Recommended Playlist
“I Don’t Know How,” Jason Gray, © 2014 by Centricity Music
“The Words I Would Say,” Sidewalk Prophets, © 2009 by Fervent Records/Word
“Praise You in This Storm,” Casting Crowns, © 2005 by Reunion Records
“Don’t Stop Praising,” John Waller, © 2014 by Label Me Not
“Sovereign,” Chris Tomlin, © 2013 by sixstepsrecords/Sparrow Records
“Help Me Find It,” Sidewalk Prophets, © 2012 by Fervent Records/Word
“The More I Seek You,” Gateway Worship, © 2006 by Gateway Create Publishing
“Freedom Reigns,” Jesus Culture, © 2014 by Jesus Culture Music
“Made for Worship,” Planetshakers, © 2014 by Integrity/Columbia
“You Satisfy My Soul,” Laura Hackett, © 2012 by Forerunner Music
You Have a Gift to Give
Dear One,
I’m thankful for the chance to walk part of this journey with you. It has been a sacred time and space. Could you hear me cheering you on? I’ve prayed for you since before this book was in print that through its pages you would see how wide and deep God’s love is for you (Eph. 3:18).
It’s God’s heartfelt desire for us to be in health (3 John 1:2) and not entrapped by the enemy’s deceit! As you became aware and began to kick out the enemy’s lies, you opened up your heart to God’s truth. He has begun to breathe new life into you (Eph. 3:16). Oh, how he loves you! He loves you too much to leave you where you were or even where you are.
You and God make a strong team (Rom. 8:31). I’m so proud of you for persevering when you weren’t sure you could and the enemy didn’t want you to (James 1:12). Even more importantly, your heavenly Father is proud. You have run the race and fought the fight (2 Tim. 4:7–8). The enemy’s hold on you will never be the same again.
If you feel yourself begin to slip under again, grab hold of the tools you have learned. They are your weapons for warfare. I recently shared with friends that the enemy wanted me to shake in my boots, and I fell for it for a bit. Thankfully, not as long as I used to. God reminded me to put on the armor (Eph. 6:11) of his Word and fight like a girl . . . a daughter of the Most High God.
Think back to the day when you cracked open this book. Do you remember the depths of that valley? In your darkest days, what did you long for most? I longed to know I wasn’t alone, that someone understood, and that it would get better.
As God began bringing me out of that valley, he prodded me to begin offering the same comfort to others that he had offered to me (2 Cor. 1:3–4). He didn’t wait until I had crossed the finish line on that trek. When we are obedient to God’s call, that is where we find his comfort and strength. When I returned to my practice during my recovery, my attitude changed to one of serving my patients out of a richer compassion for their suffering and the love God wanted to show them through me. He had me sow seeds of encouragement and inspiration in patients who were not as far along as I was, even when I was still broken and wounded.
If you can look in the rearview mirror of your journey and think, “I’m glad those days are behind me,” even if you don’t feel completely home free, you are farther along in your journey to freedom than others who are experiencing their darkest days. God has given you a gift that you can now pass on to others. You have experience, insight, and empathy that could help someone else. Take hold of that gift and lavish it on those who cross your path. Watch how in doing so you not only help them but are also helped in your own healing journey.
You can do this, friend. You already are. Keep trusting God day by day. Then give the same comfort to others that you’ve received.
Because of him, hope prevails!
(Dr.) Michelle Bengtson
Appendix
Helping a Depressed Loved One
How to help a depressed loved one could be a separate book of its own. If you have never suffered from depression, it’s difficult to relate to the experience of one who is suffering. When we love someone with depression, we engage in a dance of learning how to love them through it while they learn how to cope with it.
In order to help you help a depressed loved one, I’ve created a resource for you called “How to Help a Depressed Loved One.” You can find it on my website, http://DrMichelleBengtson.com/how-to-help-a-depressed-loved-one-chapter. There you can also find related blog posts and other resources. I also have a weekly column, “Ask Dr. B,” in which I answer reader questions.
Acknowledgments
No project like this is completed in isolation. The support and prayers of many have helped bring it from a vision to a dream fulfilled.
To my husband, Scott, and both our boys, you have ridden the roller-coaster ride with me, prepared to sit in the front row, holding my hand, cheering me on, shouting for joy, and always ready to go on one more ride. I love you! How I pray I served as a good role model for listening to the Lord and following in wholehearted obedience to his call.
Just as iron sharpens iron, so too did my Glory Writers, Rockwall, and Wordsmiths writing group members sharpen the precision of my pen. Special thanks to John Hannah, Jennifer Odom White, Rebecca LeCompte, Leslie Porter Wilson, Henry McLaughlin, Teri Oates Jones, Mary Lee Morgan, Janie MacAskill, and Kim Bangs for their skillful refining as they spoke truth in love.
God impressed upon my heart the importance of having prayer warriors prayerfully support me throughout this project. To my warring friends and my Journey team, you and I know who you are, as does our heavenly Father. What you’ve done in secret your Father will reward. I could not be more humbled or grateful that just as Moses had Aaron and Hur, I had you to uphold me with your prayers as you stormed heaven’s gates across the miles.
God blessed me with a special circle of friends and encouragers who believed in me and this project from the very beginning: Kristin Paschke, Jo Ann Fore, Emily Curiak, Cindy Miller, Jessie Beebe, Shonda Savage, Laura Patke, and Sue Schwabauer Hoeksema. You faithfully breathed life back into a weary heart as your words of encouragement and faithful prayers reminded me why and for whom I was called to write.
To my readers, I wish we could sit down over coffee and just chat. So often you pour out your hearts to me in social media messages, comments on my blog, and emails. I appreciate both your honesty and your vulnerability in sharing from your broken places. You remind me why I speak and write, and you encourage me with your words to continue putting pen to paper. May anything I say that does not align with God fall to the ground, and may what you hear be a beacon of light wherever you find yourself.
To my agent, Chip MacGregor, I may never be on your basketball team, but I’m thrilled to be on your team of authors. Your timely words often calmed my frenzied mind. To my editor, Vicki Crumpton, I’m so grateful that sitting down next to each other the first night we met, before I had one word written, came full circle to working together to bring Hope Prevails to life. To the editing, marketing, and creative team at Revell, I consider myself blessed to have you leading this project into the hands and hearts of many.
To my heavenly Father, how can I ever thank you for resurrecting my heart from the valley, doing a new work in me, and giving me your joy? Thank you for believing in me, loving me with an unfailing love in spite of myself, and breathing two simple words into my heart in my moment of surrender: hope prevails. What I thought was just a message for me you have used to do more than I ever could have hoped or imagined. You are my only reason for being. Truly, it is because of you that hope prevails!
Notes
Chapter 1 This Thing Called Depression
1. M. Valenstein, S. Vijan, J. E. Zeber, K. Boehm, and A. Buttar, “The Cost-Utility of Screening for Depression in Primary Care,” Annals of Internal Medicine 134 (2001): 345–60.
2. Raymond W. Lam and Hiram Wok, Depression (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), as quoted by http://facts.randomhistory.com/random-facts-about-depression.html.
3. http://www.who.int/mental_health/management/dep
ression/flyer_depression_2012.pdf?ua=1.
4. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db07.pdf.
5. http://www.who.int/mental_health/management/depression/flyer_depression_2012.pdf?ua=1.
6. http://www.healthline.com/health/depression/statistics-infographic.
7. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db07.pdf, http://factfinder2.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk.
8. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs369/en/.
Chapter 3 The Underlying Causes of Depression
1. http://www.healthline.com/health/depression/genetic#Overview1.
Chapter 4 Recognize You Have an Enemy
1. John Lynch, Bruce McNicol, and Bill Thrall, The Cure: What if God Isn’t Who You Think He Is and Neither Are You (San Clemente, CA: CrossSection, 2011).
Chapter 5 Recover Your Joy
1. Reverend James Wood, Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources: Including Phrases, Mottoes, Maxims, Proverbs, Definitions, Aphorisms, and Sayings of the Wise Men, in Their Bearing on Life, Literature, Speculation, Science, Art, Religion, and Morals, Especially in the Modern Aspects of Them (New York: Warne, 1893), 143.
2. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/205318-the-more-you-are-grateful-for-what-you-have-the.
3. Kay Warren, Choose Joy: Because Happiness Isn’t Enough (Grand Rapids: Revell, 2012), 31.
4. Ibid., 32.
5. Quoted in Dennis Merritt Jones, The Art of Being: 101 Ways to Practice Purpose in Your Life (New York: Penguin, 2008), n.p.
Chapter 6 Reclaim Your Peace
1. Don Colbert, The Bible Cure for Depression and Anxiety (Lake Mary, FL: Siloam, 1999), 20.
2. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/02/03/you-can/.
3. http://www.entrepreneuronfire.com/podcast/tom-ziglar/.
Chapter 7 Reestablish Your Identity
1. Jenni Catron, Clout: Discover and Unleash Your God-Given Influence (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2014), 128.
Chapter 9 Remember Your Secure Destiny
1. http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H4581&t=NLT.
Chapter 10 Be Confident That Nothing Separates You from God’s Love
1. Tina Zahn and Wanda Dyson, Why I Jumped: My True Story of Postpartum Depression, Dramatic Rescue, and Return to Hope (Grand Rapids: Revell, 2006), 190.
2. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/254564-there-is-no-pit-so-deep-that-god-s-love-is.
Chapter 12 The Way to Hope
1. Marian Wright Edelman, http://www.quotehd.com/quotes/marian-wright-edelman-quote-so-often-we-dwell-on-the-things-that-seem.
2. Sheila Walsh, The Heartache No One Sees (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 52–53.
Dr. Michelle Bengtson is an author, speaker, and board-certified clinical neuropsychologist with more than twenty years of professional expertise in the diagnosis and treatment of medical and emotional disorders in children, adults, and seniors. She has maintained a private practice for fifteen years and lives in the Dallas/Fort Worth area with her husband, their two sons, and two dogs. Her passion is speaking and writing about the hope that prevails in the midst of life’s storms, especially with respect to medical and mental disorders, both for those who suffer and for those who care for them. She offers hope, affirms worth, and encourages faith to unlock joy and relief—even in the middle of the storm.
Dr. Bengtson earned her PhD at Nova Southeastern University and interned at the University of Oklahoma with “the Father of Neuropsychology,” Dr. Oscar Parsons, and completed postdoctoral training at both the Henry Ford Hospital and the University of Alabama Health Sciences Center. At her website, www.drmichellebengtson.com, she makes available practical tools, answers reader questions, and publishes her weekly musings. (facebook.com/DrMichelleBengtson/ and twitter.com/drmbengtson)
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