Mother-son morning convo

   As I woke up today, wondering my mind about stocks I asked my mother, "Give me $1000, and every year I can give you $10". She laughed and decided just to pursue other investments in our country. She then exclaimed, "How about we (her and my father) will just go back (our country) and you pay for my fare every 3 months (so that she can still visit us)". Thinking that she could outsmart me I replied saying, "Yea sure! How about every 3 years instead?"



  She repeated the same lines that I kept hearing over and over again that visiting our country alluding specifically to our friends and relatives is a stress reliever, to fight depression, a therapy for her. Hearing those words, now I would agree with her that shopping is the better therapy instead of having a vacation at home.It's a matter of $100 vs $1500. I tried reminding her of the Victory weekend*. She replied that "our relationship with the Lord is day by day". I guess I took her "depression" idea from a different angle.


  I attempted to give her a more positive outlook on life through the bible. I asked her, "Did Apostle Paul mention "depression" at least once?". Her response was examples of other instances and passages of the bible that address depression. With full confidence, I strongly emphasized, "If there's one person that should've been the most depressed in the bible it would be Paul!". The reason why I just want to maneuver our discourse to Paul because he had been in jail so many times and received a lot of various trials in his life. I planned to even quote some of Paul's "Greatest Hits Album of All-Time" (I mean most-quoted Bible verses). To broaden my perspective she corrected me, "No! For me it's Job". Woah! How can I believe I missed Job! Yes, I think she has a point (Next time I would be careful to approach the bible systematically 😆😅). Both of us didn't have to go through the story again then she also commented that "Job had taken everything from him... And he had no choice... Comparing to Paul he could just keep his mouth shut and didn't have to go through all of that".


    Choice. What if we don't have many choices. We are not in control. How can we go through our life? even our lives together? How can we embrace the inevitable?

    

    I don't know how to end this entry, journal, or reflection, whatever you'd like to call it. I intended to put something about depression at the end, how to deal with it, or maybe how to fight it according to the bible. Rather I could just listen and hear your thoughts about it. I think it would be helpful for us to have an open discussion with this one answering these 2 questions:


1. For you, who if there is, who might or should've been the most depressed person in the bible? Or who might be the most vulnerable to depression given the circumstance or situations in the bible? (While writing this I just thought of Jephthah)

2. Give 1 or 2 verses that come first to your mind that to battle depression? You could give a short explanation if you like.


Feel free to share your thoughts on the comment below.



*Can be compared to "Freedom Sessions" in Canada

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