Heidi was diagnosed with clinical depression in 2003. Suddenly, she felt crushed under the deepest despair she had ever known. Devastated, she found that everything that functioned so well before, including her faith, simply didn’t in depression. The numbness and sadness tormented her mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually. She felt abandoned, judged and rejected by God and others. No longer able to feel the sweet fellowship of her Savior, she felt incapable of pleasing Him the way she thought a Christian should and was afraid that God might even be angry with her. Feeling lost in an endless sea of shame, judgment, confusion, anger, fear and grief, how could she live this way?
For 12 years, as she daily wet her pillow with tears of pain, loneliness, unacceptability and feeling unloved, God graciously demonstrated His mercy and compassion to her. He showed her how to reconcile her faith with her illness by rebuilding her from the inside out with a faith that worked, even in depression. Far from offering a book of formulas, Heidi’s honest, intimate storytelling will thoughtfully walk you through her journey from utter brokenness to spiritual peace and emotional relief. He showed her a way to bear up under the incapacitating effects of depression and soothed away her “not-good-enough” woeful laments.
If you suffer from depression, this book is specifically for you. Heidi lovingly, passionately and exhaustively addresses the worst of your symptoms and offers you a biblical way to reconcile your faith with your affliction.
Family, friends, pastors and churches also need this book. As much as many want to minister to the depressed, for the most part, they do not know how to ease their suffering. Let Heidi be their voice, telling you things they could never say themselves, helping you better understand the wounded hearts of those who need to feel loved.
This book is an eye-opening call to embrace grace for yourself! It is also a call to teach biblical, grace-saturated, gospel principles in order to more effectively minister to these whom Jesus calls us to show mercy. As a bonus, the book is packed with practical and spiritual suggestions to offer you and loved ones additional support.
Discovering God’s Grace in Depression is honest, intuitive, insightful and without clicheic answers. God’s amazing grace changes everything!
Interview with the Author
Our guest on today’s episode is Author Heidi Austel. Heidi shares her story of learning to live with her clinical depression, which lasted almost 12 years. She talks about how God showed her how to reconcile her life from her illness by rebuilding her with a faith that worked, even in depression.
That Piercing Question
When I finally recognized that God was in all my questions, all the angst, all the struggles to find my righteousness in myself, and discovered that it was He that had helped me find my way off of my perceived, righteousness hamster wheel, that is when I heard the “voice” of Jesus, lovingly and tenderly…
My Grace Is Sufficient for You!
“But deep in the recesses of my soul I found a grace that removed the heaviest of impossible expectations of perfection and self-control from my shoulders and my broken heart. And that, my friends—that grace made it just bearable.” Discovering God’s Grace in Depression
The Solid Rock of the Gospel
All those years as a believer, I never fully understood the full provision of the gospel. And because I didn’t understand it, I didn’t have the assurance in full faith to believe it.
Foundational Truth #16
God saw all my sins on the cross and forgave them all. When I sin, God says, “Saw it, knew it, felt it, paid for it and forgave it. It is finished!”
Foundational Truth #15
We can only trust what God Himself says about Himself: God is good! His Word says He is good, and from example after example in the Bible, God will determine what is good, based on His will and His glory.
Foundational Truth #14
We belong to God! He purchased us for His own possession! Application #1: Jesus bought us with His own blood. When we became a Christian, we were rescued out of the realm of Satan and transplanted into the people of God. Where once we were slaves to our sin, were cursed by its consequences and…
Foundational Truth #13
Until you firmly establish what you believe, you are like the wind, blown every which way by every change in the weather of life. You must decide in your heart, from what you read in Scripture, “Is God Who He says He is?” and “Can He do everything He says He can do?”
The Hope of Peace
“Ultimately, there comes a time when you need to decide, if the sweet smile of Jesus ALONE, is enough for you—even if others in your life, never get it, and even if you are never healed. I urge you to see the smile of Jesus as enough, and cling to Him alone. HE is your…
“Lord, I’m weak. Help me love you more.”
“In their weakness, I believe there is a depth of obedience in these saints (the depressed), that others will never see or know. These saints, who fight back the feelings of un-spirituality, (like enduring the scarlet letter, that was placed on them, by the outwardly obedient), who humbly reach out for Jesus to help them,…
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Discovering God's Grace in Depression 