Depression is a very real and very tangible thing.

It’s a darkness and a deeply painful emotion, and dealing with it first requires admitting it’s legitimate. It doesn’t hold power over the light of the world(Jesus), but to dismiss it away quickly is a disservice to you and what you’re going through.

But you can fight this.

There may not be a quick fix for you, but I want to give you hope that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and practical tools for you to claw and fight your way out of it. In the end, that’s better than a magic wand quick fix anyway – because if you’ve fought and clawed your way to victory over the darkness, you can crawl back and help other people out later.

Too often, the church has responded to serious issues of the heart with cliche Christian-ese terms like the above. Sadly, especially when dealing with depression in young people. Maybe we’re lazy, or we genuinely believe those answers are an appropriate response to dealing with the pain of depression – but it’s high time we collectively stop sweeping this issue under the rug or fixing it with cheap bandaids.

In a nutshell, this book is a response to the mental health crisis, but not the end-all-be-all solution – it’s another perspective to the conversation, another layer in the mental health parfait the church is building right now.
The epidemic of anxiety and depression needs as many Biblical voices speaking to it as possible.This book is a pastoral approach to helping young people deal with anxiety and other mental struggles, created for Gen Z (ages 12-25) from the trenches of hands on youth ministry.