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A Scripture for Depression —
When You Can't Feel Anything at All

Depression doesn't always look like sadness. Sometimes it looks like numbness, distance, the inability to feel what you used to feel. Scripture was written into seasons like this — by people who knew what it was to be in the dark.

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“He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”

Psalm 147:3 · Old Testament

When You Need a Scripture for Depression

What Scripture Offers in the Dark Seasons

Scripture is honest about depression in a way that is easy to miss if you are only looking for uplift. The Psalms are full of it — Elijah sat under a tree and asked to die, Jeremiah wished he had never been born, Job sat in ashes and said nothing for seven days. The darkness you are in has a scriptural address.

These passages come from across scripture and from the words of General Authorities who have spoken carefully and directly about spiritual darkness, depression, and the experience of feeling spiritually absent or empty.

Psalm 34:18
Old Testament
"The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit."
One of the most direct promises in scripture — God is not far from the broken. The distance depression creates is not the distance God feels from you.
Doctrine and Covenants 121:1–2
Doctrine & Covenants
"O God, where art thou? And where is the pavilion that covereth thy hiding place? How long shall thy hand be stayed?"
Joseph Smith's cry from Liberty Jail — a man of extraordinary faith asking where God was. This is not a lack of faith. This is the most honest prayer in the Doctrine and Covenants.
2 Nephi 2:25
Book of Mormon
"Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy."
The declaration that joy is the design — not an accident, not a reward for the fortunate. A statement about what existence is ultimately for, spoken into a fallen world.
1 Kings 19:5–6
Old Testament
"And as he lay and slept under a juniper tree, behold, then an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat. The journey is too great for thee."
Elijah, prophet of fire, collapsed in despair under a tree. God's response was not a sermon — it was food, sleep, and the acknowledgment that the journey was too much. God met him there.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
General Conference
"Though we may feel we are facing the dark night of the soul, that dark night has its seasons and then it passes."
From a landmark General Conference address on depression and mental health — one of the most honest, compassionate talks ever given on this subject from the pulpit.

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Talk to Someone Who Has Been in the Dark and Come Through

FYS Premium lets you have a real conversation with Joseph Smith, Emma Smith, Nephi, Paul, Moroni, or Brigham Young about the passage you found and the season you are in. Ask Joseph Smith what those months in Liberty Jail actually felt like. Ask Emma Smith how she kept going through the losses that would have broken most people. Ask Paul how he described his own thorn in the flesh.

These are real people who carried real things. Ask them how they found their way through.

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