Mental illness is another one of the things that we are beginning to talk about and acknowledge more openly in the last decade. I believe this is, for the most part, a good thing in that it brings pubic awareness to people who otherwise would have to suffer alone. The down side of this is that it makes it seem like mental illness is becoming more common, when it is possible that it was always this common, we just didn’t recognize it as such, or chose to live in denial of it. In our proverb for the day, Solomon observes that we tend to not be very transparent in regard to our feelings, often suppressing both bitterness and joy, choosing instead to live in dark world of depression, or anxiety, dreading bridges we may never have to cross.
10 Each heart knows its own bitterness,
and no one else can fully share its joy.
11 The house of the wicked will be destroyed,
but the tent of the godly will flourish.Proverbs 14:10–11 (NLT)…
I am no expert in this field of study, I’m not a psychiatrist, or psychologist, I have little experience with depression myself. I have on occasion spoken with people who do suffer from this, in an attempt to better understand it. This proverb is not in any way a cure for depression or anxiety, however, it may be somewhat helpful in giving a little better understanding of what goes on in the mind of the affected person. Each of us have our own set of issues with which we have our lifetime to deal with.
Some of us are able to negotiate our way through them, other become overwhelmed and need some outside help to find there way. Either way in the end we tend to be wiser people as a result of having had the experience provided we survive.
