Mental Health Awareness in the Church

             May is mental health awareness month, so a lot of my blog posts and Facebook posts will focus on mental health this month. One thing I want to talk about is the stigma in the church about mental health. Church should be the safest place to go when we are dealing with any issue, but it seems there are so many issues, mental health included, where the church is the least safe place to go. This is extremely sad to me, and it shouldn’t be this way. When a person is struggling with mental health issues, he or she should not be shamed or told to be quiet by the church.

            Jesus didn’t shame anyone when He was here on Earth. Yes, He confronted people but never shamed them. On top of that having mental health issues is nothing to be ashamed about anyways. There are so many reasons that a person can have mental health issues, some are biological issues, some are nutritional deficiencies, and some are for reasons we just don’t know. When you find yourself in the company of someone facing mental health issues, take some time to sit down with that person and have a talk. Not only will that help you to understand the situation better, but it will also help that person to feel valued and heard. This is more along the lines of being the hands and feet of Jesus than shaming is.

            Many people say that a person shouldn’t be open about their mental health struggles. Why not? The Bible is full of people sharing their struggles. The book of Psalms is full of David crying out to God in his depression and anxiety. In 1 Kings 19 Elijah gets so depressed he tells God that he just wants to die. In Ecclesiastes Solomon wrestles with the meaning of life. In the book of Jeremiah, he becomes known as the weeping prophet because he is grieving over the destruction of Israel and the stubbornness of the people. Of course we cannot forget about Job who lost everything he had. If we were supposed to keep it all quiet, then why did God put all of this in the Bible? I believe that He put it in there to show us that is it ok to struggle and that when we do we have somewhere to go with it. God made us for relationships, a relationship with Him, and relationships with each other. When we are struggling with mental health issues it helps so much to know that we are not alone and that someone cares. These stories, in the Bible, of people struggling with their mental health are there to show us that we are not alone. Not only do we have a wonderful loving God to go to in our time of need, but hopefully we have someone in our life who we can go to for comfort and who will walk alongside us. This is one reason I share about my mental health struggles, and all my struggles, so that people know that they are not alone, that there is someone out there who knows what they are going through. Let’s allow people to talk about their mental health without jumping to shaming or shutting them down. This helps them to feel heard and helps you to understand them better.  And that is the beauty in the ashes of it.

           

“To console those who mourn in Zion. To give them beauty for ashes. The oil of joy for mourning. The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.”

Isaiah 61:3