Dr Paul Allen

Your darkness can one day bring someone light. A person who’s been through a divorce has the compassion and words needed to help somebody going through a divorce. A person who’s been through abuse, rape, or an addiction can genuinely understand how to help someone else in a similar situation.  And because you made it, God will cause your wounds to glow in the dark of somebody else’s life. And when you begin to share your story with them, hope will get in their soul, and they will start to believe that they can make it.   Don’t waste what you’ve gone through or allow it to make you bitter. If God lets you walk through it, it’s because He’s still God and has a plan. On five different occasions, the Apostle Paul was beaten with 39 stripes. That’s 195 scars on his body. Paul said, “Three times I was beaten with rods.  One time, I was stoned and left for dead. Three times, I suffered shipwrecks. I knew what it was to be afloat in the ocean a full day and night. I thought ...

The pastor seemed uncertain. He might normally talk with the discouraged congregant about spiritual endurance or encourage him with a psalm, but today he was relatively silent. He was compassionate but offered no hopeful connections to Christ’s redeeming work or the Savior’s present help. Why? This pastor was concerned that any spiritual encouragement he gave might be misguided or unhelpful because the congregant had recently been diagnosed with depression. Most people believe depression is caused by a chemical imbalance, but this assumption has been challenged by a recent medical study titled “The Serotonin Theory of Depression.” The project, led by Dr. Joanna Moncrieff of the University College of London, was an umbrella review, a survey of the major psychiatric research on the link between depression and serotonin, the neurotransmitter psychiatrists have long cited as the most likely chemical cause of depression. After reexamining and collecting much of the relevant and reliable res...

When my daughter Eliana was 6 years old, I wrote her a lullaby that included these words: You, Eliana, remind me each day That God does answer the prayers that we pray. And though the night falls and we cannot see, He will bring light when the time’s right for you and me. These four lines are packed with profound meaning for me. I rarely can sing them without tears. They refer to an extended season of what Christians call spiritual darkness, a dark night of the soul, or a faith crisis, which I experienced the year before Eliana was born. Since I told this story in some detail a number of years ago, I won’t recount it all here. I do, however, want to recount the moment God brought light into my night because it was a transformational moment when I experienced the biblical truth David describes in Psalm 139: If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,      and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you;      the night is bright as t...

Two weeks before Christmas, my heart stopped. Seated next to me in a congregational meeting, my wife sees me close my eyes and slump. After a few seconds, the old ticker providentially revives “on its own.” It happens four times during that meeting. Maybe I’m just too inactive, I think. Perhaps if I get up and walk around a bit, I can get the juices flowing, and whatever is going on will clear up. While I’m pacing in the church lobby, one of the elders says he doesn’t think I look quite right. I call my physician, and he recommends that I get to the emergency room for an evaluation. I’m not to drive myself. In the emergency room, the surgeon hooks me up to a bunch of wires and asks a whole battery of questions to diagnose what’s going on. “Are there heart problems in your family?” “Yes, my dad died of a heart attack at 60. So did his dad.” “But do you feel pain?” “None.” “Did you feel dizzy?” “Not really. The room wasn’t spinning. I wasn’t nauseous.” “Did you pass out?” “Not really. I ...

Depression and discouragement are not respecters of the holidays. For many reasons, the normal sorrow of life can reach a highpoint this time of year for some. It may be a reminder that we are without a loved one. It may be financial stress, or loss, in a time where the pressure is to purchase. It might be emotional pressure of getting together with broken family. We just may not have a clue why we are discouraged, which can be discouraging itself. We can, even unintentionally, place big demands on this time of year to deliver and fulfill us in impossible ways, apart from God . And Christmas time or not, many of us experience the normal, heavy weight of discouragement and depression as a regular thing; dejection, confusion, frustration, sadness, hopelessness, anxiousness, anger, darkness, despair. But God has answers and real hope from his word for the battle. Here are 11 truths for strength in sorrow: Especially during depression, our souls are thirsty for Go...