no ordinary days

Angela Howard

Dear Church: People with Mental Illness Love Jesus Too

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mental illness, mental health, church, Jesus, community

Last week I wrote a post in honor of National Mental Health Month encouraging our families to start talking openly about our experiences and normalizing the stigma of mental illness. With that in mind my husband Michael and I share a bit of our story in this short video.

Each one of us face struggles. We all need God’s love and grace in order to redeem the brokenness we encounter in this world. Whether we have hardships in our relationships, our finances, or our physical bodies we need to seek restoration holistically. This especially applies in the area of mental health.

Approach Mental Illness Holistically

  • Engage with community and share our stories.
  • Get educated in the area of mental illness.
  • Collaborate with the church, counselors, and the medical community for effective treatment, in order to address the spiritual, emotional, and biological aspects.
  • Reach out with love and acceptance toward those suffering and their families. You don’t have to have full understanding of an illness to have compassion.
  • Stop identifying mental illness as a spiritual disease. Mental illness is a biological issue that can affect our relationship with God, as well as any other relationships. People with mental illness love Jesus too.
People with mental illness love Jesus too. –Angela Howard #mentalillness Click To Tweet

We all experience more suffering than we expect in this life, so we are often left feeling disillusioned and disappointed. What if we altered our expectations to realize that we live in a broken world and our troubles are nothing to fear. We have a God who loves us and our trials draw us closer to our Savior who knows our suffering and has experienced the same loss and pain that we have.

 Since he himself has gone through suffering…Hebrews 2:18a (NLT)

Prayer

Lord, we know that you are sovereign and we trust you with our trials and struggles. We pray for each person and family facing mental illness today. Strengthen them, guide them, direct them, and enable them to find good health care and counseling. We ask that you hold out hope to them in their time of need so that they will persevere. We pray that you would break the stigma of mental illness in the church and in our communities in Jesus Name, Amen.

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Comments

  2. This is a good word, Angela, My husband is a Christian and loves God yet has been disabled because of bipolar disorder. In the beginning, this was so hard to understand and to accept!

    • It’s so important to realize that each person with bipolar or any mental illness is unique in their struggles. I pray that God will strengthen both of you as you face this challenge together. Thank you for your transparency.

  4. Do you mind if I share this post on my resouce round-up post about mental illness? More people need to realize that mental illness is NOT a spiritual problem (although our spirituality and attitudes towards God can either help our hinder our healing process).

  5. This is what stands out so strongly to me, Angela:

    “Stop identifying mental illness as a spiritual disease. Mental illness is a biological issue that can affect our relationship with God, as well as any other relationships. People with mental illness love Jesus too.”

    Amen! I have many in my family who suffer with depression, and they often are more drawn to Jesus and have more faith than anyone. Thanks for sharing this video and your and Michael’s story.

    • It makes my heart happy that you connected with that thought Lisa! I get fired up just thinking about it :) I love that you expanded on that by highlighting that people can actually draw closer to Jesus when they struggle in this area. That has certainly been the case for my husband. You have encouraged me today!

  6. Thank you for bringing this to light! I envision our churches embracing everyone regardless of what they suffer from!
    I have dealt with depression and anxiety in the past. It’s very isolating and lonely.
    Visiting from #TellHisStory

    • Thank you for visiting today Julie. I hope you will return. It is my hope and desire to shine a light on this difficult topic in order to bring truth. I appreciate you sharing a bit of your story so that people will know that they are not alone.

  7. Thank you for sharing your story. Thanks for sharing your wonderful posts at Over The Moon Party.
    See you next week.
    Hugs,
    Bev

  8. Thank you for being vulnerable and sharing your story… awareness, especially in the church, is essential! Stopping by from #CheerleadersofFaith :)

  10. Thank you for sharing this, My step son is going through some mental health issues it has been a very long road trying to get it all figured out .And thanks for sharing at Literacy Musing Mondays hope to see you next week.
    Connie

  11. I am so blessed to come to know of your blog. Thank you for speaking about and shedding light on this overlooked illness that so many face with little support. I love the phrase “People with mental illness love Jesus too” of course they do!

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