Sometimes in our lives we all experience “off days,” when we feel a bit down or even depressed. But for some people, suffering from depression can be a life changing illness, affecting not only themselves, but those around them as well.


A man who had been suffering from depression for some time and had seen many different doctors without any success, decided to go private and made an appointment with a very expensive psychiatrist. Upon meeting the eminent doctor, the man spent a long time explaining his fears, how low he felt and how this was affecting his everyday life. After sharing all his problems with the good doctor, he expected some profound words of wisdom that would make him feel a lot better. The psychiatrist, who had remained silent during the whole of the consultation, listening intently to the man’s problems, leaned back in his chair, looked silently at the man, clasped his hands together as if in prayer and then exclaimed, “Well, I’ve managed to diagnose your problem.” “It’s all caused by a feeling of low self-esteem and it’s very common among losers like yourself.” This medical man obviously graduated from the “Fawlty Towers” school of medicine.


When we look at ourselves, do we see losers, or do we see somebody who makes mistakes and sometimes falls short of what is expected of us. But the good news is that when we stumble and fall, God will always help us to get back up, so we can learn from the experience and move on in our lives. When we visit a car boot sale, or an antique’s fair, we are always on the lookout for a good bargain. To the untrained eye, much of the stuff on sale looks like rubbish that has been gathering dust in somebody’s attic for tears. But the experienced eye sees treasure in disguise, items that just need cleaning and polishing, for them to become valuable items once more. Well, God is also an expert with a trained eye for something valuable; he looks inside and finds hidden treasure in all of us.