How Do We Help Women Deal With Anxiety And Depression Without Drugging Them Into A Stupor?

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask.

I'm your host Tim Mullett, and I'm joined with my lovely wife Elizabeth Mullett as we answer the age -old question,

How do we help women deal with anxiety and depression without drugging them into a stupor?

So, Honey Biscuit, have you ever dealt with anxiety and depression before? I have experienced them, unfortunately.

I think most people, you know, when you talk about anxiety and depression, if you talk about them as individuals who are not currently mastered by life -dominating anxiety and depression, they think that somehow you've never experienced these things.

So we did this Twitter poll that seemed to set the

Twitter world on fire. We had 7 .2 million views on this stupid, innocuous

Twitter post about ladies with messy houses, in other words.

So I put this message out where I showed some pictures of some messy houses, and I said that essentially

I go into houses like this every day for my job, and these women, they're probably all on antidepressants, and they use this label that they're depressed as a club to basically bash away all responsibility to clean their home.

We had millions of views on this stupid thing, and we had ladies who just were screaming and hollering at us, saying that they were leaving

Christianity. How dare you. Yeah, how dare we rebuke them.

How dare we, you know, tell them that there's... There's another man trying to speak to women's issues.

I mean, that's essentially how it went. I mean, so, you know, they're just screaming at us, how dare we, you know, tell them that they have to clean their home, and all this stuff, and now

I'm, you know, become a... This is why I am practicing witchcraft, or I've become a druid, or something like that now.

Yeah. Because of these, you know, ridiculous, you know, patriarchal men who dare to suggest that we should clean our home.

But, I mean, you have some experience like this with ladies online, on Facebook groups in general, to where you have ladies who are essentially screaming at you and calling you names and everything else because you're daring to suggest to them that they need to take personal responsibility and actually repent of sin in their life.

Yeah, yeah, it's happened. It's happened to me. I'm a victim. Yeah. Yeah. Just in Christian women groups, unfortunately, it happens all too often where a woman will come on asking for help, dealing with anxiety, depression, just can't get my life together, how do you guys stay on top of all the things we have to do at home, and taking care of the kids, and your husband, and all the things.

And basically, you know, they may even just outright confess in their posts that they are anxious, depressed, worried, overwhelmed, all these things, what do

I need to do? And immediately, the majority of the comments are, have you had, you know, have you had your levels checked?

It's always this like vague, like, have you had your levels checked? And all women know what that means.

Like, have you gone and had your thyroid checked? Did you check and see if you have a vitamin D deficiency? Whatever, have you had your hormones, like all this stuff done?

Like, you need to run tests because that's, you need to check there first. Like, don't repent of your worry and your anxiety and your inability to get off the couch and wash some dishes and cook some food.

Don't repent of it and actually put off and put on and do the

God honoring thing. You probably need a pill. You need some supplement or some vitamin or there's something wrong with you physically.

Not to say that there aren't things that contribute to feeling poorly and that being a temptation to want to sit around and do nothing or to want to sit around and be sad and feel hopeless and despair at life and all the things that have to get done on top of you feeling crappy.

Of course, those are temptations, but it's not an excuse when God commands us to rejoice in all things.

He commands us to work unto Him, which means like be a hard worker, get up, do your job.

And He doesn't say anything about, you know, rejoice in all things except when you're severely deficient in vitamin

D or have an overactive thyroid or something.

But when I try to tell women, I try to comment and say like, you need to ask the

Lord to forgive you for not rejoicing. And I try to do it in a loving way.

Have you tried asking God to forgive you? Have you tried reading God's word on what He says you should be doing in this area?

And it's just, you've lost your mind. That's so mean. That's so hateful.

Well, it's funny because, I mean, as I've read your comments on these things, I mean, you're obviously, when you say these things, you're a lot more nice and a lot more kind.

Not that I'm, I don't think that I'm rude when I say these things, but I definitely don't, you know, on the front end of things.

You're just a guy and you're blunt. And sometimes you talk to women as if you talk to guys, which guys can handle until women can't handle it.

They can't handle the truthfulness without like a bouquet of roses to dash. And even then they made fun of me. Well, that's what

I'm saying though, because like when I look at your comments, you put all the, you know, the bouquet of roses and like, flowers and smiley faces and I promise

I love you when I'm telling you the truth. You put all that stuff on there. You know, I love you. I care about you. And, you know, this is what helped me.

And, you know, I'm not trying to be, I'm not trying to. I try to relate. I try to say like, I've had the same struggles.

I know because how dare, you know, don't dare talk to anyone. You don't know if you haven't been there.

You do all that. You put like paragraph after paragraph of concern and care and, you know, all that.

But then you still though, you end on the, you need to repent of this. And like that's the thing that's really triggering and it's triggering either way.

So, I mean, that's the thing that ladies really, they really can't handle, you know, whether or not it's coming like in a nice, like pleasant package or if it's coming like in my way, just more of a direct matter of fact way.

But, I mean, that's the thing that really most people can't handle. But, I mean, most people, they really do assume that if you're talking about this subject and you're daring to suggest that there's an answer to these things, they instantaneously assume that it's just something that you've never dealt with and it's something that you've never been through.

And, I mean, I know that in my life, I mean, I was trained in anxiety from a very early age.

I mean, I grew up being an anxious person. I grew up being like characterized by life -dominating anxiety in a lot of ways.

I mean, it's just, I mean, the air you breathe, you know, you need to get an A on the test.

You know, you're not going to do well in school. And if you don't do well in school, you're not going to be able to get a good job, go to college or whatever and get a scholarship.

And if you don't get a scholarship and go to college, then you're not going to be able to get a good job. And if you don't get a good job, you're not going to be able to get married.

Nobody's going to want to marry you. Nobody's going to want to marry you. And you're not going to be able to, you know, provide for a family. And, you know, then you're going to be in debt and, you know, all this stuff.

So, I mean, I knew that from an early age. And there was times, you know, in my life where I was severely depressed.

I mean, like early years in college, I mean, I pursued sin with all that I could.

And I saw that it didn't work. It didn't leave me fulfilled. It didn't, you know, offer what

I thought it would. And, I mean, I was so depressed at that point in my life that, you know, my mom was worried about me.

Like legitimately concerned about me. And I went to the doctor at that point and it was one of those things where I go to the doctor and I'm just persuaded there must be something wrong with me because I just feel sick.

Like I feel terrible. I feel sick. And, you know, the doctor runs all the tests and is saying, hey, there's nothing wrong with you.

And I just didn't believe him. I'm like, this can't be right. Like because I feel so bad because I must be sick, you know.

And the test ran off empty. And, I mean, he just kind of looked at me and asked me, are you depressed? And I said yes.

And he said, well, that's what it is. And he wanted to put me on antidepressant at that point.

And I remember that just being a turning point in my life to where I thought, like,

I can't keep doing this. You know, I can't just feel this bad. And that really drove me to read the

Bible and to pray and to seriously study the Scripture, thinking, well, God has answers to these things.

There has to be answers. Yeah, there has to be answers. And I'm going to find out what they are because if there's nothing medically wrong with me,

I'm not going to turn to these drugs in order to fix life problems. Like this is just a life problem here.

But, I mean, you have experience like that too. And, I mean, that was a turning point for me where, for me,

I haven't been characterized by a lifetime of anxiety and worry since then.

You know, when you have job situations come along, you're tempted to that. And we've had tough church situations come along where you've noticed that I've certainly been sad and disoriented and not knowing how to handle certain things.

But, I mean, these are things that you've dealt with too. I was a little bit more stubborn to turn from them than you were,

I think. Kind of, you know, grew up the same way, characterized by anxiety and depression, discontentment with life circumstances.

Kind of grew up in a type of church where you're always afraid you're going to lose your salvation.

Everything is kind of workspace. And so, for a kid, you're just anxious all the time. Your stomach is in knots constantly.

And then, you know, maybe home life and things like that contributed in some ways too. And that just carried over into the teen years and then the young adult years.

And then I'm claiming to be a Christian. But that's what I'm characterized by is just worry, fear, anxiety, depression.

That kind of snowballing and leading into guilt and shame and just kind of laziness and slothfulness and procrastination.

And then it's just over and over and over again because I was never taking those thoughts captive or just repenting of my actions in that area until I didn't have anybody really in my life trying to keep me accountable in those ways until I met you.

And you, by God's grace, helped me. But I was so stubborn to see it for what it was and to turn from it,

I think. To turn from my sinful habits of anxiety and depression and fear and definitely weak in those areas and just didn't think that there was any hope for real change for a long time early in our marriage.

Probably tempted you, George, to explain my anxiety. I plead the fifth. But yeah, definitely have personal experience with that.

You have your own personal experience with it and then experience trying to help someone deal with that in a biblical way.

I was never tempted towards, I never got to a place of such despair or desperation that I thought medication was the way.

I do think that for anybody that turns to, for a

Christian at least, and we're not talking about unbelievers, obviously, there's no hope there. They don't have anything else to turn to.

But for the Christian, for women especially, but anybody who,

I guess, turns to antidepressants, there's an aspect of getting to a, like you just, you're never doing the work of turning from the sin,

I guess. You're just letting yourself stay in despair and stay in a place of sinful worry, sinful lack of joy, choosing to not rejoice in your life, be content, be thankful.

And it keeps going and going and going until you get to, you can get to a really dark place and a really desperate place where you think,

I just need to get out of this. I'm so, I just need to feel better. So you turn to doctors and you, like you did that one time thinking there's got to be something wrong with me.

It can't be that I'm not repenting. It can't be that I've got some sin in my life that I haven't turned from.

Can't possibly be that. So yes, doctor, give me the pill.

Give me the pill that when I take it, I'm going to feel better tomorrow. This is going to be, these feelings are going to be gone, especially for women.

That's, you know, appealing. But as you're talking to the women online, I mean, you frequently have gotten women very offended at you.

I mean, in these Facebook groups and in these, you know, mommy blog kind of groups. And it seems like, you know, the ladies over and over and over again, they only think about these topics in terms of, you know, biological solutions, as you're mentioning.

Like they need to get their hormones checked. They need to change their diet. They need to exercise. They need to go out and ground or whatever.

But then what they, they all seem like very hostile to like the idea that they need to repent.

And that these are spiritual problems that they need to treat with spiritual solutions.

I mean, you've even had like people, like your post removed. Yeah, I've had comments deleted.

Yeah, just, it's insane, especially having to double check that I'm in a

Christian group where this is being discussed, having to make sure. Like, wait, what group am

I in? Am I, am I on like my crunchy mom's group of just the melting pot of all the moms?

Or is this like, oh, this is the Christian group that this is in. And they're deleting my comments and they're warning me that I'm going to be removed because I told someone they needed to seek the

Lord's forgiveness for their behavior, for their laziness, for their lack of joy, for their, all the things that they put in their post.

How dare I tell them that they needed to repent of it? Even trying to do it in a loving way, trying to like frame it in a way that's like, look,

I'm not trying to be mean. I'm not trying to act like I've got it all together. When I tell you, when

I try to tell you what I believe to be the truth in God's word, that there's hope, but you have to do the work.

They don't, we don't want to do the work. We want a quick fix of what a pill might give us, what were promised in the medication instead of the work of repentance, actively turning from these things, putting off this sin and putting on obedience and the hard work of living a faithful life in these areas.

So a lot of what happens, you know, so as I was making that post online, I had all, there was, you know, post after post after post saying, this is why

I hate Christianity. And this is why I hate Christians. And this is why I'm turning to witchcraft and, you know, all this kind of stuff.

This is why I left the church. I mean, you'd even have the funny ones. I was, I was considering going back to church and then I saw this and I don't want anything to do with you hypocrites.

So they had that kind of reaction, which is just, I mean, it's basically I don't want accountability in my life whatsoever.

And I don't want to be told what to do. I mean, it's, it's, you know, Jesus says that, like the men love the darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.

And, you know, why do you hate me? It's because I testify to you that your works are evil. So, I mean, that's obviously going to be part of the reaction is that people, they just don't want to hear that they're the problem.

And, you know, as you're saying, they're looking for these, you know, simple fixes to all that. But then a lot of people also, they had this response that, like if you say that people should repent of their anxiety, and if you say that they should repent of their depression and their worry and their sloth, like their idleness, like these ladies need to, you know, get it together, clean their home and everything else.

Like if you say that they need to repent of these things, then what they'll immediately say is like that you're, you're asking them to pray away the anxiety.

And a lot of it is that they just don't understand really how, like depression and anxiety actually work.

And so when you think about it, like the way depression works is that God's made us in such a way that when we make an irresponsible choice, we're going to feel guilt and shame and condemnation that comes from that irresponsible choice.

And so you can imagine like depression like a spiral, like a downward spiral into depression.

So, you know, you make irresponsible choice number one, and you're going to feel guilt and shame and condemnation from that choice.

And then what happens is like that when you, you try to deal with that guilt, shame and condemnation that you feel, that's going to typically lead you to like irresponsible choice number two, right?

So you do irresponsible choice number two, and then you're going to get all the guilt and shame and condemnation from that. And then, you know, in response to that, you're going to, you know, because you feel all this shame, you feel all this guilt, you feel all this, then it's responsible choice number three.

And pretty soon, I mean, you're like, you know, irresponsible choice number 20 down the rabbit hole of depression.

I mean, and you wake up and you say, hey, like there's dishes all over my sink. Like all my sink, all over my counters, everything's a mess.

You know, there's clothes laying around the house all over the place. You know, I'm sitting around all day long doing nothing because I'm weighed down by this guilt and shame.

I'm not, you know, I'm doing the bare minimum at home. I'm just kind of laying around all day long.

I'm snapping at my kids, snapping at my husband, you know, everything else. And like you get to the very end of that kind of spiral.

And, you know, then it's just like, hey, you know, if you're praying anything at that point, it's just God, can you make my feelings go better, right?

Right. And then you've got the issue of sometimes people not praying at all, just trying to hide from the

Lord because they feel so guilt ridden over the disobedience.

And then they keep hiding and they keep hiding. And then it gets worse and worse because not going to him about it, confessing it and turning from it, it just stays.

And then it builds upon that. You keep making that choice every day to not turn from it. So I'm just going to, I see, I see the pile of dishes.

I see the whatever. I'm just going to like ignore that. I'm going to go lay in my bed. They're depressed that they let it get this way.

They're unhappy in their life for whatever reason, whether God's got them in a season of trial or whatever it is, and they're not choosing joy in that.

So they let everything go and then they ignore it and they go hide under the blankets instead of just repenting and turning to the

Lord and saying, please forgive me for giving into that. Please forgive me for giving into that lack of joy, anxiety, whatever it is, laziness to not do the things that you've called me to do as a wife and mother.

And then just feeling hopelessness, like I'll never change. And they never, and they just, they don't get out of it.

Well, a lot of it is what you're saying, like in terms of, it's just that simple Adam and Eve in the garden.

Yeah. Like they sin and then they hide themselves from the Lord. And instead of coming to him and accepting his forgiveness and starting to make responsible choices, what they're doing is, they let the shame and guilt take over thinking that they, thinking that they can actually really hide from him as if he doesn't see and know.

But then he does, I mean, he, obviously he's looking, he sees, he knows what you're, you know, he knows what you're doing. And so, you know, what happens often is like you have people that are at this end, they're at the end of this spiral, right?

At the very end. And they're not coming to God with it. They're not making responsible choices. They're like 20 bad choices in.

And then, then at that point they're just saying, Hey Lord, take the bad feelings away. If they say anything.

Right. Like, I want to feel better. Like, and, and I'll, you know, and you, you could probably speak to that too.

I mean, ladies in the midst of depression and despair, I mean, like it all just turns into,

I feel bad and I want the bad feelings to go away. Yeah. I'm desperate to latch onto anything.

You've let it go too far. And now you're to this point where just make it stop.

Right. So yes, please, please give me the medication. If that will just make this all stop.

And I get it. It it's when you're in it, it feels hopeless.

When you've gotten to that point, I've been there. When you just have, you've made the choices over and over again.

You've let yourself get to this place, this pit, and it feels really, really hard to get out of it, but it's not, it's just make the choice, go to the

Lord. He's faithful and just to forgive us.

If we confess our sins. And sometimes like, yeah. Yeah. We just keep running.

Yeah, you keep running. And then, you know, and so then when you think about like what, what's happening there, you know, they, if, if they're praying for anything, it's

Lord, take it away within their, you know, all the, the, the mom, the moms together are latching onto all the materialistic kind of solutions.

It's like, Hey, take this vitamin, you know, get your hormones checked, go outside.

You know, a lot of people right now are going to diet and exercise, which I mean, obviously, you know, of course, by all means, you know, examine your life and see if there's things that are stumbling blocks for you, whether it's for health, because you've made, you've made poor decisions on what you feel your body with, or so maybe you are lacking in things that really do help you feel better.

And so you're putting these stumbling blocks in your life. Maybe you're, maybe you're overweight. And so that's contributing to feeling it, feeling really difficult to get up and do your jobs because you have let yourself go.

You're not taking care of yourself. Been there, done that. So, yeah, you're putting stumbling blocks in your life.

So definitely like examine those things and say, okay, um, I need to obey no matter what, but are there things in my life that, that I'm allowing to be there?

Am I not taking care of myself? Am I not clothing myself in strength, you know, to do the tasks that God has called me to do?

Um, am I looking to the world to tell me what my home should look like?

So I'm getting depressed because my house doesn't look like the picture. Perfect. Little Pinterest house. So why bother?

Why, why clean it? Why do dishes? Why do anything? My meals don't look like these meals. My, my, uh, decor doesn't look as good as these people.

My, my, this, my, that isn't good enough. So I'm not even going to bother. So you're just not being thankful.

So get these stumbling blocks out of your life for sure. And things, things will feel easier if you're removing some of these obstacles, but that's still, even if you choose not to do that, you still don't have an excuse to sit there, um, and sin in these ways, giving into these, um, fears and anxiety and depression and discontentment and ungratefulness.

There's still no excuse. But then people seem to be genuinely hostile to treating these things as spiritual solutions.

Yeah. Like meaning, I mean, you could, you could, you could tell them all day long, um,

Hey, go take a vitamin. Tell them all day long, go, you know, go get on that antidepressants because sometimes it's hard.

You know, you can tell them all day long, get your hormones checked and go to the doctor and see if it's a thyroid thing and whatever else.

But what they really don't want to hear is that this is, like, this is a you problem, like that you need to be rejoicing in the

Lord and that you need to be taking your thoughts captive. and it seems like ladies are particularly hostile to that in general.

I mean, that's, I mean, that's been your experience when you've talked to them online. Definitely. Definitely.

It's been my experience and even in watching you with, um, with your online interactions too.

I mean, like this Twitter post, for instance, it's just maddening to watch, to watch the reaction to it all.

And it's just, it's proof to like, and maybe, maybe there are plenty of husbands who are trying to hold their wives accountable and they're just, um, kind of hitting a brick wall where you can't get through and the wife is just not going to hear it.

But a lot of times, men, maybe they tried in the beginning and it didn't go well and they gave up.

Maybe they're too passive and they've never tried at all, but men really need to take responsibility in that area too, of holding their wives accountable and calling them to repentant.

She's your sister in Christ. Um, you know, she's your wife, but she's your sister in Christ. And we're commanded to see your brother sending to, um, to point it out.

And that's the loving thing to do to point it out and to call them to repentance and to care enough to do that.

That is not loving at all to just watch somebody, um, live in sin in any way and just watch it like, well, they won't listen to me.

So I'm just not going to bother saying anything. And that doesn't, that doesn't do anything good.

For your marriage doesn't do anything good for that friendship, that relationship with each other, either.

If you're not going to do your job as a Christian brother of hers and call her to repentance and keep her accountable, um, in your walk together in your marriage.

So husbands need to step up to and be faithful in that. If your wife has been giving into these sins for a long time, it may seem, um, impossible.

It may seem like, oh, this is going to, she's just not having it. I'm trying to do it. She's not having it like, you know, but you don't need to be like that either.

You need to not give up as a husband and given to the despair of she's never going to change.

I'm not going to bother. This is crazy. It's just like not happening. Call her to repentance, be faithful and God will bless that.

Even if she doesn't change, you're still going to reap the blessings of just obeying the word in that area.

And I think that, you know, as you think about depression as a spiral that we're talking about, like just, it's a series of these choices.

And so, I mean, you can imagine your 20 irresponsible choices in, and like, these are, you know,

I mean, these are obviously issues that both of you, both you and I, we, we have personal experience with in a wide variety of ways.

And I can, you imagine if you're just like at the very end of this spiral and you're down in the middle of, you know,

I'm experiencing all the guilt and shame and condemnation that comes from being 20 bad decisions.

And so, you know, what people often do is, you know, as we said, they, they start out by saying,

Hey Lord, take it away. He doesn't take it away. They try all these other solutions and, you know, that doesn't work.

You know, a lot of them, they just accept this is who I am, right? This is who I am. Like, this is who I'm just going to be.

They take their drugs and they turn into a drug addict, a psychotropic drug addict forever. But then, you know, what's deceptive about it is it's like, well, all right,

I'm going to try to clean my dishes. Right. So I'm going to go, I'm going to take one step and it's like, yeah,

I clean my dishes. I still feel terrible, you know, right. That didn't work.

That is the, that is the trap. That is definitely like women get so lost in that, that it doesn't, um, that's another part of it.

Like women don't want to accept the calling that God has placed on their lives as a wife and a mother.

They want more. It's the old, you know, just feminism mindset of like this, is this really all there is?

Is this it? Um, and that can be, they could, we could choose to get really depressed at like, is that all?

And it's like such a foolish way of thinking. Like, what do you mean? Is that all? This is a lot.

This is, this is a blessing. And this is a, this is more than plenty. This is enough. Taking care of kids and a home and a husband.

And get the privilege of raising the next generation, right? Yeah. You're responsible for that.

This is a big deal. And we've just been sold these lies that it is not enough that you need more than that.

Like being stuck at home, you're stuck. You're that's, that's what your life is.

You are just stuck. Keep poor thing for us. We're stuck here. We're less than we're stuck.

This is our lot in life to do these lowly little tasks that nobody else wants to do.

and so we sink into this, just believe the lies, get depressed, train wreck cycle over and over and over and over again.

And yeah, like you said, like, well, I prayed, um, you know, maybe I did pray and ask the

Lord to forgive me for, you know, my lack of joy and my lack of, um, but then I'm back at it. I'm back at it.

But I woke up this morning. I did the dishes last night, or I did. I, okay. I fixed some stuff. I did whatever

I repented. I put off, I put on, and I woke up today and I still feel blah. So apparently

I need something more. I need something else. This isn't, yes. Okay. I'm going to pray. I'm going to read my Bible, but I need something on top of all that.

It's not enough. God's word is not sufficient for me. I need that. Plus this pill.

It's like the whole Jesus plus thing. Like the other religions who are like, oh yeah, sure. You know,

I worship these guys, but in Jesus is cool to all add him to the thing. It really is like a

Jesus. And like Jesus plus my medication, Jesus plus whatever.

It's like, no, that's not, Jesus is enough. And you need to really believe that. yeah, we just get so lost in the lies, discontentment, ungratefulness.

I mean, you know, a lot of people, if they could realize that, you know, if it took you 10 years to get into, you know, this mess, it may take you, you know, 10 years to get out of it.

And a lot of people are looking for just some kind of quick instant, you know, take it all away, make the bad feelings all go away, but they don't want all the work that's going to come, you know, from making lifestyle changes, from, as you're saying, taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, of, you know, putting off the bad behavior, putting on the good behavior, addressing like the idols in their heart, they're leading to this discontentment.

You know, and all the envy and all the comparisons and everything else. I mean, obviously it's a lot of work and it's not going to happen overnight, but as we're looking at the post, you know, you had the, this is why

I hate Christianity. I'm going to become a, you know, a witch at this point.

You had all those, you know, you, I mean, they're basically the John the Baptist rebuking

Herod for having his, you know, brother's wife. And, you know, he's then getting

John the Baptist head on a platter because he doesn't want to be confronted at that point. I mean, you do have that, like, don't touch my sin.

You know, don't tell me I'm a sinner. Don't tell me I'm a sinner, whatever you do, or I'll scream at you and don't tell me

I need to change because I don't want to. And whatever you do, I'm not the fault. I'm not to blame. So you have all those kinds of responses, but then, you know, you also have the responses where the ladies are kind of looking at you and they're saying, you know, there's two parts to this.

Like, you know, where's the man? Why isn't the man doing the dishes? Right. So why isn't the man make messes too?

So why should I have to clean this up? So even if the husband's working all day long at his job, like he needs to apparently come home and.

Do all your jobs too. Do all your jobs. You didn't do all day because you were upset.

Right. So, yeah. So like part of it's that, and then part of it is why is this my job? And then the other part is like, if this person is hurting and in pain, shouldn't you help them by doing their job for you?

So what would you say to that? Well, you tried that early on in our marriage and, you know, in this whole discussion, we're not, you know, we're not talking about seasons of life where.

Like a woman has a C -section or something. Legitimately cannot pull her weight in these areas.

And so. Hopefully she has a loving, compassionate husband. Step up and, and carry the load, like bear one another's burdens.

And so if you're in a legitimate season of life where you cannot, like you have had back surgery, you are, maybe you are having, yeah, maybe you are having a really legitimately horrible pregnancy.

There are women that are bedridden. I mean, we have friends at church that have gone through things like this.

You're bedridden. You're in these situations where you literally can't do, that your tasks to the fullest, the way that you're used to, maybe you can do like these, like a bare minimum.

And so, yeah, he is going to love, hopefully lovingly come in and help and, pick up the slack while you're in this trial.

That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a woman that's characterized by a discontent heart and ungrateful heart who's given in to despair and hopelessness to the point that she has given up and just completely let go.

And so it's like, I can't, I can't, where's my fainting couch. I can't do this. It's too hard.

It's too much. You do it for me, basically. I think in those kinds of situations, that's definitely something that most, most people online, they're just expecting that if a man loves a woman, then he's just going to step in and do her job for her.

And that's just kind of the assumption. The assumption is if she's in this deep, dark pit, the only answer to that is going to be that he's going to come in and he's going to do it.

He's just going to take it over. He's going to do her job for her. He's going to, you know, take it on for himself.

I mean, he can work his, you know, 40, 50 hour a week job and then come home and, you know, do it.

So part of it is like, there's this expectation that if you love her, you're going to take her job for her, which is the, which is a problem.

And then there's another part of it that is just this expectation that the, like this job is just overwhelmingly hard in general.

And so we had people who are posting online, you know, about like a 19th century homemakers or whatever.

And like, you know, a hundred years ago, the homemaker job took like in order to do everything that there is to do today, to watch the clothes, to cook, to clean, to do the dishes, beat the rugs, you know, go out to the stream to gather water.

I mean, it was like a job that took 19 hours to do. And then when you think about like what's happening right now is,

I mean, you're in a situation where you have microwaves, you have dishwashers, you have, you know, you have washing, you have dryers, you have, you know, appliances, microwaves, everything else.

And so, you know, part of this discussion is like, Hey man, if a man loves me, he's going to step in and help. Right. Right.

And then the other part of it is, it's just so much to do. And, like, it's way beyond like a single woman's ability to do.

Sure. So, you know, what would you say to women like that? I don't know.

Get over yourself. I mean, yeah, I mean, we're not saying either that like,

I think sometimes people hear these kinds of conversations and they think you're trying to say that a man just comes home and he goes and sits in his lazy boy.

And that's what we're advocating for expecting. And that's not it either.

I think that it's totally fine. Like a husband knows that his wife has been faithful and, by all means, he can come home and he can jump in there and like,

Hey babe, do you need any help with anything? She's over there cooking. And, you know, he sees that she's been working.

He says that the kids are still alive. She obviously did something. She obviously did something today.

So of course, it's not to say that he can't like, do anything like to help her.

It's not that it's just taking over her role completely going to work eight, nine, 10, 11 hours a day.

And your wife does nothing. Cause she's so overwhelmed. They say that they, they say that they're, you know, they've been working all day long watching these kids while the clothes pile up and the dishes pile up and everything else.

So, I mean, like most women are going to fight you on that. They're going to say, Hey, you know, you don't know what it's like to watch kids all day long and everything else.

But. Sure. Yeah. There are seasons. There are seasons that are going to be, we're not, when we say, we're not saying it's like easy.

Um, in that sense, like it's all just like a bed of roses and little golden streets and everything's happy.

Unicorns. Of course it's work. We were put here to work. So of course the husbands are out laboring for us to bring home money.

We're laboring at home. It's not like easy in that sense. Um, but it's not rocket science to take care of your kids and everything does not have to be perfect.

If you're being faithful, hopefully you have a husband who's not expecting perfection and you need to not expect perfection out of yourself either because we can get hung up on that too.

And I know I've, I've struggled with a temptation towards perfectionism, um, throughout my whole life in all kinds of areas.

And so of course, um, there's been a lot of, there's been a lot of, there's been a lot of, for everything to be easy.

Um, it's work. God's called us to work. He's put us here to work. We have, we've been given dominion over, over the earth and women have a role in that.

This is our role. Accept your role and move on and have joy in it. I think that's the thing.

Rejoice in the Lord here. Yeah. I think that's the thing that's really offensive is like the idea that there might be roles, you know?

Yeah. So then if they're all this, yeah. Like if there's roles, like, so most, most ladies in this kind of situation, they, they don't feel any guilt whatsoever, you know, saying to the man, um, yeah, you should go do your job and work, you know, eight, 10 hours a day for me.

And then come share in mine. Basically do all of them for me.

Well, I mean, so that's what typically happens. So like when you're looking at these kinds of things, I mean, I know of plenty of situations like this that I won't mention specifically by name where people just let their house go and they like, they just let it go and they let it go.

And then, you know, what people don't realize is that, you know, you can come into that kind of situation and you try to take it over.

You try, like you think the compassionate thing is to try to help people. And the problem is,

Hey, you clean their house for them. It's just going to go back to messy in a couple of weeks. Right. Like, because they don't have this thing in them that they need.

Um, like meaning like they just let it go and they've let it go and they let it go and they don't have whatever they need to have, um, to take responsibility for their life and take responsibility for this mess and to say,

Hey, it's my job to clean it up and I'm going to do it. And so, I mean, you can step in and like, you think, Oh, well, yeah, the compassionate thing is to help them.

But the problem is when you help them, like you're just enabling them. Definitely.

And, and so I think you have like a lot of ladies in this situation who like they, they equate, like, if you love me, you'll do my job for me.

Essentially. Yeah. And I know that, you know, you tried to do that early on, um, when

I was pregnant with one of the boys and I had fairly easy pregnancies, but just didn't respond well to even my easy pregnancies.

There was a lot of like, no, this is so hard. I can't handle it. And so I did give into just those overwhelmed feelings.

And this is also hard being pregnant and still having to take care of the house and take care of two other toddlers and, um, letting, you know, letting the dishes pile up some and, you know, you had a couple of things that were kind of like,

I, you know, you didn't ask much of me, but you like the dishes being done and like the laundry being folded and put away were like important to you.

That made you feel like the house is clean. Like there could be toys all over the floor, but you felt good if the dishes were cleaned and put away and the laundry was clean and put away.

So like, even if I only did the two things that were the most important to you, um, that's like nothing, but I just couldn't even handle that giving into my feelings and my, uh,

I'm so tired. And so whatever. And so you tried to help and think like, okay, she's pregnant. She's got, you know, two other toddlers to take care of, you know, this is all help her out and I'll do it.

And you did it for a few days in a row. And then I did, I remember thinking like, I would see the dishes and think like, oh,

I'm just too tired for this. I know he'll get it when he comes home. He's been, he'll do it because he's been doing it the past few days.

He'll do it. And then you finally like, we're like, this is not helping her. She's not realizing, you know, that she needs to get in here and do this and be faithful by me doing it for her.

So you just stopped the dishes like a week before I got it in here and got it together.

But yeah, it's not helpful. I think, I think let's take over. Yeah. The lie is that you're going to help a person that way.

But then the problem is that like all the guilt and shame and despair that they're feeling is like, they're feeling that because God's made them to work essentially.

And like, and that's something that's not really factored in. So, you know, Ecclesiastes talks like the preacher in Ecclesiastes says that I've seen that there's nothing better than a man rejoicing in the toil with which

God has given him to toil under the sun. And, you know, like a big part of this is that God's made us to work.

And when we don't work, then we feel this despair and we feel this hopelessness.

And I mean, that's essentially what the Nazis did to the Jews. I mean, you know, the Nazis like would make the

Jews build a wall. And then after the Jews built the wall, the Nazis would make them tear it, tear it down, you know, immediately in a way to demoralize them.

And the reason why it was demoralizing is because everyone, you know, everyone knows, even the pagans know that work gives you this sense of accomplishment, right?

Like you've done something, you've done something productive, but then if you make someone work and then you say, Hey, you were working for nothing, right?

There was no purpose like that totally demoralizes them. But then the idea though, is I think what a lot of people don't understand in this depression discussion in general is that they think,

Hey, the way you love someone is to help them. But the problem is if you take over their job, like what we're talking about, like if you take over their job, then what you've done is you're trapping them in this despair, in this guilt, in this hopelessness.

And like you think you're helping, but really it's like you're harming them because, because what you're telling them is like, you don't really have a reason to be here.

Right? Sure. Like, you know, you like, whatever your reason to be here is, I can do it for you.

And so I guess, you know, we don't even know why you're here. Right. Yeah.

And I think sometimes women, when they are given over to depression and anxiety, they take that out on their families too.

And then when the husband's try to step in and help and do all their work for them, they resent them for it.

Even if they don't connect that and realize that they are resenting them for it. There's like a, it's, it's kind of like you're making it, you're putting it on display that I'm not doing this because you're stepping, you're doing it because I'm not doing it.

And I'm not doing it because I'm depressed and anxious and it's all too much. And what was me? I can't handle life.

And so you're taking it over. So now they're bitter and angry and resentful at you for taking it over because it's just shoving it in their face that they're not doing what they're supposed to do.

Even if that's not what you're trying to tell them, you're not, you may not be trying to communicate that to him that you think you're just being loving and helpful by doing it for them while they're in this season of despair, that's been going on for five years or something.

But you're just, you're not, you're not doing anything remotely resembling help by continuing, letting them continue to be in this cycle of sinful anxiety and depression and thoughtfulness, all the different things.

Well, that was one of the things that was interesting about the post in general is that, you know, on the one hand you have all the ladies who are screaming, screaming at us for daring to suggest that they're not doing their jobs.

But I think like part of what was so scandalous about this. And so, I mean, it was scandalous in different ways because one, you're criticizing women, two, you're criticizing people are viewed as like psychological victims in that way.

So, but I think the real shame was actually showing the pictures of what their homes look like. And like,

I think that that's part of what you're talking about. There is where, like when the man is doing the job for the woman, he's exposing that she's incompetent in a certain way, you know?

And I think when you, when I showed the pictures of it, I think, you know, on the one hand you have the ladies are saying, this isn't my job.

But then intuitively they know it is their job. Like they know deep down, this is my job.

And this reflects so poorly on me. Yeah. And then you're making a spectacle out of it.

Like what you're doing is you're exposing my shame. Right. And so you have ladies who I'm not even showing pictures of their house.

I'm showing people. Right. These are just like Google image, Googling messy houses and pulling some images.

You didn't actually take pictures of real women's houses. Right. So, but then they're, they're internalizing that and saying, you're exposing my shame to the world.

Right. Right. And so, and that's, what's part of it. It's like inescapably, they know that a messy house reflects poorly on them as a woman.

Right. I get it reflects really bad on them as a woman. And, and despite the, like the fact that you have all these ladies come along and you want to say,

Hey, you know, it's okay to not be perfect. And, you know, it's okay to, you know, to not be enough and all this kind of stuff.

What ends up happening though, is like, as you're thinking about these things, like they look at it and they know that, Hey, like this is, this is reflecting on me and, and this isn't reflecting very well on me and all this shame and everything else is coming from that.

But, you know, I mean, you've, you've experienced this in your own life that like you, you're not gonna get, fight these things and get past these things until you actually take responsibility on your own end.

Sure. Yeah. Actively, um, taking those thoughts captive and putting off the sin of, of anxiety, worry, slothfulness, whatever it may be, that's contributing to the depression and the despair, the hopeless feelings, um, the desperate feelings for wanting your life to be different.

Until I started just taking those thoughts captive and asking the

Lord to forgive me and, you know, leaning on the promises that he does forgive.

He's faithful to forgive us. And, you know, his mercies are new every day.

Um, and fighting that things didn't change until I stopped being stubborn and in those areas of life.

And really started actively turning from it. And it wasn't to say that it all just magically went away overnight or that it, that the temptation never comes back, um, to give into those things that those thoughts never come back.

That's yes, they, they do. They do come back. Sometimes there are temptations. Sometimes I get tempted.

If I slip into a, um, if I slip into habits of not taking care of myself.

And so that makes me feel tired and weak and whatever there's temptations there.

So, and that's why I talked about that earlier, like removing these stumbling blocks from your life, um, make it a little bit easier on yourself to be able to fight these things.

Don't, don't, um, don't just sit there with all these temptations and never get rid of them.

You've got to get rid of those things too, but you've got no matter what, even if you don't change those things, even if you don't change your diet, even if you don't make yourself stronger, even if you, um, don't address some physical thing that might be there, that's, that's making it difficult.

You still don't have an excuse to not rejoice in the Lord. You still don't have an excuse to not be faithful to the task that he's given you as a mother and a wife.

There is no excuse. There is nothing in the Bible that says that, um, do these things except, you know, there's nothing like that.

I think a lot of people, yeah, a lot of people aren't making basic distinctions along those lines too.

Like meaning, um, there are a variety of, you know, physical things obviously that can contribute to just,

I don't have any energy. I'm weak, you know, I'm tired. I feel sluggish. I mean, obviously like if a lady is sleep deprived, you know, getting up every few hours to nurse a baby, she's going to feel crazy, you know, she's going to, she's putting junk in her body and she's, you know, morbidly obese and not moving all day.

And those are going to be temptations for you. And, you know, I've been there and done that.

And maybe not morbidly, but I've been in those areas where you just don't, you've let yourself go. You don't care.

And then you're whining and crying because you have no energy for anything. And you don't, you feel like you can't get anything done because you're not, um, making wise choices to make that stuff easier.

But even, like I said, even then you don't, you can't just say, well, Lord, you know,

I just couldn't because, you know, well, yeah, I mean, that's the thing. So, I mean, there might be any number of biological things like,

Hey, yeah, maybe your thyroid's messed up and that's resulting in lack of energy. Maybe, maybe, you know, maybe you do need to go on a diet, you know, get in shape, get better sleep, you know, clothe yourself with strength.

Uh, maybe some of those supplements will help a little bit in terms of just giving you a little more energy, restoring your hormones, whatever else.

But like at the end of the day, though, I mean, there is no biological solution to joy.

There is no biological solution to Thanksgiving. There is no biological solution to trusting in the

Lord, right? So, I mean, the Bible says trust in the Lord, um, and, yeah, do not lean on your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge him and he'll direct your path.

I mean, there's no medical solution. There's no drug that's going to help you to trust God and, uh, cast your cares upon him because he cares about you.

There's no, you know, drug that you're going to take that's going to make you really, like, thankful, like thankful for the life that God's given you.

Thankful for the family that he's given you. There's no pill that you're going to take that's going to do that.

Like they give you love, like sacrificial love for your family, like joy, peace, long suffering, uh, gentleness, meekness, kindness, faithfulness, self -control.

There's no self -control pill. There's no joy pill. There's no long suffering pill. There's no, there's none of that.

Like, and there's no, like get on the carnivore diet and you're going to have all the fruit of the spirit.

You know, I mean, it may give you more energy, you know, it may help you sleep better. It may remove some temptations, but you still got to do the work.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so part of, you know, as we're, we're talking about these things, like part of it is, um, you know, you, you, you, you, you,

You can feel so much comfort and conveniences with, with vacuum cleaners and dishwashers and washing machines and dryers and running water with hot and cold, uh, plumbing and everything for us.

With the microwaves and the grocery stores that you can go to. I could just so impossible.

So part of it's that. delivery. You don't even have to leave your house.

So I mean, a lot of those things are true, but then, you know, you know, a lot of what you've realized in your life is just the importance of,

Like part of why you speak to these ladies in such a direct way is because you've had people like speak to you that kind of way too.

Yeah. And it was my husband, you know, just ladies, listen to your husband when he's trying to rebuke you.

Be thankful if you have anybody in your life, heaven forbid it's a man who shouldn't be speaking to your woman issues, but yeah, lay down your pride and listen.

But I definitely think that God has designed marriage in such a way that, you know, men often are stronger in those areas and God's gifted them in such a way to help ladies deal with some of these things that maybe they don't actually want to deal with.

But then, I mean, obviously like, you know, in marriage after marriage after marriage, it's not something like, I mean, if you see like, hey, you say these things to ladies, ladies are going to scream at you.

Yeah. And if I say these things to ladies, they're going to scream at me. Yeah, it doesn't matter. The ones that don't want to hear it, don't want to hear it, it doesn't matter who's telling them.

Right. But then, I mean, there is something to be said about just like, you know, what do you do if you're the husband, that kind of scenario, right?

Just be thankful. Keep on trying, right? Don't give up. Keep on trying. Yeah, I mean, and there's no, you know, and that's often what

I'm trying to say to husbands too in these kind of scenarios is just to say, hey, man, like, don't give up.

And, you know, a lot of what's happening on the ladies end is they want the quick fix.

They just want their feelings to go away magically overnight without having to change how they're thinking, how they're acting, what they're doing.

Yeah. You know, and then on the other end though, the guys, they just want to say to their wife like, hey, honey, you know, snap out of it.

You know, let's move on, right? Sure. Yeah. But then, I mean... Our feelings lie to us constantly and men are much better at seeing that most of the time and being able to be rational and logical about it and recognize when that's happening.

And so, count yourself blessed if you have a husband who is there in your life pointing these things out.

What a blessing that God hasn't left you to yourself, hasn't left you in that sin, that if he's put someone in your life that's pointing these things out and if your husband has given up, if you're like listening to this episode and you are a woman who is struggling with these things and you can recognize it by God's grace, your eyes are opened to that behavior and maybe you can think back and say, like, my husband used to try to tell me this stuff and he doesn't anymore, then go to him and ask forgiveness and tell him, please, you know, start doing that again and help me, you know?

Definitely. Well, I mean, I think as we're talking about this subject, I mean, what we want people to come away with is the idea that,

I mean, there is hope. You don't have to be dominated by these things and, you know, the Bible says that there's no temptation that's overtaken you but what is common to man and these are,

I mean, these are common life problems. Yeah, common. So common. Yeah, I mean, like anxiety, depression, like there's nothing more common than that.

Like worry is a life problem. I mean, we're sinful human beings living in a sinful world where we, you know, we're not

God. We live in a messed up world. There's plenty to be anxious about if you let yourself. That's never going to go away, this side of heaven.

Right. I mean, like you, I mean, you don't know how many days that you're given. I mean, we live under this illusion of control, like we think that we're in control of the world but we're not.

I mean, like, we can barely even figure out what's going to happen in the next few moments of our day and so, like, worry is just the natural state of affairs for man.

Like, you know, if you even think about the way that God's designed the world, He's designed the world in such a way that you have to sleep eight hours a day and be utterly dependent upon Him, like, at His, you know, at the mercy of every, of other people around you because He wants to teach you how to trust in Him.

And so, like, when you're talking about, like, issues like worry, issues like anxiety, when you're talking about issues like, you know, sorrow, despair, sadness, because, you know, these are just, these are basic human problems that all of us experience and the

Bible has answers to these things, you know, but the Bible says no temptation is overtaking you, you know, as we said, it was common to man,

God's faithful, He's not going to allow you to be tempted beyond your ability, but with that temptation, He'll provide a way of escape that you may bear it.

I mean, if you just look at the Bible, you trust the Lord with all your heart, you don't lean on your own understanding, like, just trust that God is

God, you know, and a lot of, like, these things, like, they're as messy as it can feel when you're in this downward spiral of depression or a downward spiral of anxiety, as messy as that can feel,

I mean, like, there's just simple answers, you know, trust and obey, there's no other way to be happy in Jesus than to trust and obey,

I mean, there's just, like, the issue is the Christian life isn't really meant to be complicated, but...

Right. We make it that way. Yeah, we make it, we make it complicated, I mean, we make it hard, even though conceptually it's really easy.

I mean, and if your homemaker is easy, I mean, just, yes, you're doing a job where there's no accountability in it whatsoever, you know, like, meaning, like, the only way you're gonna do this job and do it well is if you have the fear of the

Lord, you know that God sees what you're doing and He's watching what you're doing and He cares about you and His plans are the best, but,

I mean, getting up in the morning and, you know, having a good attitude and cleaning your home and feeding your kids and teaching your kids, homeschooling your kids to the glory of God, you know that, like, you're only gonna do that, you're gonna do that with a good attitude if you know that, you know,

God rewards those who diligently seek Him and it's better to serve Him than it is to bow down to your flesh and give in to despair and give in to hopelessness and give in to sadness, and so...

Absolutely. So, if there's anything we can leave ladies with and, you know, men with, too, if you're struggling with these kind of things as well, it's just to say that God's given us answers in His Word and He's given us everything in the

Scriptures that we need for life and godliness and His ways are good, but we thank you for listening and we hope to catch you on the next time.

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