Category: mental illness

Does Your Sickness Bless You?

The Sick Child 1907 Edvard Munch 1863-1944

“A man was lying there who had been sick for thirty-eight years.”

John 5:5

That’s an incredibly long time to be sick. It must be difficult to be an invalid year after year, with no real hope of ever being healed. This passage describes the scene, (see John 5:1-15). Apparently there was a large group of invalids waiting for the stirring of the waters. That misplaced hope was all they had.

I’ve often wondered why Jesus didn’t heal them all. Why just one when there were so many?

Perhaps the issue was their spiritual state. Most were focused on the pool, they felt that this was their only hope. They could see nothing else. So many today are distracted, we look at those things that might save us instead of looking at Jesus.

Perhaps Jesus would return to the Pool of Bethesda on another day. We’re not told but we know Jesus did quite a few miracles that aren’t recorded. (John 21:25.)

It was the Sabbath, and the healing violated the religious rules of the Pharisees. Jesus refused this man-made edict, and did the will of God. This decision meant healing this paralyzed man.

God doesn’t make mistakes in dealing with His own children.

Our Father does His will, and as believers we must trust in Him and what He promises. By faith, we however believe in His goodness and love. We reject the lies the evil one tells us about our spiritual Father.

My confidence is that He knows in which school I will learn the best lessons

He knows what experiences are necessary for me to grow up. Knowing this doesn’t make it easier, but it does make it eternal. There’s a graduation day coming soon.

We have no power in ourselves to do Christ’s will, but if we do begin to obey what He asks the needed grace is given. Young people often say that they are afraid to enter into a Christian life because they can not do what will be required. In their own strength, they cannot. Plain and simple. 

Human strength in itself is basically inadequate for what life throws at us.

I’m convinced that sick-rooms should be seen as holy places, especially set apart for believers who are becoming more like Jesus everyday. It’s hard, but we remember that God has summoned us there for some special work upon our souls. We must be very careful here or we will miss the good He wants us to receive.

It’s really only those who are trusting Christ and crying out for grace that become blessed by their sickness. I hate to say it but as a believer I’ve found pain to be the best teacher I ever had. I’ve also wasted these opportunities.

But even in that hard place, look for His lessons.

“Too many invalids grow discontented, unhappy, sour, and fretful. Sickness oftentimes fails to do good to those who suffer. There are few experiences in which we so much need to be watchful over ourselves and prayerful toward God.

Be sure to keep the sickness out of your heart, and keep Christ there with His love and peace.”

—JR Miller

Has God Given Up on You?

“If we are unfaithful,
    he remains faithful,
    for he cannot deny who he is.” 

2 Timothy 2:13

There are often times of great despair; when sin or sickness is definitely front and center. Losing hope is an easy response for mere mortals like us. There can be a place where the darkness won’t lift; and it’s at that point you realize that you’re simply in over your head.

I know that feeling quite well.

I have depressive disorder and because of that I tend to camp out at the margins where it seems like the grace of God evaporates. Whether it is my sin or circumstances, I occasionally feel pretty much abandoned, and it usually is something self-inflicted. (Or is it? I’m not always sure.)

We have this glaring tendency to put ourselves in where we should not have been. And condemnation means no comfort can get through to us.

We wonder if God has finally given up on us, throwing us in the trash heap of lost souls. We might feel that’s what we deserve. He simply gives up on us.

“Many are saying about me, “God won’t rescue him.” 

Psalm 3:2

In Psalm 3, David has come to the realization that his sins have “tainted” him. He talks of many enemies that have suddenly gathered, and they are claiming that David had now gone outside of God’s grace and favor. Forever.

The theology of this seemed logical. David had sinned greatly. And he had. David’s sin of adultery and murder was heinous and depraved. His enemies suggested that God would now abandon him. It seems logical, doesn’t it.

Our own sin may be excessive, but God’s faithfulness is to the uttermost.

”Lord, your love reaches to the heavens, your loyalty to the skies.’‘

Psalm 36:5

The grace of God is limitless. It is beyond human comprehension or reasoning. When He committed Himself it was for forever. King David understood this, and would survive the devastating fall-out from his sins. Indeed he would reap all that he sowed (Gal. 6:7-8). But God still loved him, no matter what.

You see, Jesus has taken every ounce of your sin upon Himself.  

That includes your faithlessness. He has done this astonishing thing out of the deep depths of His love and mercy. We don’t deserve it and we can’t pretend it is something else. A heart that’s been welded to His knows this. We are “saved by grace through faith.”

Do you still feel God has abandoned you forever?

Dear one, there is an unholy war on the saints that Satan is waging. He hates your simple trust in God and will shake it anyway he can. He blisters believers and hopes to discourage them. And he doesn’t ever fight fair.

“The Lord appeared to us in the past, saying:“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness.”

Jeremiah 31:3

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Forgiveness Healed My Heart

Trigger warning: This post is about suicidal thoughts and hopelessness. If you are currently struggling with suicidal thoughts, please reach out to someone at one of the hotlines we have posted here.

I had all but given up. I mentally cataloged the various prescription and over-the-counter pills in my medicine cabinet. There were enough to end my hopelessness forever. I truly believed my one-and-a-half-year-old son and my long-suffering husband would be better off without me.

I saw no other way to escape this deep depression that had engulfed me for what seemed like forever. I had tried everything—academic accolades, career, marriage, counseling, antidepressants, alcohol, exercise, motherhood, even religion—but nothing pulled me from my pit of misery. Near-constant tears were destined to drown me if I didn’t kill myself first.

I credit God for stopping me from following through that day. His Word says, “The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.” Psalm 34:7. His word did not fail me when an angel stopped my hand from a dreadful mistake. 

“For no word from God will ever fail.” 

Luke 1:37.

When a friend learned of the depths of my despair, she invited me to a women’s Bible study. It had been a long time since I had engaged in any formal study of the Scriptures. I was nervous because I felt certain they would see me for the fraud I felt I was.

But those ladies didn’t judge me or tell me I just needed more faith. Instead, they loved me and lifted to God my simple prayer: “I just don’t want to be depressed anymore.” It took me over a month to whisper that prayer request, but it didn’t take Jesus long to answer it.

The answer came in a most unlikely way—through a dream.

I had been harboring bitterness toward a number of people who had harmed me, but the worst offender was the boy who had raped me when I was only 14. I had often said that he ruined my life. One night I dreamed I was going about my ordinary life, buying groceries, taking bills to the Post Office, and depositing a check at the bank. As I completed each errand I turned to find my attacker, down on his knees, asking me to forgive him. Each time I brushed past him, refusing to accept his apology.

I awoke from that dream with the knowledge that forgiveness would set me free. Yet I knew I could not do it alone. I sat on the edge of my bed and prayed for God’s help to forgive all those grudges I had recorded in my heart. Cleansing tears streamed down my face as I poured out my prayer to Jesus.

That very hour I felt something was different. The darkness had been lifted and the light of hope streamed in. That was over twenty years ago and although I can still be a bit melancholy, I have never again felt the deep and abiding hopelessness that tried to lure me to the medicine cabinet.

Your sister in Christ, Linda

AnotherFearlessYear.net

Should I Take Medication?

What’s Your Take on Christians Using Antidepressants?

by Pastor John Piper

I’m going to say that there are times when I think it is appropriate, but I want to go there cautiously and slowly, with warnings.

Depression is a very complex thing.

It’s got many layers. I think we all would agree that there are conditions in which nobody would deny that certain people are depressed in a pathological way because they’re immobile. They’re not even able to function.

And then there’s a continuum of discouragements and wrestlings with having an ‘Eeyore-type’ personality, which may or may not be depressed.

So that means that I want to be so careful not to have a knee-jerk reaction. When you come into my office and describe to me your discouragements, I don’t want my first response to be, “See a doctor and get a prescription.”

I fear that is way too quick today. The number of people on antidepressants as a first course rather than the last course is large.

And the assumption is that you can’t make any progress in counseling unless you get yourself stabilized or something.

So I just want to be very cautious.

As a Christian who believes that Christ is given by the Holy Spirit to deliver us from discouragements and from unbelief and sorrow and to help us live a life of usefulness, what makes me able to allow for antidepressants is the fact that medicine corresponds to physical realities.

And the physical realities are that we get headaches that make us almost unable to think. Migraine headaches can put a man out. And we are pretty much OK if the doctor can help us find some medicine that would not let us get these immobilizing headaches.

And the headaches clearly have a spiritual impact, because they’re making me unable to read my Bible and function in relation to people that I want to love and serve. And so medicine becomes spiritually effective in that way.

In the short run especially, sometimes long term—then I think, in God’s grace and mercy, we should take it as a gift from his hand.

If that physical dimension could be helped by medicine.

So we apply this principle that we all use to depression, and then the fact that the body is included in depression. Whether we should use the terms “chemical imbalances”—I’ve read both sides on that. Some people say that there is no scientific evidence for such a thing and others say that it is a given. Whatever. Everybody knows that there are physical dimensions to depression.