Recently, we recognized Mental Health Awareness Week, and Suicide Prevention/Awareness. I added a mental health awareness frame to my profile picture and with great care I reached out to remind people that it is okay to not be okay and struggling with depression, anxiety, PTSD, an eating disorder, postpartum depression, or any other mental illness. You can have huge faith in God and acknowledge God and still have mental illness. I Am weary of the suggestion that those of us with mental illness somehow, have failed to “let go and let God…” “The church” must stop wounding the wounded and preaching this message. There is no shame in mental illness, the only shame is feeling responsible for something that just “IS,” or not seeking the treatment you need or deserve. https://www.christiancounselordirectory.com
The Message…
I tuned in online to hear one of my favorite pastors preach. Listening to him speak has always felt like returning to the familiar. I am searching for soft place to land as I wrestle with God, my faith, where is he growing me, why he is growing me, and why, sometimes it has to be agonizing. I hold onto hope that he will use this time of questioning, doubt, and unrest to bring me “…from glory to glory…” 2 Corinthians 2:18 (NASB) I honestly don’t know what God is doing, but I am willing to press into the mystery. I prefer certainty, but leaning in means trusting that God, no matter how distant he feels, he is still present.
I am slowly becoming a Mary in a world that celebrates the Marthas’, preferring to sit quietly instead moving and doing to earn my place at his table. Can I be still at the feet of Jesus and simply listen knowing that I will always have a place at his table?
Today’s message felt familiar, but not comforting, or even convicting. It was peppered with pride, judgement, and condemnation for not fully releasing mental illness to God. Or proposing, I have not bowed done and truly acknowledged God. Most churches fail to feel safe these days. I am not sure if “The Church’s” message has changed, or I am changing, moving daily, further away from the certainty I once held, towards questions I didn’t anticipate, nor ask for.
Daniel 4 Summarized by…Yours Truly
This week’s message came from the book of Daniel 4. It is concerning the rise and fall, and renewal of King Nebuchadnezzar. Due to Kings pride and lack of acknowledgement, (to say the least) of God as The Highest and Mighty Lord of all, he is stricken with an illness that sounds a bit like mad cow’s disease. He crawls on all fours eating grass and drinking the dew for seven years.
Daniel warned Nebuchadnezzar, “Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed” Daniel 4:27 (I am far from a theologian, so I encourage you to explore the book of Daniel as led.)
While the King lived in grand style as he battled nations, killing, and torturing those inhabiting the lands he destroyed; his own people lived in horrid conditions. He was filled with pride and arrogance and credited all his success to his own power and authority. Hence, seven years of insanity until the day he humbled himself acknowledging God, the same God that saved Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the furnace, the same God that I put my trust and faith in, is Lord of all.
After seven long years the king speaks, “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right, and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble” (Daniel 4:37). Growing weary of his cow persona,* King Nebuchadnezzar having been humbled by God, acknowledged that there was a God that was sovereign over himself. After this, his sanity is restored and much like Job, his life was restored to an even greater wealth and abundance.
The message from the stage, lands like a grenade, breaking my heart into pieces. “Until you acknowledge God, he will not bless you, nor heal you from_________.” Insert numerous mental illnesses listed by the pastor who is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor into this blank. In fact, he may even curse you to roam like a beast of burden, * The mental health crisis would be lessened if we would bow and acknowledge God is sovereign and in control. (paraphrased)
Is this how we demonstrate “love and compassion to the oppressed?” (See Daniel 4:27) I hear the message and wonder, are we any better than the wicked king to judge as to why people are sick, oppressed, or battling mental illness?
My familiar place didn’t feel like a place I belonged anymore. Shouldn’t everyone feel that belonging to Jesus means a place at the table of EVERY church? I felt a bit prickly as if he was talking directly to me, my clients and all who suffer anxiety, depression, PTSD, postpartum depression or, in my arena, eating disorders. Who is this, a mere mortal to assume that my illness or any mental illness is a result of not acknowledging God’s sovereignty? He is a pastor and a professional counselor; therefore, he must have greater knowledge about God and mental health than just a pastor or just a counselor? I wonder if others in the congregation are feeling the same wave of judgement from a pastor/therapist, crashing upon their fragile souls.
Jesus Loves Me This I know…
I have, since the age of nine, meditated on scripture, rebuked the spirit of anorexia, depression, I fell to my knees in prayer, I was a faithful servant through my suffering, through my healing. I declared him Lord of all and yet I succumbed to anorexia twice in my life, self-harm, and thoughts of suicide. I continue to wade in and out of depression. At times the water is shallow and merely annoying as my feet may get wet. Other times it is knee deep and more difficult to stay upright, and then there are the times I feel stuck in a riptide of depression and anxiety.
I can swim against this tide, fighting it, denying it, pretending that I am fine, after all, as a woman of God, being “fine” is apparently a litmus test of my faith and surrender. After hearing this message, why would anyone share their messiness?
Here is what I know about being stuck in a rip tide, it is in the fight against the tide that your strength is zapped, allowing you to slip under the water and drown. No longer able to fight, you surrender to the sea. Today I choose not to fight the inevitable, I hold out my arms and float in the arms of my savior knowing I am loved and fully supported, even if total healing never comes this side of heaven. This my brothers and sisters in Christ, who presume I lack faith and surrender, is evidence of trusting Jesus. So, I float and do not fight or deny something that just IS.
1 Corinthian 10:13 13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. My mental illness may ebb and flow like the tide, my faith rest in the capacity of God and his grace to allow me to endure it. He need not “heal me” for me to hope in his love for me.
To suggest that this illness is because of lack of faith causes me to weep, not because I believe this trauma inducing theology, but because so many do. Christians are walking around hemorrhaging and dying from treatable illness, drowning in shame believing that they are responsible for their mental illness. Believers believe they are not faithful enough because they are struggling because the “bible tells them so.” Does it really, or does religion tell them so?
There are faithful children of God spending time in The Word, in praise and worship, and service and as the healing doesn’t come, they are compelled to conclude that God must not love them like their neighbor he cured or spared from a tragedy. Precious time is spent digging for unconfessed sin, a missed prayer or where they have fallen short of glorifying God instead of evidenced based medical treatment.
I ask, “The Church, “do you see where this theology breaks down and breaks people?” The pastor acknowledges that he can feel the “push back,” and covers himself by addressing the fact that he isn’t suggesting people stop taking medication. “Phew, I can continue to take the two meds that allows me to be the best version of myself.” Yet, he isn’t exactly sanctioning it either. I carry no shame for using these medications, but what about those in the congregation already fearing that medication is somehow a crutch, a sign of weakness? They have now been served up spoon full of confirmation that this may very well be truth. Swallowing the doled-out shame is the bitter pill they will now swallow, instead of necessary medication. How is this any different than asking a child of God to walk on a broken leg or forgo their inhaler for asthma?
I have anxiety and depression that can sneak up on me like a rogue wave. It swells in the moments I am spending time with God and rolls me under the waves like a surfer who has lost their balance. The random wave tumbles me, pulls me under then spit’s me out when I am faithful, or when I am doubting. The waves roll in and out, often without any clear reason. I know in my spirit it isn’t because I am not in communion with God, faithful, or prayerful. I am confident that it just “IS.”
I am just a broken human, like theologians, pastors, and all believers, living in a broken world. Here is a novel thought, what if like any other illness, mental illness just “IS?” What if instead of blaming ourselves or God, we recognized that much in this life in a fallen world is simply random? Is it that blaming ourselves or God is easier than accepting the arbitrary tragedies that can befall us all? God is good not because he always heals or saves us from tragedy, but that he loves us and carries us through.
Yes, I believe we will face consequences for our actions. And I also know that we sometimes enter in to something that we have no idea is dangerous. I had no idea that I had unique neurology, biology and genetics that left me vulnerable to an eating disorder when I went on my first diet. Throw in some abusive parenting and other environmental factors and I was a prime candidate to develop an eating disorder.
I will praise God that there are medications and treatments because I know my clients and myself have surrendered, believed, and “let go, to let God…” And yet we still battle mental illness. Could it be that God’s grace and healing is in the discovered medication and the gifted therapists he uses to treat those with mental illness? Is it that those shunning these treatments are possibly missing God’s divine provision?
The issue isn’t that my clients or myself haven’t acknowledged God, it is that Western Evangelical Christianity teaches, a faith that is based on works, obedience, and piety, forgetting that it isn’t what we need to do for God, but what he has done for us. As a matter of fact, religious fasting can induce Anorexia Nervosa, or act is a hiding place for the illness. https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/blog/fasting-history-anorexia-nervosa
What we need to do, by the way, is a moving target depending on one’s denomination. Even within the denominations the “rules,” are incongruent. One forbids alcohol, and the next celebrates Easter with a champagne brunch. Another believes the gifts of the spirit are active, while others believe they are not, you can’t fall from grace, you can fall from grace. Who gets to decide which denominational laws are the ones to allow my ordination as God’s own heir? Romans 8:17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. “Excuse me why I straighten my crown.”
How can we fathom being more than enough for Jesus, and somehow not enough for “The Church?” The church, in effort to “save,” reinforces belief, that we are not worth the healing hand of God. If we aren’t worth the healing hand of God to touch our mental illness, then somehow, we are responsible for all suffering that we are promised in the scriptures. This theology, my friends, doesn’t even begin to demonstrate God’s AMAZING GRACE.
John 16:33 33 “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.” (NIV). No one, it appears will escape suffering, and yet we are led to believe that by following the theology or doctrine of our religious institution, and are faithful, prayerful, obedient, loving and kind enough we will escape, or at the very least, our lacking in of any of these traits, disappoints God so much that he will punish us or allow an evil spirit to enter.
We are left with the pain and anguish of questioning where or how have we failed God? After all, here I sit with my anxiety crawling upon me. It has been compounded by being told “acknowledge God! Surrender to his ways, let it go, let God, rebuke Satan, renew your mind! Sweet brothers and sisters in Christ, do not believe that you have not “let go to let God” because you struggle with mental illness or any illness, and do not ever believe he has let go of you. 2 Timothy 2:3 “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot disown himself.”
I am perplexed and angry that this is the message that is delivered to me and all who love the Lord and acknowledge him. What is presumably intended to draw people to God’s love creates a chasm, not a bridge. I remind myself that just because a message is given, I do not have to receive it. You do not have to receive it. Deuteronomy 31: 8 “The Lord himself goes before and he will be with you; he will never leave you or forsake you do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
I write a comment chat box on the live sermon feed disagreeing with this assumption that we have brought on our own illness. It is met with platitudes, and judgement about grace and growing. I wonder where she has gotten the notion that I have not received grace or that I am not growing in Christ. Is it because I continue to battle, vestiges of anorexia? I try to imagine what battle she fights that is hidden behind her pride of certainty that if only I would_________I would be healed.
Who is she or anyone to presume they have insight to my relationship with Christ by observing the degree of my healing from a disease they know nothing about! Most physicians have a poor working knowledge of Anorexia and mental illness. “The church” and Pastors are basically dispensing medical diagnosis and treatment protocol from the pulpit. It is a damaging message, putting the very lives of those “The Church” are “saving” in the name of Jesus in jeopardy.