There is a widespread belief that it is quite natural for people to feel depressed occasionally. But this is not so. Men and women need not suffer from the unhappiness and frustration of depression, and they never would if they understood more clearly that God's offspring always reflect His qualities in spiritually radiant activity.

According to human belief, depression is a disabling affliction that affects women more often than men. But there is no valid earthly reason why it should—and certainly there is no heavenly one. Mrs. Eddy writes, "Immortal men and women are models of spiritual sense, drawn by perfect Mind and reflecting those higher conceptions of loveliness which transcend all material sense." ^{Science and Health, p. 247;}

The immortal woman who is "drawn by perfect Mind" is wholly spiritual. She is wholly separate from the mortal belief of womanhood that is apparently represented in a material body, subject to physical conditions and human responsibilities. She includes and experiences the "higher conceptions of loveliness" that all the immortal offspring of God, divine Love, invariably reflect according to spiritual law. Her life powerfully expresses the qualities of Soul in wisdom, creative intelligence, beauty, order, integrity, and love. Her peace and joy are eternally assured.

The individual woman who understands her spiritual status and inheritance as God's offspring can gratefully agree with Paul, who wrote in his letter to the Christians in Rome: "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." ^{Rom. 8:38, 39;}

The teachings of Christ Jesus expose the fallacy of all discord, including depression. They affirm that man is the son of God; and, clearly, the offspring of Deity can never really suffer from depression or any other ailment. Each of God's children is the present expression of His radiant being. Christian Science also shows that when this Christly revelation of spiritual identity is accepted into thought and acknowledged as truth, it becomes as practical in daily experience now as it was in the time of Paul. It helps the teen-ager struggling with the perplexities of growing up. It comforts the middle-aged housewife, the businessman, the lonely pensioner.

Women can prove themselves to be exempt from the discomforts and inconveniences associated with the normal periodic cycles of human life. They need not suffer crises of physical change that are often blamed for depressive tendencies but are, in fact, the phenomena of false mortal belief. Women can be free from the afflictions of mortal defects believed to be inherited, and the traditional burdens of so-called feminine frailty and dependence. They need not be plagued by tensions—bodily, household, family, or social. They need never feel bored or frustrated. They can confidently know that the open door of opportunity, which divine Principle places before them, can never be shut by any mortal prejudice or circumstance.

Mrs. Eddy writes in Unity of Good, "Mortals may climb the smooth glaciers, leap the dark fissures, scale the treacherous ice, and stand on the summit of Mont Blanc; but they can never turn back what Deity knoweth, nor escape from identification with what dwelleth in the eternal Mind." ^{Un., p. 64;}

Indeed, nothing is "able to separate us from the love of God." Nothing can take from us the inspiration and joy of being the immortal offspring of perfect Mind.

This fact of immortal being should be constantly acknowledged and strongly affirmed. Each individual will be greatly helped who clearly identifies himself (or herself) as God's spiritual idea, knows himself (or herself) as God knows His children, and consciously aims to express in daily life the qualities of divine Love that constitute the actual substance of God-created identity.

Since mortals are merely the counterfeits of immortals, men and women have only to turn from the belief of mortality to correctly know themselves as peaceful, satisfied, radiant, spiritual offspring of divine Mind. They can immediately realize that their individual consciousness and being are intact and perfect in God's likeness, reflecting goodness and love, activity and joy, usefulness and fulfillment. They can feel assured that their identity will freely develop in beauty and accomplishment, for, as Mrs. Eddy writes, "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis." ^{Science and Health, p. 258;}

When this scientific fact of immortal being is learned, and its grand implications for the individual experience of men and women are even partly understood, it becomes easier to lift oneself above depression—even to avoid it altogether. Meanwhile, it is true that friends can help by expressing patience and loving concern, and by refusing to admit the false mortal belief that periodic dispositional lapses are normal and actual, having emotional or physical cause. But individuals themselves can do most toward lifting their own gloom by making a definite effort to express the qualities of divine Spirit that truly constitute their immortal identity.

Depression cannot coexist with spiritual expression. The most effective cure for despondency is always the medicine of divine Mind that drives it away. Mrs. Eddy writes, "God's preparations for the sick are potions of His own qualities." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 268.} When we are confronted by depressive symptoms, nothing is more healing than to consciously express God's qualities—actively express the qualities of our own immortal selves.

Naomi Price