Top Highlights

• The mind can descend far lower than the body, for in it there are bottomless pits. The flesh can bear only a certain number of wounds and no more, but the soul can bleed in ten thousand ways, and die over and over again each hour.
• Has a circumstance ever broken your heart? “There are several forms of a broken heart,”3 Charles tenderly reminds us. Desertion: Neglect or betrayal by a spouse, family member or friend. Bereavement: The ailment or death of one we love. Penury: Job loss, financial strain, poverty of basic needs. Disappointment and Defeat: Dreams unreached, goals bl...
• In itself, sadness or “grief is God's gift to us. It's how we get through."4 It is an act of faith and wisdom to be sad about sad things.
• Sometimes sadness in response to painful circumstance takes a dark turn. It morphs into something other than itself. Grief doesn’t end and the dark creature we call depression wakens from its lair.
• Perhaps among the hardest of our painful circumstances are those suffered in childhood. Depression seized its moment in our youth and something core to our temperament was altered permanently. We became like the sensitive plant that curls up its tendrils at a touch.