Sunday, November 09, 2008

The email that unstuck me

I don't know if all this is going to sound silly to you, but my final escape from my last depression came so clearly and so dramatically after I sent an email to over forty Living Room members last Sunday morning. Such power there was in that!

I want to share this email with you. But you must read it as though you are a Living Room member, perhaps suffering from some depression yourself.


Dear Living Room friends,
At our last meeting, after I asked for a show of hands, half - or maybe more - of you indicated you were feeling low, including me. And today I just feel that I want to share with you. I want to share with you some of the things I've been thinking about. Depression is something that seems to cling to you, isn't it? And it's so hard to get unstuck. Yet unstuck we want to be and unstuck we must try to be.
I've been praying for a way to get unstuck and today I pray for you to get unstuck as well.
This morning what occurred to me is that the greatest and purest source of joy is love - the love we can be assured God has for us and the love our friends and family share with us. It's also the love we at Living Room share with each other when we meet, a love that I know comes from God. It's a love we're able to feel because at Living Room we know we're accepted and loved no matter what - free to speak honestly what's in our hearts. Such a beauty there is in that!
And if we could only cling to the knowledge of that love and find freedom in it, eh? Freedom from oppressive depression. I'm praying that you will feel that love and the joy it brings. Because God loves you more than anything you can imagine. You realize that, don't you? And I know that if we ask God to fill us with that love and to help us share that love with others, joy will come again.
So, this Sunday morning let us pray together, for each other, pray that we will get stuck in this joy. That our hearts will find freedom.
And you know, in sharing this with you in love, I'm finding joy. And I thank you for being there, my friends. People who understand. People who share freely with me and with each other.
I look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks on November 14th.
Love,
marja

As I said in the letter, I found joy in the writing of this email - in the sharing in prayer with the others. I hope those who read it found as much healing as I did in the writing. And I pray that maybe you, my blogging pals, will also find healing here.

Ah! The power of prayer, eh? The power of love.

4 comments:

sbwrites said...

Marja,
Thanks for sharing. Isn't that interesting that your letter about love caused you to get unstuck? And maybe part of it is that you reached out to others as well. Something to think about!

Susan

iggie said...

When we pray, we don't leave God on his throne. He comes down to be with us -- through the fire.

I'm so sorry you're going through a rough patch. I'll pray for you.

marja said...

Hi Susan,

With this letter I called everyone to reach out to each other with love and in prayer. I reminded them of God's great love, something I consider to be my most important job at Living Room. I work on that constantly. I believe that's where I received the joy from, the kind of joy I always feel after a Living Room session.

Jesus had a very good reason for giving us the greatest commandment of all: To love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and to love your neighbor as yourself. That is the key that unlocks the door to a life of peace and joy.

marja said...

Misha, So good to hear from you! It's been such a very long time! Thank you for praying. The prayers of my friends help a lot.