We took a whirlwind 24-hour trip to see family this weekend. My dad will be celebrating his 90th birthday this year but it falls near the due date of his first great-grandchild and my daughter's commencement. My sister and brother-in-law planned a surprise party for him on Saturday night, so we flew up for the celebration and flew back the next morning.
On the flight up, I started reading Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church's Mission by Amy Simpson. David Murray recommended this book in the Q&A at our recent theology conference as a good resource for growing in empathy and understanding. The copy I was reading was for the church library. I need to get one for myself.
When it comes to mental illness, Amy Simpson knows firsthand the struggles of a family with mental illness. Her mother's diagnosis of schizophrenia came after years of hospitalizations and medications. She renounced Christianity, pursued the occult, and went missing only to be found in a shelter. During that period, she committed a crime, was convicted, and sentenced to prison. The last thing you would expect to happen to a pastor's family, and yet it did.
Simpson then takes The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders and gives a brief overview of the various conditions, their definitions, characteristics, and prevalence. These stats and descriptions were sobering because they lay out the extent the fall has damaged the body, mind, and emotions. We are fearfully and wonderfully made but with such complexity that there is no easy fix when we are broken.
I finished this section as the plane started to descend. I began to think of my mom's Alzheimer's and the collateral effect it has had on my dad's health and anxiety, my daughter's stress level as the semester draws to a close, the brothers and sisters I know who experience severe anxiety and panic attacks, and the list only grows when you include people with non-mental physical issues and other life struggles. Where does one begin? Where does the church begin to help? (I still haven't reached that part of the book yet.)
But I realized that I had left someone out. God. If I think that it is all on me to help even those just in my immediate circle, it would be overwhelming. The daily love, care, and concern can't be sustained on my own. The picture would look mighty bleak if Jesus wasn't in it. But He is, and however tough it is, He will never leave nor forsake His children who are suffering or the ones who are supporting them. So whether we receive or give care, Christ is the one who meets the needs of both sides of that equation.
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35
On the flight up, I started reading Troubled Minds: Mental Illness and the Church's Mission by Amy Simpson. David Murray recommended this book in the Q&A at our recent theology conference as a good resource for growing in empathy and understanding. The copy I was reading was for the church library. I need to get one for myself.
When it comes to mental illness, Amy Simpson knows firsthand the struggles of a family with mental illness. Her mother's diagnosis of schizophrenia came after years of hospitalizations and medications. She renounced Christianity, pursued the occult, and went missing only to be found in a shelter. During that period, she committed a crime, was convicted, and sentenced to prison. The last thing you would expect to happen to a pastor's family, and yet it did.
Simpson then takes The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders and gives a brief overview of the various conditions, their definitions, characteristics, and prevalence. These stats and descriptions were sobering because they lay out the extent the fall has damaged the body, mind, and emotions. We are fearfully and wonderfully made but with such complexity that there is no easy fix when we are broken.
I finished this section as the plane started to descend. I began to think of my mom's Alzheimer's and the collateral effect it has had on my dad's health and anxiety, my daughter's stress level as the semester draws to a close, the brothers and sisters I know who experience severe anxiety and panic attacks, and the list only grows when you include people with non-mental physical issues and other life struggles. Where does one begin? Where does the church begin to help? (I still haven't reached that part of the book yet.)
But I realized that I had left someone out. God. If I think that it is all on me to help even those just in my immediate circle, it would be overwhelming. The daily love, care, and concern can't be sustained on my own. The picture would look mighty bleak if Jesus wasn't in it. But He is, and however tough it is, He will never leave nor forsake His children who are suffering or the ones who are supporting them. So whether we receive or give care, Christ is the one who meets the needs of both sides of that equation.
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35
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