Thinking Without My “Tin Foil Hat”

As we think of mental illness an immediate question arises:  what is “serious” mental illness, and how is it different from the normal issues that are part of everyday life?

Wearing a tin-foil hat is the delusion that those who wear them are some how protected from space rays or conspiracy theories. Crazy, I know. But some believers approach mental illness in this way.
Brother and sister, we’re called to think biblically. Ephesians 6:17 tells us that the “helmet of salvation” is the only head gear we’re called to wear. It tells us that the ‘warriors’ protection is God’s salvation. We are protected by a helmet of truth.
We must educate ourselves, through our community, and knowledgeable Christian leadership, to serve the broken that are in our midst.  This figure includes a wide variety of disorders, these stats are compelling:
  • Severe mental illnesses affect 5.4 percent of adults,
  • Some 22 to 23 percent of the U.S. adult population—or 44 million people-“have diagnosable mental disorders”
  • Such statistics only begin to capture the level of pain many of our fellow believers endure daily.

 One person wrote of the broad reach of mental illness:

“I have a thousand faces, and I am found in all races. Sometimes rich, sometimes poor, sometimes young, sometimes old. I am a person with the disabling pain of a broken brain.”

We must find an acceptable form of understanding about mental illness if we are going to find our way to those who are quite frankly, very definitely lost.

Both Scripture and eldership, (healthy counseling), should be an active component to recovery. The sacrifical sacrifice of Jesus, through His blood must be taught again to the afflicted. Mental disease needs to be as understood in the same context as a physical one (e.g. diabeties or cancer).

Discernment must be sought as the whole person often needs to be taught. Issues like guilt, unforgiveness and pride are a big part of seeing people set free. Issues of past trauma like sexual and phyical abuse are factors as well.

 Your support of Brokenbelievers.com through your prayers and encouragement goes a long way. Linda and I need your help in this. We both need wisdom and a gentle hand on our lives. As we reach out, a ‘tinfoil hat’ is definitely not part of our acceptable head gear. 

The Father’s love embraces the torn and wounded consistently. This is the key to the healing of a broken heart.

Was Jesus Mentally Disturbed?


“When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.”

Mark 3:21, NIV

Even our Lord’s own family did not believe Him.  I can see them gathering out of concern, not only for concern for Jesus, but for the family name– perhaps they felt a need even to protect themselves?  They talked at length, and decided on an intervention, to take custodial care– as families must do at these difficult times.

Jesus had been saying things, disturbing things. 

He had resolutely confronted the religious system, and then rebuked King Herod and the civil government.  He was living on an edge, and the sense that His family had was that He had become mentally unhinged.  He had been cavorting with decidedly irreligious and wicked people.  He lived in constant bedlam, with people mobbing Him for healing.

His teaching seemed extremely radical, almost absurd. His “parables” contained bizarre ideas. And the massive crowds actually would chase Him, trying to anticipate His next move. He was essentially a celebrity –  a “rock star.” I suppose we have no idea, of His appeal to the masses.

We have some choices that must be made. What do we make of Jesus? Is Jesus Christ:

  • Legend
  • Lunatic
  • Liar
  • Lord and GOD?

In his famous book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis makes this statement,

“A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic–on the level with a man who says he is a poached egg–or he would be the devil of hell.”

“You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us.”

The accusation has often been the case for His followers. Some of Paul’s friends thought he was crazy when he went blazing over land and sea to carry the gospel to every city. But his answer was, “No, I am not crazy; the love of Christ controls me” (2 Cor. 5:14). 

This was a good kind of crazy. 

He was being used by Jesus to continue the ministry that Jesus had started– the establishment of the Kingdom of God. 

I believe it is a far deeper insanity, that seals up the truth and the light and keeps it away from unbelievers.  It is crazy to know total forgiveness and unconditional love, and then to avoid opportunities to share that same love. Now, that is crazy!

Our fear of being ostracized and mocked is an intense experience. Peer pressure is not just something our teens go through. We are always in danger of being molded into the world’s image.

Who are we? 

Our Lord and Master was vilified, He was falsely accused of insanity.  But perhaps, it is the other way around.  Perhaps it is this world, and its bondages and sicknesses that is ill.  

You must decide.

Please see this link: “Who is Jesus Really?”

Not Better Off Dead

A few weeks ago in response to a poetics prompt to write about a first time for something, I thought of something that I have only done once, and am thankful I’ve never had happen again. But there are people who have had this happen so many times they maybe can’t even remember the first time.

My prayers are with them, my hope that they recognize the lie that suicide is the answer to pain and suffering and that our loved ones would be better off if we were dead.

Not Better Off Dead

Clearly I recall the first time
the thought entered my mind
They’d be better off if I was dead

I immediately knew it was wrong
but still a method to my madness
began to form in the recesses of
my deeply troubled mind

I could picture the bottle of pills
designed to make me better
but could just as easily
be my demise

Then they’d be free, I’d be free

The Psalmist wrote
The angel of the LORD encamps around
those who fear him, and he delivers them
That first time His angel
was encamped around me

He delivered me from that first thought
made me know it was wrong
ensured it was the last time
that thought ever entered my mind

Now we are free and together
because the Lord let me know
I was not better off dead

*

Linda’s Blog.

I write candid memoir and fearless poetry and delve into hard issues others tend to avoid. I want you to know God’s redemption and healing are just a story away.

Hello Darkness, We Meet Again

It’s a Psalm written in black ink on black paper. I can’t find a glimmer of light in its 18 verses. Psalm 88 is the worst psalm in Scripture. Strangely enough in Hebrew, the last word of the last sentence is “darkness.” I suppose that explains a lot about its content and significance.

Within its dark words, we see and hear much that we’d rather not.

A commentator describes Psalms 88 as “the public confession of persons excommunicated.” Others suggest that the writer has discovered he has the physical disease of leprosy. This Psalm is bitter and hard. Its companions are the book of Job and Lamentations. They’re part of the Word of God we would rather forget.

As believers in Jesus Christ, how do we deal with such awful darkness?

I dare you to read verses 3-5 of Psalm 88. They pronounce the depth of the afflicted:

I’ve had my fill of trouble;
    I’m camped on the edge of hell.
I’m written off as a lost cause,
    one more statistic, a hopeless case.
Abandoned as already dead,
    one more body in a stack of corpses,
And not so much as a gravestone—
    I’m a black hole in oblivion.
You’ve dropped me into a bottomless pit,
    sunk me in a pitch-black abyss.

Psalm 88 is nothing less than a scream of pain directed at God.

It’s the almost animal screech of the human heart that encounters the worst. Some would suggest that a believer is immune from this kind of darkness, that as a believer in Christ’s victory we’re exempt and delivered from these things.

Explain that to the man who loses his family in a car crash, or to the woman who has just been told she has leukemia. What about the young girl who has just been brutally attacked and raped? Where is God then?

Is there room in your personal theology for such terrible darkness?

We’re not immune from tragedy as believers. It’s a part of living in a fallen world. If anything at all, pain teaches us things we’ll never learn in the sterility of a classroom. If we’re going to survive this suffering it will mean we’ll need to throw ourselves on God like never before.

God has not suddenly lost control of the universe, or, of your life.

If we turn to God in faith, like a little child, we will be led (far too slowly it seems) through our hard (impossible?) things. And we’ll understand what faith really is, and we’ll learn how to love like never before.

We are following Jesus and He has led us to this grief for His reasons.

Most jewelers will display their most precious diamonds on a black background. Perhaps that helps us sort this out. Hebrews 12:5-13 is a bit of a challenge. In theory, we grasp it, but in reality, it’s bittersweet. The sweet part is His closeness–we’re sons and daughters!

 “Endure suffering as discipline: God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline?” 

Hebrews 12:7, CSB

Bring your pain and suffering into His tender light, and do so repeatedly. Let the gentle arms of the crucified One hold you close. Pour your heart out to Him-if you’re broken then bring Him the pieces. I encourage you to not waste your sorrows.