Information

Please take a moment to look at the update Mental Health Resource section located in the sidebar. I've re-done this list, updating it and adding some more diagnosis-specific sites. And it is now in a nice "clickable" form, which will open a new window taking you directly to the site.

The "Problem of Pain" - Revisited

I've been thinking back again on the topic of suffering. I've been in conversation with a woman who is of a Jewish background but who has totally abandoned all pretence of faith due to this very issue. In fact I was in conversation with a woman via comments on a video on Youtube and this woman was virulent in her furious attacks on a God who can allow pain and human anguish to exist. Isn't that the way it so often is? People are so appalled and wounded by the fact of suffering that they target God as, not only the potential overcomer of human pain and injustice, but also its very source.



This is a bit of a twist in their logic. For we understand from Scripture that suffering has its root in mankind's departure from the path and plan which God had initially devised for man. It is due to the fact that we have departed from the security and goodness of God's plans for us that our pain exists. It is due to the fact that we have fractured that oneness and intimacy of relationship with a loving God that we have wandered into the dark regions of pain. And from this point, our enemy has taken the ball and run with it.


Now it is true, theoretically, that God could have and can still, put out His all powerful hand and say, "STOP!" to all of our agony; that He could interject in the paths of Nature and man's will and twist the outcome of things, wresting His will, despite all logical outcome, and magically erase all suffering and injustice.



But you see, God doesn't work like that.



He designs rules....and then He lives by them. He doesn't force His way on us...or IN us. He abides by the laws of cause and effect. And He has in fact, designed a way to defeat and overcome all of our pain, ONCE AND FOR ALL (not merely a sporadic or one time solution) which obeys all the laws of logic and cause and effect. He has created a FINAL SOLUTION--not a final solution of death, (like that of Hitler, that architect of pain) but the ultimate victory of LIFE--over the problem of pain.


And you see, if God randomly jumped in and wrested His will for a happy existence in the lives of man, it would really have messed up this Final Solution of His. Because, ironically, not only does pain make us furious with God and want to spit in His face; it also drives some of us to run straight for His arms.

There is a quote which I believe I've used before which is about this very fact. It is this:

"It’s been said that pain is the second best thing because it leads us to the Best Thing (God). For, it is only when we come to the end of ourselves that we come to the beginning of God. And it is only when we come to the beginning of God that we come to the beginning of life."

I’m Thankful For Pain
Posted November 26th, 2009 by Tullian Tchividjian

http://www.crpc.org/blog/?p=759

More Housekeeping Issues

For those of you who subscribe to my blog via a feedreader:

• Please be patient with all posts prior to today. I was not familiar with the proper way to format my posts so that they would be most readable in the readers' display. This includes the type face color etc. I have tried to modify those so that they would be legible in the reader but I cannot go back to every post and do them again...I promise, from this point on, that they will be done properly.
• Some of you may have initially gotten only the title of the posts displayed in your feedreaders and not gotten all of the article's content. I have corrected that issue I believe--so hang in there. If it is not corrected in the next day or two, please drop me a comment or an email and I will try to help.

To All my readers:

Thank you for your patience with all of the re-designing and with bearing with me as I learn more and more about this new (for me) area of public communication. I am constantly working on improving my effectiveness as a blogger and again, would welcome any of your input and suggestions!

New Look

If you've ever visited my site before, you will see that I've done a little redecorating. My blog now has a different "look" to it. I would really like some feedback about your reactions to the changes. Please leave me a comment that places your vote:

1. I like the new look-Keep it
2. I liked the old look better
3. Try again!

Please also feel free to leave specifics about what you like, don't like or want to see changed.

Thanks in advance for your participation and also for your visit today!

No Harm Intended but Harm done

I would like to bring up a topic which may be controversial...or, and I am praying that this is the case, perhaps the problem exists due to ignorance and can be remedied by a little bit of education into the facts. The problem is the: the continual ostrich syndrome of Christians who do not understand that, by and large, mental illnesses are PHYSICAL diseases...True, they play havoc with our emotions and can potentially challenge our spiritual state as well, but those effects are the consequences and not the causes of the struggles we face. And the longer Christians get their horses before the cart and tell or infer to people who are thus suffering, that they need to "pray a little harder" or "get in the Word more" or deal with their hurtful pasts which are CAUSING their symptoms; the more pain and burden they are heaping onto those who are afflicted with these diseases.

The following quote is from a blog post which I read this morning on this very topic.

"Society still places a stigma on mental illness, but Christians make it worse, he said, by “over-spiritualizing” depression and other disorders — dismissing them as a lack of faith or a sign of weakness. " quote from USA Today

"Isn’t that the truth!
Christians are horrible at addressing mental illness, because we equate the mind with the soul, and presume that if someone has a mental illness that it is at the root a spiritual problem. Now I will be the first to grant that mental illness always has a spiritual component, but arguing that clinical depression or other mental illnesses are simply spiritual is irresponsible..."

The author of this blog quote is Pastor Todd Peperkorn, a Lutheran minister who suffers from clinical depression and he can be found at:
http://darkmyroad.org/2009/10/29/another-pastors-suicide-sparks-conversation

The suggestions come in various forms; "Have you prayed about this?" "Maybe you need to completely surrender this to Jesus..." or in their prayers saying, "Give him/her the faith to accept the healing that You have for her..." "God doesn't desire ANYONE to be sick...it's not in His plan for us" "Lord, we ask you to reveal the hurts that lie at the root of this illness and heal them." Yes, these things have a core of
truth to them, but why does no one ever EVER pray, "Dear Lord will you fix this diseased brain...balance out it's production of seratonin and dopamine; somehow heal the genetic problems and fix the damage that they've caused to the brain. Lord, change the things in their environment which are not conducive to mental health..."

You get the idea. We hear those kinds of prayers in requests for healing from cancer, why not for schizophrenia or major depression or obsessive compulsive disorder?

If you look at a schizophrenic brain in a CT scan; you can observe the physical differences in the brain which have been caused by the disease. And medication is the only thing that will make that person able to function (short of a miraculous
healing.) Unfortunately, the medications aren't perfect and come with their own sets of problems. But they are really the only option for a person suffering with this, as well as with other mental illnesses.

It is adding a great burden to the already bowed shoulders of the mentally ill to imply such things or suggest or pray in an unbalanced manner for these illnesses. For someone who has problems with OCD or even depression and tends to question themselves endlessly or to put blame on themselves where none exists; to deepen their insecurity or to cause them to further question themselves, is not just irresponsible as the above quote stated, but it is even hurtful.

Church: wake up! If you need to become educated, do so. Look at some of the websites in the sidebar of this blog. I would even suggest that you search your heart and ask God's forgiveness for any hurt you have incurred to someone, albeit unwittingly...and maybe ask them for forgiveness as well. Mental Illness is a sneaky disease in that it begins in the brain and can cause erratic behavior and labile emotions... But before you go judging the behavior and condemning the emotions, please consider that the sufferer of the disease is a hapless victim of havoc wreaked within his/her brain and biochemistry. Their behavior may be wrong, and while they should be encouraged to find help and to treat the disease, I do not think that God will hold them as accountable for each action as He may in other cases.

Please have the same mercy!

Weighed down by Glory!

Please forgive my outburst the other day. I'm still in the hospital and still not happy to be here, but my doctor has reiterated over and over that I'm not in good shape and need to be here right now and that this would not have gotten better if I'd stayed at home. So I guess I'm resigned to the need to be here....and counting the days until I leave! I am very grateful for all the people with whom I'm in touch online via chat and email. You are God's gift to me while I'm here!

I just completed a study on 2 Cor. 4:16-17 about which I could speak.

Maybe I should just let the Word speak for itself:

16 This is why we do not lose courage. Though our outer self is heading for
decay, our inner self is being renwed daily. 17 For our light and transient
troubles are achieving for us an everlasting glory whose weight is beyond
description.
Complete Jewish Bible

The Geneva Bible puts the end of verse sixteen in a pleasing way:
"Though we are being broken in pieces with miseries and calamities; yet we do not yield."

I like that. Endurance is a choice. Clinging to Jesus is a choice.

I also like this: When you look at the Greek, one word is used for "light" meaning of little amount; and the word for "troubles" means "a weight or a pressure; an oppression"....and the word for weight (of everlasting glory) signifies a HEAVY weight. In other words what we suffer now cannot ever tip the scales compared to the things God will heap on us in Heaven... We do not perceive this now because we have fleshly eyes; we are not focused on eternity. All we can see is our present situation and to be promised something glorious later, sometimes does little to appease our cries of "but it hurts NOW!!"

Yet God's Word tells us to fix our eyes on eternity; to have our focus there; to set our sights there. When we do, we will live with joy and anticipation, regardless of the curves life throws at us. ... And our threshold for pain will be greatly raised. Allow your mind to wander there...frequently...and read books on Heaven like those by Joni Earekson Tada and by Randi Alcorn. All of this will begin to transform us from the inside out and to renew our hearts and minds so that we will be able to face the next day or even to complete this one with a different mindset. One that rejoices in what is to come rather than is giving up because of what is!