Second class citizen

As a depressed person I sometimes (no - often!) feel like a second class citizen.

When it seems that everyone else is bright and breezy and up-beat and I feel like a wet piece of lettuce it makes me think I'm definitely sitting in the second class compartment.

I felt that particularly this morning as I listened to Mike Bickle talking on The God TV Daily Devotional. He said that if you don't keep a regular time with the Lord and you don't read the Word then depression comes along because you are vulnerable to attack from the enemy.

Well, that definitely made me feel second class. As I looked back to when I first finished my job and realised I was suffering from depression that was so bad I couldn't work, I was in a good place spiritually. God was speaking to me constantly and I was listening. But I still had acute depression. And I still do.

Does that make me a second class Christian? Does the fact that I look at things negatively, have a poor self-image and find it difficult to cope with life mean that I am a spiritual destitute?

Or does having the Holy Spirit in my life as my Comforter mean that God through His Son gives me the inner strength to keep going in spite of this great difficulty? I dare to say it is the latter.