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“I’ve got to hope that somehow all this misery
will be redeemed,
but hope’s hard sometimes particularly when
you’re in pain.
It’s hard when you’re enduring Good Friday
to imagine the dawning of Easter day.”
Susan Howatch
“A Question
of Integrity”
Warner Books
(1998)
ISBN 0 7515
2280 5
When
I was very ill with depression and anxiety people with
undoubtedly good intentions sometimes told me that when I was
better I’d be able to help others who were also depressed.
If you
yourself have personal experience of depression you will know
that such a statement actually provides no consolation or
encouragement at all. When you’re down in that dark and ugly
place you really don’t care about anything except how to get out
of it and into some sort of normality.
Others can
take this statement a step further so that it becomes something
that sounds like “God is allowing this to happen to you so
that you will be able to help others”.
I certainly
don’t believe the latter statement. I don’t believe that the
God of love revealed in scriptures and in Jesus, the Incarnate
Word, willingly causes us any suffering.
What I do
believe is that God can and does redeem the most dreadful of
circumstances and experiences so that out of suffering can come
amazing signs of hope, life, courage and love.
In writing “Angels
in the Wilderness” I have sought to share something of my
struggle with faith. For me, this is how my experience is
redeemed by the God who makes a way in the wilderness and rivers
in the desert.
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From the back cover
of Angels in the Wilderness:
St.
Mark's Gospel says that when Jesus had spent forty days
in the wilderness, the angels came and ministered to
him. This book hopes to be an angel, ministering to
people who are wandering in the wilderness of
depression.
Katharine Smith has
suffered from depression herself, so she writes with
honesty about the wilderness experience. And that means
that the hope she offers to those who are still trapped
is born out of reality, not illusion. She holds out the
promise that the ministering angels are there, however
little their presence or comfort can be felt in the
middle of desperate depression.
Through a profound and insightful engagement with the
Jesus of Mark's Gospel, the book shows that God longs to
reach out in compassionate sympathy and healing love to
those in need. God does not despise or condemn but waits
and works patiently to bring us out of our wilderness
and minister to us.
Those who suffer from
depression will recognise someone who has walked in the
wilderness and survived. There is also wise counsel for
those who live with or love someone ill with depression.
This is a book that casts out fear, because it is brave
and loving. It is a ministering angel in printed form.
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Read
reviews of
Angels in the Wilderness
Listen to Katharine's interview on BBC Somerset 13/04/2010
(Click on the headphones logo)
On the
following page there are some extracts from the book to give a flavour of the content.
The book is published by
Redemptorist Publications.
Extracts from "ANGELS IN THE
WILDERNESS"
BACK TO "FINDING
GOD IN DEPRESSION"
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