Mental Illness & the Family of God
Growing up, I was always raised with the thought line, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” Over the years, I’ve come to realize that sometimes what is “nice” and what is necessary to voice aren’t always the same thing. For example, it’s not nice to tell someone that they are a sinner. It is actually quite offensive. No one likes to be told that they’re wrong. But telling someone they are a sinner is necessary to leading them into a relationship with Jesus Christ. Staying silent and being “nice” are actually the opposite of what Scripture admonishes us to do when it says to SPEAK the truth in love.
When you love someone, you will speak truth to them. Even if it’s offensive. I love my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, and I feel led to speak out with what is about to follow.
As some may already know, God has graced me with a story that took me through a very dark time and brought me out to make me a witness to Him. If I were writing my life story, I would not have included mental illness in it. It actually would have been so far off my radar that I didn’t know it was an option to consider weaving into my life’s story. Even in looking back at my story, I wish there was some way to extract the lessons God taught me during that time without having to actually experience all that I experienced during that time.
It.
was.
difficult.
beyond.
words.
But, as always, God knows better than I do, and I believe He gave me the experiences He did for reasons far beyond my ability to figure out. But if I could pinpoint just one reason within my understanding, it would be this: perspective.
Along with the story God has given me, I have learned some lessons I didn’t know I needed to learn. And now, I find myself speaking to issues I didn’t know I ever would think twice about. I don’t pretend to be an expert on the issue of mental illness as a whole. It is very, very complex. But what I do know is my story, what God has taught me through it, and my responsibility to use it for His glory.
Let me share with you a story that recently came to my attention:
I have a Christian friend. {Let me clarify that: She isn’t just Christian in the sense of American=Christian or Church-going=Christian. She is a woman of great, genuine, strong faith in Jesus Christ and one I highly respect.} This friend of mine has been struggling with mental illness. I’m talking clinical depression. For a loooooong time. Roughly a decade. When she finally felt the courage to share this guarded information with who she perceived to be a trusted friend, the friend basically wrote off her illness as a spiritual issue and said something along the lines of the Bible being sufficient for all we need.
Let me speak to that, & let’s start here:
As I write this, my 2-yr-old is watching an episode of Daniel Tiger, which is a spin-off from the original Mr. Roger’s neighborhood. Mr. Rogers was once credited for saying that when adults tell children to stop crying, they aren’t addressing the issue. They’re basically saying, “You (and your crying) make me feel uncomfortable. Stop making me feel uncomfortable. Stop crying.”
I feel like we, as the church, have done that same exact thing to those (both inside and outside of the church) who have mental illness. Instead of addressing the real issues, some church people like to say to those who have mental illness, “You need to confess sin.” or “You need to pray more.” or “You need to read your Bible more.” or “The Bible is sufficient for all you need.” That’s really the church-y way to say, “You (and your mental illness) make me feel uncomfortable. Stop making me feel uncomfortable. Pray more.”
Now many of us, if not most of us, are not readily equipped to address and handle all of the issues that go side-by-side in mental illness. But there is something we as the church can be doing differently.
I bet the “trusted friend” in the story mentioned above probably thought she was doing my friend a favor and encouraging her by telling her the Bible was all she needed for her mental illness.
However, the response the trusted friend gave was not very helpful. And really, though the statement had some truth to it, it also came to a very incomplete (and hurtful) conclusion.
Though I do not believe the comment was rooted in ill will, I do believe it was rooted in an attempt to escape some level of uncomfortableness, and it was accompanied by a skewed perspective and a general lack of understanding. Overall, it lacked a response that demonstrated lovingkindness to a very vulnerable friend in desperate need of it.
We would not dare tell someone with cancer, diabetes, broken bones, etc. that the Bible was all they needed. That would be both illogical and mean. We would tell them to go the the hospital, get a cast, see a doctor, get treatments, take medication, etc. That’s what some would call common sense. The fact that those options are even a thing is because of the ordinary good graces of God. Why do we find it fitting and okay to say that the Bible is really all you need to someone struggling hard with mental illness? And why do we judge or shame someone with mental illness for taking medication, getting counseling, or going to see a psychiatrist( of all things!)?
Is it because it makes us uncomfortable? It is because we have a somewhat skewed perspective?
It is because we generally lack accurate information and understanding?
Yes. Yes. And more yes. I’m not saying that we have to wait until we feel comfortable, have a proper perspective, and gain accurate understanding to respond well to those struggling with mental illness. I’m saying regardless of those issues we’ve got to change our response to those struggling with mental illness. We need to replace the stigma with a lot of things, but for now let’s settle on the idea of replacing it with responses that ooze compassion, lovingkindness, and a willingness to do nothing less than to help bear one another’s burdens as brothers and sisters in the Lord.
In case I have to clarify,
Illness by itself is not a sin.
Mental illness by itself is not a sin.
Both are a result of brokenness.
Granted, yes, some woke up this morning with illnesses and chemical imbalances due to poor choices of their own making. But some woke up this morning with illnesses and/or mental illness due to uncontrollable factors, such as genetic predisposition, fluctuating hormones and hormonal imbalances, underlying medical conditions, or for no seeming underlying cause or reason whatsoever. How do we know who is who? We don’t. And we need to stop pretending that we do know.
Like the blind man who was blind from birth. Was it his sin? Was it the sin of his parents? In that case, it was neither. It was so the Son of God could be glorified.
For all those who woke up this morning with clinical depression and/or an anxiety disorder or some other kind of mental illness, was it because of their sin? Was it because of the sin of their parents? Maybe it is solely so the Son of God could be glorified in their brokenness. And that, in itself, is more than enough reason.
Mental illness is not a result of a lack of faith. If I may be so bold, perhaps, sometimes God chooses those with stronger faith to gift the struggle of mental illness to simply because it brings Him glory. He specializes in bring gloriously good out of terrifically-terribly broken things.
If mental illness is not a result of a lack of faith. What is it? It can be a lot of things. But getting straight down to it, mental illness is a result of unbalanced chemicals in a person’s brain. It’s one of the many painful results of living in a broken world where nothing operates as it should. Nothing. For some, that includes the chemicals in their brains being unbalanced.
If you woke up this morning with a brain with well-balanced chemicals, congratulations. Did you strong-faith your way into it? No, you didn’t. Neither did I. You didn’t control the chemicals in your brain and you definitely did not consciously tell them how to perfectly balance themselves out this morning. And neither did I. God did. Praise God that He did!!
Did you praise the Lord for it? Do you thank God unceasingly for it, knowing that at the drop of a hat everything could change and your brain could go haywire? Or did you take it for granted?
If you haven’t already, stop and thank God for your mental health right now. You seriously have no idea what it’s like to see life through the lense of the other side and how very painful every moment can be.
If you woke up this morning with a chemically-imbalanced brain, by all means take your medication, see your therapist, and go to your doctor’s appointments. Utilize the common sense ordinary good graces of God. And don’t feel guilty about it. Don’t carry shame and stigma everywhere you go. Seeking appropriate measures of health for mental illness doesn’t make you less of a Christian. It doesn’t lessen your faith. If you are so-very-bold to tell others about it, it may honestly alter the way people view you or treat you. But it definitely doesn’t alter God’s view of you in Christ Jesus. And it won’t affect the way He sees you. Hold on to that, dear sweet brother and sister in Christ. I’ve been where you are, and it is only by the Holy Spirit that I’ve been able to muster the courage to say all of this. May God get the glory for my words, and may you see God’s glory in the midst of your struggle. You are not alone.
———
No matter which side of mental illness you are currently living your life in, I’m curious: If you were the trusted friend in that scenario, what would you have said?
If you would have responded the same way the trusted friend did, I would ask you challenge you to pause & check yourself. And then, I would humbly ask you to reconsider your incomplete conclusion.
You may be wondering: How would I have responded to my friend had I not gone through mental illness? I don’t know exactly what I would have said in-that-moment. I know I would have most likely felt awkward and uncomfortable, to say the least, and I probably would have said something that reflected that. I would hope and pray that what I would have said would have also conveyed some level of empathy and a response infused with the love of Christ.
Although I can’t quite say how I’d respond to that, I can tell you how I responded to a friend of mine who struggled with another stigma: the stigma of infertility.
To put it in context, I never struggled with infertility. Like at all. And by that, I mean within 3 months of marriage I was already hanging over the toilet with the overwhelming blessing of morning sickness. When my first child turned a year old, I was already pregnant with child number two. I don’t say that with any amount of superiority. That would be ridiculous. I don’t control my level of fertile-ness.
Yet while I had no reference or context whatsoever for personally facing infertility, God gave me the sensitivity and ability to reach out to the one who I saw struggling. At that time, she was more of an acquaintance than anything. I saw some FB posts and felt God was leading me to reach out to her. As I recall, I basically started with something like this: “I don’t understand what you’re going through. But I see you. And I’m here for you. Let me share with you a struggle I’ve faced and how I’ve seen God work in it....” and then I proceeded to tell her my story.
From a series of FB messages that followed, in time, she and her husband came over for dinner. She’s grown to become one of my dear friends ever since.
All said, I don’t pretend to always have appropriate, empathetic, loving responses to the struggles of others. That would be dishonest on my part. But I think having that kind of response is the goal for anyone who calls themselves a child of God. It truly is the ultimate struggle for all of us to have empathy and a loving response for others when we have no idea what it is like to be in their struggle, but something I want to remind and encourage all of us with is this: You don’t have to know what the struggle is like to have empathy and a loving response. You just have to know Who Jesus is and what He is like.
Jesus said the world would know who were His disciples by how we love one another. Let our loving responses to one another (whose struggles we don’t understand) display to the world that we follow the One Who does (understand).
Practically speaking, if you would like to be truly encouraging and to those who struggle with mental illness and you would like to help lessen the faulty thinking and overall stigma that surrounds Christians who have mental illnesses, be gut-level honest with them.
Try starting with something like this: “Thank you for letting me into your struggle! I don’t understand what you’re going through. At all. In fact, it makes me uncomfortable to talk about mental illness. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to suffer like you do. I don’t really know what to say, and I don’t know why exactly you have mental illness, but I know that God is good. I know He loves you very much. I know He has chosen you for this illness and pain for some higher and greater purpose than we may ever know. I know that every day you wake up and praise Him, you’re giving Him glory through the tears and through the pain. Know that you are not alone in this struggle. You are braver than you know for sharing this difficult, trusted information with me. So many others suffer just like you do, but they suffer oh-so-silently. I will pray for you in this struggle. I will pray God gives you boldness to tell others what you just told me. Through it all, I’m here for you.”
Do you see how that kind of response one-by-one could change the stigma surrounding mental illness?
With more responses like that, more who struggle with mental illness will be able to share their struggles openly, and we will become one step closer to bearing one another burdens as a family of believers in Jesus Christ should be.
So yes, we need the Bible, my dear “trusted friend.”
But we may also need common sense ordinary measures of God’s grace, like medication and/or counseling.
And that is completely okay.
Do you know what else we need? We need our church family. We definitely need our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Let’s stop focusing on the problem of a perceived or assumed “lack of faith” in those who struggle with mental illness.
Let’s focus on how we can replace the stigma with responses oozing with overwhelming levels of lovingkindness. Let’s focus on how we can help bear one another’s burdens.
And for goodness sake, let’s focus on stop telling those with mental illness that it’s a spiritual issue and the Bible is all that we need. Just like the kid in the Mr Rogers’ scenario should not be told to stop crying because we do not know what is truly causing it. Our brothers and sisters in Christ should not be told to stop mental-illnessing because we do not know what is truly causing it.
And just to spin this whole idea on it’s head, have you ever wondered, mental illness may not be used as punishment for those with a lack of faith. It may be used to bolster ours as we watch them praise God in the midst of and despite their intense struggle.
I know that may not come across as sounding “nice,” but sometimes some things are just necessary to be said.
