1. Intro
i. Behind me, you see a very partial list of famous people who live with a mental illness. Take a moment and read some of those names.
1. Anxiety normally affects 18% of the population in a given year. We know for certain that it has skyrocketed with Covid, but we don’t have numbers to quantify yet.
2. Only 1/3 of people who experience anxiety seek treatment.
3. Panic Disorder is like an acute severe anxiety attack. And can be truly debilitating
4. A phobia is defined as an intense, irrational fear of something that poses little or no actual danger. 9.1% of U.S. adults had specific phobia in the past year
5. A much smaller group of people have Borderline Personality Disorder. About 1.6% of people experience this illness which destabilizes our moods and removes inhibitions.
6. Paranoid personality disorder occurs in about one out of 50 people in the general population
7. I want to remind you I am not a mental health provider. I give you these statistics for two reasons.
a. I want you to know that even if you don’t have a mental illness you know people who do. And if you do, you are not alone.
b. Second, the stigma around mental illness is such that, I feel like, speaking the words, naming the diagnosis, using some of the words correctly in normal conversation can start to destigmatize and bring hope and peace to those who feel put down or marginalized.
ii. Now take a look at this list. Does it surprise you to see so many of your favorite Biblical characters are listed there? Now, I can’t see some of those diagnoses myself, but my list is compiled from a couple of different lists that were made by Christian counselors and therapists who are certainly more qualified to make those calls than am I.
iii. The bible reflects all of these mental illnesses because scripture reflects reality. The reality is that we are created to be whole beings. We were created to be mental, emotional, cognitive, social, biological, relational, and spiritual beings. Wholeness is a healthy balance of all the parts of our being. Illness is when the wheel doesn’t balance. Mental health is just as important in that balance as our weight, blood pressure, or having friends.
b. Remember Nami defines mental illness as medical conditions that disrupt a person’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to others, and daily functioning.
i. Last week we talked about illnesses that turn our thinking upside-down: depression and bipolar depression, Obsessive-compulsive disorder, eating disorders, and schizophrenia.
c. The second thing on the Nami definition is an illness that affects our feelings. This week we refer to phobias, anxiety, and panic which comprise one family of illnesses that start by dysregulating our feelings. We also include borderline personality disorder and paranoid personality disorder because they also seem to me to start with a distortion of feelings. Any mental illness can certainly affect us in a variety of ways including our thoughts AND feelings, so this is not a simple distinction. I know the categories are oversimplified, and not all-inclusive. I think, however, that since our primary concern is exploring a theology of mental health and ministry to those who do live with a mental illness this simple distinction helps us to understand how mental illness works.
2. The most important starting point in any theology of mental health has to be recognizing that God designed and created us as whole beings including our feelings, emotions, and thoughts. Our emotions and feelings are a gift from God.
a. A mental illness, then, is when those emotions and feelings get out of balance with the rest of our life. Mental illnesses and physical illnesses are a brokenness in the human condition, and sometimes they can affect every aspect of our lives and health.
b. The next logical step in moving the theology of mental health ahead, then, is that if our feelings and emotions are part of the image of God in us, then God must also have feelings and emotions. Yes, God does. Absolutely.
i. The God of the Old and New Testament is far from stoic. God has all kinds of emotions like righteous anger, love, joy, hope, and disappointment. To experience these same emotions is part of what it means to claim the image of God that is within us.
c. Emotions and feelings existed in God and creation from the beginning of time.
i. God created and saw that it was “good” a feeling
ii. God made all the trees and flowers and animals so that they would be pleasing to Adam, pleasing is a feeling.
iii. After creation, but before the fall Adam and Eve are described as “Naked but not ashamed” a feeling.
iv. It works the other way too. Our bodies react physiologically to an experience. That physiological response can affect our emotions and feelings. That’s why my first Psychiatrist recommended cold showers to get a jolt of serotonin going in my brain and reverse the slide into depression. That’s also why one day when a coworker’s blood sugar became seriously low, it triggered a rage response and a circular saw went flying across a job site. So, you see our feelings, emotions, chemistry, environment, relationships and more are symbiotically connected.
d. It would be nice if our bodies, minds, emotions, and feelings were all wrapped up in one nice neat God-given package. Whether a person has any kind of mental illness or not, it is anything but neat. Emotions are messy.
3. But that is OK. Because the second truth in a theology of mental health is that God is never far away, and God’s presence brings a promise of rest. There are several places we can look.
a. Today’s passage from Matthew is a great example “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Anxiety is exhausting! That’s what we need: rest.
b. Jesus goes on, “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” sign us up,” right? There are days when it may be hard to get your head off the pillow or nights where there is no rest, and easy and light is all we can handle.
c. Or we could look at John 14 which starts with “Do not let your hearts be troubled” but by the end, Jesus offers the Holy Spirit as an advocate… one who is on our side.
d. And Jesus promised peace. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” Wow, peace. I have read descriptions of some mental illnesses as was wars inside our heads, and I have talked to persons with schizophrenia who feel that way. I have seen and felt the battle with anxiety. Peace? Peace would be A wonderful gift.
e. I Peter entreats to “cast all your cares upon him.” I know you don’t have to tell me it isn’t that simple but isn’t is nice to know Jesus' shoulders are big enough to carry the weight of all our worry.
f. Romans promises that nothing can separate us from God’s love
g. And in the end, God promises “I will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” No more depression, or anxiety, or borderline personality disorder, or schizophrenia, or paranoid personality disorder, or addiction. Or any other mental illness because the old order of things has passed away… the previous order of things has passed away. The broken order will pass away, and the new will come.
4. This means that restoration is possible; Healing is possible. Hope is possible. Survival is possible. For those with a mental illness.
That is the third element of a good theology of mental health.
1. We are created with emotions.
2. God is always with us
3. There is hope. God promises to hope even rising from the darkness.
5. As long as God is with us there is hope for all of us isn’t there? Including persons with mental illness.
a. Therapy is an important piece of restoring balance.
b. Medicines are a wonderful gift to help us to restore the biochemical imbalance in our lives.
c. friends and supports are essential to learning to rebalance our mental health. Do you remember the ABC’s of mental health ministry?
i. ASK- be interested, notice changes,
ii. ACCEPT- no judgment, no persuading, accept who we are and how we feel.
iii. And this week is BE THERE. – Either you are a friend to someone with a mental illness, or you need a friend. We all need a friend or support person to just be there. Not to fix us, not to rescue us, but to walk with us. Sometimes that might include concrete support like getting to appointments, or groceries, sometimes it might include encouraging us to stay on our medicines, but most of the time we just need to know that you and God are here with us no matter what. Through all the ups ad downs of our illness. Through the therapy and the medication side effects, and the bad days, and our thinking that this will never end. Just be there, as Robyn has always been there for me. She had to learn that she couldn’t fix me, but she has been there every time I needed her in the last 40 years. Thank you. If you haven’t thanked, your support person lately, do it today.
iv. Being there is harder than it sounds, but more important than you might imagine.
I remember the first time I sat with someone who was suicidal. 2 weeks earlier a young couple who lived in a trailer in Windsor Indiana had visited the church with a new baby, so I stopped by just to say welcome and get to know them. The husband answered the door and said I’m so glad you are here my wife just cut her wrists. Call 911 for me. The woman went to the hospital and was physically fine. I went to visit her in the hospital mental health unit.
I knocked on the door and she said you can come in if you won’t say anything. I am glad I did. We sat there for an hour. She said 11 words. I said nothing except a brief prayer at the end. Her only words were “I want to die.” she said that twice. Then when I offered prayer, she said “I’m so sorry.”
A week later when I saw her at the house she said, “I don’t remember much of being in the hospital, but I remember you coming. You didn’t try to fix me. You didn’t argue with me. It meant so much that you sat with me. Will you come to sit with me again. I did. She spoke three times again. “She said I don’t want to die. I want to raise my daughter.” I smiled and whispered something like “Good” She said, “do you think my husband will forgive me?” I said, I was with him a long time the other night and I think he has. And she said thank you for sitting with me. I offered a prayer and left.
Just being there.
I hope you never find yourself in that exact situation, but I hope you understand a little better how the ministry of the presence or the ministry of being there can make a world of difference to a hurting person.
Go, make a difference.
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