This poem is written in the Triolet form. I really love this form because it has the perfect amount of repetition, with lines 1, 4, and 7 being the same, and then lines 2 and 8 being the same. I have found that the Triolet is well suited to Christian poetry.
Safe Haven
Thislife is hard and treacherous It’s no place to go it alone The only safe haven is Jesus This life is hard and treacherous
Our Emmanuel, God with us Will never forsake or leave us This life is hard and treacherous It’s no place to go it alone
I hope this poem serves as a reminder to the reader that you don’t have to navigate the treacherous waters of this life alone. Jesus wants to walk by your side, to carry you if need be, and bring you safely to the other side of Jordan.
Jesus said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
“Lord Jesus Christ, you are for me medicine when I am sick; you are my strength when I need help; you are life itself when I fear death; you are the way when I long for heaven; you are light when all is dark; you are my food when I need nourishment.”
Our theology makes all the difference in fighting depression, writes Kathryn Greene-McCreight, Author of “Darkness, Is My Only Companion” and Episcopal priest.
Here is an excerpt where she introduces the depression of Christians:
In his Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis says that suffering is uniquely difficult for the Christian, for the one who believes in a good God. If there were no good God to factor into the equation, suffering would still be painful, and ultimately meaningless.
For the Christian, who believes in the crucified and risen Messiah, suffering is always meaningful. It is meaningful because of the one in whose suffering we participate, Jesus. This is neither to say, of course, that suffering will be pleasant, nor that it should be sought. Rather, in the personal suffering of the Christian, one finds a correlate in Christ’s suffering, which gathers up our tears and calms our sorrows and points us toward his resurrection.
In the midst of a major mental illness, we are often unable to sense the presence of God at all. Sometimes all we can feel is the complete absence of God, utter abandonment by God, the sheer ridiculousness of the very notion of a loving and merciful God. This cuts to the very heart of the Christian and challenges everything we believe about the world and ourselves.
I have a chronic mental illness, a brain disorder that used to be called manic depression, but now is less offensively called bipolar disorder. I have sought help from psychiatrists, social workers, and mental health professionals; one is a Christian, but most of my helpers are not. I have been in active therapy with a succession of therapists over many years, and have been prescribed many psychiatric medications, most of which brought quite unpleasant side effects, and only a few of which relieved my symptoms. I have been hospitalized during the worst times and given electroconvulsive therapy treatments.
All of this has helped, I must say, despite my disinclination toward medicine and hospitals. They have helped me to rebuild some of “myself,” so that I can continue to be the kind of mother, priest, and writer I believe God wants me to be.
During these bouts of illness, I would often ask myself: How could I, as a faithful Christian, be undergoing such torture of the soul? And how could I say that such torture has nothing to do with God? This is, of course, the assumption of the psychiatric guild in general, where faith in God is often viewed at best as a crutch, and at worst as a symptom of disease.
How could I, as a Christian, indeed as a theologian of the church, understand anything in my life as though it were separate from God? This is clearly impossible. And yet how could I confess my faith in that God who was “an ever-present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1) when I felt entirely abandoned by that God? And if this torture did have something to do with God, was it punishment, wrath, or chastisement? Was I, to use a phrase of Jonathan Edwards’s, simply a “sinner in the hands of an angry God”?
I started my journey into the world of mental illness with a postpartum depression after the birth of our second child. News outlets are rife with stories of women who destroy their own children soon after giving birth. It is absolutely tragic. Usually every instinct in the mother pushes toward preserving the life of the infant. Most mothers would give their own lives to protect their babies. But in postpartum depression, reality is so bent that that instinct is blocked. Women who would otherwise be loving mothers have their confidence shaken by painful thoughts and feelings.
Depression is not just sadness or sorrow.
When I am depressed, every thought, every breath, every conscious moment hurts.
And often the opposite is the case when I am hypomanic: I am scintillating both to myself, and, in my imagination, to the whole world. But mania is more than speeding mentally, more than euphoria, more than creative genius at work. Sometimes, when it tips into full-blown psychosis, it can be terrifying. The sick individual cannot simply shrug it off or pull out of it: there is no pulling oneself “up by the bootstraps.”
And yet the Christian faith has a word of real hope, especially for those who suffer mentally. Hope is found in the risen Christ. Suffering is not eliminated by his resurrection, but transformed by it. Christ’s resurrection kills even the power of death, and promises that God will wipe away every tear on that final day.
But we still have tears in the present.
We still die. In God’s future, however, death itself will die. The tree from which Adam and Eve took the fruit of their sin and death becomes the cross that gives us life.
The hope of the Resurrection is not just optimism, but keeps the Christian facing ever toward the future, not merely dwelling in the present. But the Christian hope is not only for the individual Christian, nor for the church itself, but for all of Creation, bound in decay by that first sin: “Cursed is the ground because of you … It will produce thorns and thistles for you …” (Gen. 3:17-18).
This curse of the very ground and its increase will be turned around at the Resurrection. All Creation will be redeemed from pain and woe. In my bouts with mental illness, this understanding of Christian hope gives comfort and encouragement, even if no relief from symptoms. Sorrowing and sighing will be no more. Tears will be wiped away. Even fractious [unruly, irritable] brains will be restored.
“Darkness: My Only Companion”
Kathryn Greene-McCreightis assistant priest at St. John’s Episcopal Church in New Haven, Connecticut, and author of Darkness Is My Only Copanion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness (Brazos Press, 2006).
I see that you are trying to be
just as good as you can be
but what you clearly do not see
is you can’t do this without Me
I know that you are wondering why
I do not stop what makes you cry
but if on Me you will rely
every tear that falls I’ll dry
I love you more than you’ll ever know
in your holiness, I want to grow
and though your progress may seem slow
the path you walk in the way you must go
I will comfort you when times are tough
I will watch over you when life is rough
I will rescue you when you’ve had enough
What’s too big for you, to Me is small stuff
May the Father’s grace and peace be yours, now and forever,
A panic attack affects one out of 75 people, and it often can be quite disconcerting. My panic attacks occur roughly once a month and last for about 1/2 hour. When the acute symptoms first appear my first reaction is to resist giving in to it. I get the “shakes.” For a long time, I didn’t know what caused them or more importantly what could stop it.
A panic attack is a sudden surge of an incredible fear.
Typically it comes without warning and without any obvious reason. It is far more intense than the feeling of being ‘stressed out’ that most people experience.
As a believer in Jesus, the physical symptoms can be quite real, but the spiritual issues become obvious when we consider Satan’s attacks on our faith. Although we may have a proclivity, we don’t have to surrender to panic as the way of life.
Symptoms of a panic attack include:
racing heartbeat
difficulty breathing, feeling as though you ‘can’t get enough air’
a terror, that is almost paralyzing, a seeming irrational fear
dizziness, lightheadedness or nausea
trembling, sweating, shaking
choking, chest pains
hot flashes, or sudden chills
tingling in fingers or toes, (‘pins and needles’).
fear that you’re going to go crazy, or are about to die
You probably recognize this as the classic ‘flight or fight’ response that human beings experience when we are in a situation of danger. But during a panic attack, these symptoms seem to rise from out of nowhere. They occur in seemingly harmless situations–they can even happen while you are asleep.
In addition to the above symptoms, a panic attack is marked by the following conditions:
it occurs suddenly, without any warning and without any way to stop it.
the level of fear is way out of proportion to the actual situation; often, in fact, it’s completely unrelated.
it passes in several minutes; the body cannot sustain the ‘fight or flight’ response for longer than that. However, repeated attacks can continue to recur for hours.
A panic attack is not dangerous, but it can be a bit terrifying.
Largely because it feels ‘crazy’ and ‘out of control.’ Panic disorder is frightening because of the symptoms associated with it, and also because it often leads to other complications such as phobias, depression, substance abuse, medical complications, even suicide.
Its effects can range from mild social impairment or just pretty a total inability to face the outside world.
As a follower of Jesus, I’m certain that Psalm 91 is written for me. If I may, attacks of fear shouldn’t be faced head on, rather we set our hearts on Jesus, and allow Him to defend and protect us. I suppose we’ll always be susceptible, but we dare not be defeated.
“You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day.”
Psalm 91:5, ESV
Further reading and help on panic attacks check out these sites:
Broken Believers 