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The subject of mental illness seems to be getting more air time than ever before, and we should be grateful since much of it has been helpful. Yet even if church leaders recognize the complexities of mental illness and the great need that exists for sufferers to find support in the church, ministry to the mentally ill can be trying and seemingly fruitless much of the time. And just as enduring mental illness is often a life-long journey, ministry to those who suffer will often need to take the long view as well.
When you're on the outside of mental illness, often the temptation is to see it more like an intellectual puzzle and counsel accordingly. Even the sufferer will spend countless hours wishing for answers to all the typical questions. Why me? Why does it hurt so much? And how long can I endure it?
During my first semester at Southwestern, I had an anxiety attack that lasted about two weeks until I resigned to spending the day in bed with the covers pulled over my head. During that time, I don't believe answers would have been much help. Even an academic map tracing the connection between post traumatic stress and panic would have been of little use.
The summer before I started Kindergarten, Dad and Grandpa were replacing the barbed wire fence along the road in front of our house. I wouldn't have shoes until school started, so I followed barefoot as they set posts and strung wire. But a section of fence lay in the midst of briars and stickers, and I had to navigate through and around as best I could, but there was no avoiding the assault to my thick-soled feet.
Likewise, when one is trying to find his or her way through mental illness, charting a course will be of little help, as it's not so much a puzzle to solve but a journey to endure. When trying to navigate life under the crushing weight of mental illness, that for which we are desperate is not direction, but strength.
Job spent many chapters seeking answers to his questions of suffering, but for a brief passage he changes his tone. In chapter 13 verse 22 he says, "Then call, and I will answer, or I will speak, and You can respond to me." For a moment Job seems to stop looking for answers and simply wants God to be present with him, to still have a sense that God was not his enemy.
When I was a kid, there were plenty of broken bones, bouts with the flu, and emotional fallout from playground politics. And I have to say that strength came from knowing that I could count on Mom and Dad to love me. Yet parents aren't perfect and may not always be around, but there is a better strength. It comes from knowing we can count on the love of our ultimate Father.
Job didn't have the same assurance of God's love that we enjoy. When we look to the cross, seeing the Son of God receiving the ultimate crushing weight of despair in order that He may purchase our eternal peace, we can know that whatever the reason for our mental suffering, whatever the reason for peace of mind being so allusive, whatever the reason for our dependence on medication for a degree of normalcy; whatever the reason... we know it can't be because He doesn't love us.
