The following post was excerpted with permission from Hope for the Anxious and Depressed by Hope A. Blanton and Christine B. Gordon. Copyright 2026, B&H Publishing.
“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)
I (Hope) once read a story about a pastor from Nebraska who was sent to San Francisco with a job title of “The Ministry of Presence.” His job was to walk the streets from 11pm until 7am and care for the homeless, the prostitutes, and the destitute. He would often just be with them, even accompanying them to the hospital if they had a crisis or emergency. He was embodying the gospel. His ministry changed lives for Jesus. Never minimize what being present can do for someone who is struggling. Helping often starts with the simple, brave step of moving toward someone.
Over the years we have heard so many beautiful accounts of people loving depressed and anxious people well. Stories of friends cleaning people’s houses, sitting with them in the dark for hours, praying over them in bed, going with them to the doctor, driving them to counseling, watching their kids, mowing their lawns, or dropping off flowers or coffee.
A few years ago, my (Hope’s) aunt got into a terrible car accident. When I called my cousin, she was sitting at the ER waiting to find out if her mom would make it. She was later transferred to the ICU in St Louis. I live all the way down in San Antonio and couldn’t get to her. But Christine lives in St. Louis. She offered to be present with my family; she offered to go in my place. She brought my cousin food. She rubbed her shoulders, prayed with her, and even went into the room with my aunt. A few months ago, my aunt called me and said, “Was your friend at the hospital after my accident? Because I’m just now remembering that she came by. And I can’t tell you how loved I feel that she would do that.” Christine didn’t do much that day. But she moved toward the pain, and it mattered.
I (Christine) was attending a conference one summer where I was hosting a table for At His Feet Studies, the Bible Study company Hope and I co-founded. It was mid-June, and I had just lived through a very cloudy, very long May full of struggles with one difficult child and worries about another. I had zero energy and very little motivation. And yet I was about to spend three days talking to hundreds of women about our books, attempting to convince them that what we had written would be helpful to them. Both Hope and my husband, Michael, were at the conference with me. Both had to help me get out of bed that week. Both reminded me at one point that my only job for the next few minutes was to put my shoes on, because that’s the only job I was capable of at that moment. They encouraged me, gave me long hugs, brought me food, and made me laugh. The only reason I talked to anyone that week was because of these two loving souls.
About four times over the last 25 years my anxiety has gotten so bad that I, (Hope), have had to be in bed for a day or two. When that happens it’s hard for me to eat, sleep, or work. Several times during these episodes I have had friends come into my bedroom, sit on my bed, and pray for me. They often say, “We don’t know what to say. You’re usually the one that knows what to say. But we’re here and we love you.” I can still see their faces. I have felt so cared for; this was holy ground. I felt Jesus right there in my bedroom. Friends did countless other things: listened to all my irrational and rational fears, drove me to the store and the doctor, watched my kids, cooked me food. When I’m anxious one of my fears is that I will almost “get lost” in my own mind. When people have helped me, I’ve felt less alone and less scared.
Jesus’s example
The pain of other humans is incredibly complex and storied. While we must always remember that no two people’s experiences of anxiety or depression are alike, we can, with the help of the Holy Spirit, be a powerful help to those who struggle. Jesus’s life is a template for an attitude that seeks to help those in pain:
Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus,
who, existing in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God
as something to be exploited.
Instead he emptied himself
by assuming the form of a servant,
taking on the likeness of humanity.
And when he had come as a man,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death —
even to death on a cross. (Phil 2:5-9)
Jesus’s response to our suffering was never to pull away or refuse to get his hands dirty. He put his rights and reputation aside. He left his place of comfort to enter into our dirty, broken, sad world. He got as close as he could to us and served.
Luke 7:11-17 tells the story of Jesus walking with his disciples and running into a funeral procession for the son of a widow. Instead of passing by this interruption, he saw and had compassion on the woman who had lost both her husband and her only son. He spoke to her, touched the coffin of the dead man, and healed him. “The dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother” (v15). The result of this miracle? People glorified the Father and drew the right conclusion about Jesus’s reason for being on this earth: “God has visited his people” (v16).
Just a chapter later in Luke 8:40-56 Jesus stopped amid a crowd when he felt power leave him. He made the woman who had been healed by the touch identify herself and then dignified her by calling her daughter and telling her she had been saved by her faith. He went from there to raise a young girl from the dead whose father had pleaded with him, falling at his feet earlier. When the little girl awoke from death, he commanded something—and it wasn’t that she should immediately report to him all the evangelism strategies she would here forth employ or even that she rise and get to good kingdom work, but “that she be given something to eat” (v55).
Jesus’s response to our suffering is to enter into it. To come near it. To be the way God visits us in our woes and wailing, helping us along with a gentle touch or a warm meal. He did this in the lives of individuals he encountered while living here on earth. He did it for the world by dying on the cross as an innocent man. We attempt to enter into other people’s suffering because Jesus first entered into ours. And when we do, God is not only glorified in a generic sense, but people are genuinely visited by him in their specific time of need.
Learn more about Hope for the Anxious and Depressed by Hope A. Blanton and Christine B. Gordon.
About the Authors
Hope A. Blanton is a licensed Clinical Social Worker and a co-founder of At His Feet Studies. Hope spends her days counseling in her private counseling practice in San Antonio, TX. She loves being outside, making people laugh, and hanging out with her husband and three kids.
Christine B. Gordon, MATS, is an adjunct professor and DMin student at Covenant Theological Seminary and cofounder of At His Feet Studies. She loves to walk, make music with other people, and snuggle with her ridiculous dogs. She lives with her husband and three children (when the oldest visits from college) in St. Louis.
