7Depression steals joy and brings pain. After serving for more than thirty years as a parish minister, the author was hospitalized for major depression and experienced the powers of this disease to destroy all that makes life good. In the years since, he has learned it is possible to recover the joy that depression had stolen. Always with honesty, often with humor, he shares the lessons he learned on his recovery journey back from being hospitalized to practicing his profession. He offers these lessons as ""Forty-Nine Helps,"" each a short chapter focused on a specific aid to recovery, each speaking the truth to depression's lies.