings.
It’s hard for a mom to be a pillar of strength for her family when she feels like she’s falling apart.
As we seek to better understand a depressed mother’s experience (and the hurt and confusion that go with it), we may find that she doesn’t feel free to feel weak—to feel any other way but “fine.” So how can we counsel the weary woman who thinks she should always feel strong and steady? How might we begin to lift the burden of performance off her back? To be sure, we could escort her to many places in the Scriptures. But connecting her with the realism and redemption of biblical lament is a conversation that ought not be overlooked.
It’s hard for a mom to be a pillar of strength for her family when she feels like she’s falling apart.
As we seek to better understand a depressed mother’s experience (and the hurt and confusion that go with it), we may find that she doesn’t feel free to feel weak—to feel any other way but “fine.” So how can we counsel the weary woman who thinks she should always feel strong and steady? How might we begin to lift the burden of performance off her back? To be sure, we could escort her to many places in the Scriptures. But connecting her with the realism and redemption of biblical lament is a conversation that ought not be overlooked.
