Forewarning our kids about the realities of sorrow can forearm them to face it by faith. Christ said these seasons would come, and that we would find comfort, hope, and peace by looking to him when they do.
In today's episode, Christine M. Chappell joins Bethany for a conversation about how to give our kids true, biblical comfort when they’re hurting. This isn’t about empty platitudes or band-aid fixes, but rather acknowledging our children’s suffering while pointing them to the trustworthy and eternal promises of God. Christine and Bethany discuss how we should respond to our children in these situations, and take a look at the comfort God’s word offers.
In this episode of the Hope + Help Podcast, we’re premiering Hope + Help LIVE, a periodic segment of the podcast that features unscripted, live recorded interviews previously broadcasted on Facebook. This conversation features authors Jessica Thompson and Joel Fitzpatrick. During the live chat, we talk about the various ways our respective households are navigating the coronavirus pandemic, and offer encouragements to parents of depressed and anxious teens who may be struggling to care for their child in today’s quarantine contexts.
If you’ve found yourself caring for a depressed teen, maybe you’re wondering what God is up to in the midst of this heartbreaking time. While we cannot know all the ways that God intends to work in your teen’s despondency, the Scriptures do tell us what his goal is for you in this season.
On this episiode of Equipping You in Grace, host Dave Jenkins and Christine Chappell discuss how to walk with a teenager through depression, how the local church can help teenagers who are depressed and minister to them, along with her mini-book, "Help! My Teen is Depressed" (Shepherd Press, 2020).
This new booklet is a practical guide for parents walking through depression with their children. It offers biblically-sound, wise advice for parents as they weather through a supremely difficult time.
This interview originally aired live on March 12, 2020. Special thanks to host and Pastor Kevin Boling for inviting me to have a conversation about my new mini-book, "Help! My Teen is Depressed."
While Revelation 21 specifically lists death, mourning, crying, and pain as fundamental grievances believers will face, there's a shocking lack of corporate preparation to meet with such sorrows. Removing the stigma of deeply painful sadness requires the local church’s unhurried commitment to making room for it on Sunday mornings and a desire to equip leaders in one-another care.
As parents, we can’t take the place of medical professionals, licensed counselors, or pastoral care. A child’s depressed feelings can indicate ordinary sadness or a more serious disorder, and we’ll typically need outside help to identify the nature of our child’s struggle. But parents do have something valuable to offer: love and encouragement.
It’s imperative to remember that there are specific wellsprings of consolation and healing that God has set in place for his people which cannot be received apart from discipleship. If we continue to promote the segregation of care for despondent persons in the church, we restrict access to the promised sustaining and transforming graces God specifically supplies in the midst of their pain and suffering (1 Peter 5:10, Psalm 119:50).
Depression is not something new. God’s people have grappled by faith with deep pain and darkness for generations. Yet, we have become so used to seeing despondency through world-colored glasses, that we are tempted to neglect one of the most helpful resources available to sufferers: Spirit-led, one-another care. Discipleship is not some optional flabby excess in the realm of treatment options. For the follower of Jesus, discipleship is a critical lifeline of sustaining grace meant to facilitate conformity to Christ for the glory of God and the perseverance of his saints.
Mental health issues can be complex in nature, and parents can run the risk of overlooking particular facets of treatment because of prejudices about underlying causes. But when we look to the Scriptures and see God serving the sorrowing with individualized, calculated affection, we see a multifaceted approach to managing mental anguish — one that acknowledges the dichotomy of man (as body and soul) and the necessity of the body of Christ.