I understand a lot of what you've said. I'm ruled and dominated by my emotions. What God says in the Bible gets twisted and obscured in my mind by my emotions. I could point out scripture verses to you which say that God does accept you and me, as Christians, in Jesus Christ. But I'd feel like a hypocrite, since I have such a hard time believing those verses myself. The Bible says that I am accepted by God in Christ. My emotions feel like I have been cast away by God. The right thing to do is to believe what God says in His Word. But more often then not, I commit the sin of believing my emotions instead. I don't have any children, but I do worry for the salvation of my two nieces. I have no idea how to go about telling them about the Lord Jesus Christ as their Saviour; since my sister would never allow me to. I have no solution to that problem. And I know what you mean about not wanting people to know that you are depressed and a Christian at the same time. People look at that as a contradiction in terms. I also worry about the testamonial that this gives. "Become a Christian, and be miserable like me" seems like the message that I'm giving off to people.
And I often feel like other Christians think less of me, because of my depression. But the bottom line to that problem is that we don't have to be justified in the sight of other people. To get to heaven, we only have to be justified in the sight of God. Romans 5:1,2 says that you and I are justified by faith in Jesus Christ as our Saviour, and we have peace with God through Him. Romans 8 asks the question "who is it who condemns, when it is God who justifies?" So let other people who don't understand depression think whatever they want; you are not accountable to them. I know that other peoples' opinions can hurt. They hurt me too. But the bottom line is that God has justified me through His Son, Jesus Christ; so let other people think what they will about me. It doesn't matter what they think. I hope this helps some.
