Forever Beloved

As I awoke in the recovery room, my eyes felt so heavy.  I just couldn’t open them.  They felt as if they weighed more than anything I had lifted in my life.  I finally surrendered and closed them again.

I rode the waves between consciousness and sleep.

I heard her walk in, insisting I wake up.  She must not understand the weight of my eyes.  I turned my head away from her, trying to drift back to sleep.  I heard her voice again, growing more frustrated with me.  I pried my eyes open one at a time.

Now that I was awake, the pain overtook me.  I could feel tears welling up.

I tried to collect my thoughts, but I could hear her stern frustrated voice again.  I couldn’t understand what her words meant.  I just had major surgery less than an hour ago.  How can she expect me to stand and walk myself to another bed?

I looked around the room for my husband.  He wasn’t there.

And I remembered.

This surgery, during the pandemic, is the first time my husband has not been allowed to be by my side.  He is always my rock, my protector, my fighter, and my advocate.

As she grabbed my arm and started pulling me out of the bed, I didn’t have any fight in me.  I tried to lift myself out of the bed, as the pain shot through my body like lightening the tears began to roll down my cheeks.

My tears seemed to frustrate her even more, and she reminded me that I’m not the first person to have surgery.

I felt as if time moved in slow-motion as I shuffled my feet to the new bed.  Once in the bed I turned on my side, hid my face and cried like a child who missed their mother.

I felt so alone.

What upset me the most wasn’t her asking me to wake up, it wasn’t her asking me to move to a different bed, it was her demeanor.  It was how unkind she was to me when I was my most vulnerable.

Kindness is immensely powerful.

What do people believe about Jesus based on the way you treat them?  What do your interactions with people say about your Savior?

That’s a hard question to hear, isn’t it?  Our world is a heavy one right now friend, just as heavy as my post-surgery eyes were.

How would Jesus have handled the controversial issues in our world today?  When Jesus encountered people who He felt needed “called out”, first He showed them love.

Jesus continually loved on people.  Even the people he felt needed “called out”, first He showed them love.  HE LOVED THEM!  Is it easier to hear criticism from someone if they loved on you first?  If they said it with kindness and you knew their heart was in the right place?  Absolutely!  It’s all about love, kindness and grace.  Gods greatest commandment was love one another (John 13:34).

Ephesians 4:32 says And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.  And be ye KIND one to another.

Kind.  Kind.  Kind.

Would it have been easier for me to work through the pain of walking myself to a different bed if the nurse had been kind?  Without a doubt.

Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit y’all.  Like the other fruits of the spirit, it can only be obtained through abiding in Christ.  It is an outgrowth of the genuineness of our faith.  According to the Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary, the Greek word translated kindness here is “the divine kindness out of which God acts toward humankind.  It is what the Old Testament means when it declares that ‘God is good,’ as it so frequently does. Christians should show kindness by behaving toward others as God has behaved toward them.”

Kindness is humbly giving of ourselves in love and mercy to others who may not be able to give anything back.  To someone that doesn’t deserve it and who frequently doesn’t thank us for it.

At times kindness can be associated with weakness.  But let me tell you, it is anything but.  It requires extraordinary strength and courage to show kindness, especially to those who don’t deserve it. And let’s be clear: not a one of us “deserves” it all the time.  There are times when responding with kindness has felt like it almost killed this stubborn, hard-headed girl.  In those moments, I always think back to my Dad and how he would respond.

Kindness is being considerate, generous, warm-hearted, and gentle.  It’s being friendly when the person across from you isn’t, it’s being warm when she’s cold, it’s being soft when they are hard, it’s giving when she has nothing to give in return, it’s running through the McDonald’s drive-thru to give that homeless person a warm meal and sometimes it comes in the form of holding your tongue.

Kindness is scrolling past the political post you vastly disagree with, it’s walking past the person in the store that obviously has a different opinion on masks than you do and smiling at them, it’s offering empathy and compassion to others, it’s standing with every race because we are all God’s children and it’s being selfless.

Kindness isn’t fair, just or equal.  Kindness doesn’t speak of the character of the receiver, but it speaks volumes about the giver.

There have been times when I’ve felt that gentle nudge on my heart to extend kindness to someone.  I’ve heard echoes of you’re naive, you’re being taken advantage of and you’re too easy.  My response is always the same.  When I feel called to be kind to someone, how I answer that call matters.

As Christ followers, we are to love as He loved us.  And His love is always, always wrapped up tightly in kindness.  We see time and time again His love offered to undeserving people.  A wife who just disrespected her husband, a child who just sassed their parent, a husband who just laughed at an inappropriate joke…in other words, every single one of us.

Hosea 11:4 says I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love.  To them I was like one who lifts a little child to the cheek, and I bent down to feed them.

We need to learn to be gentle, sensitive, and tenderhearted.  When we start being tenderhearted, it’s easy to be kind.  Having a heart that is easily touched and sensitive doesn’t mean your weak, although that’s what some would lead you to believe.  If we are sensitive to those around us, we start seeing their needs instead of our own.  Have a loving, tenderhearted, compassionate attitude and let it shine for everyone to see.

We are called to be kind to others because God is kind to us.  He loves us when we are unlovable, and He does this over and over again.  Kindness is extremely powerful.  You can change lives with your actions.  You can change lives by your words.  You can change lives with your kindness.  You can change lives by allowing Christ’s love to shine through you.

Don’t ever be afraid to show your kindness.  You might be the one voice in their life at the moment that they need to hear.  Your encouragement might be the one thing that keeps them going.

Maybe you are the one who will help them see Jesus through your kindness.

Your kindness matters.

Mental illness is one of those touchy subjects that is tough to tackle from a Christian perspective.  This post isn’t meant to paint the Church with a broad brush.  I don’t want to come off as saying every Christian in every church thinks this way.  That simply isn’t true.  Not all Christians stigmatize those with emotional problems.  We are so blessed and thankful to have a church-family that is understanding, caring, always willing to listen and learn more about mental illness!  Incorrect beliefs about mental illness are throughout our culture, Christian or not.

While researching for this post I found one very popular Pastor, and college professor, actually preached an entire sermon, and wrote a blog post, on this topic:

Anxiety is one of the evil conditions of the heart that comes from unbelief.

To say that left me stunned and shocked is an understatement.

I thought maybe it was a fluke.  Maybe, just maybe, it was only one Pastor who thought that.  Surely there can’t be more.

And then I came across another article by a different Pastor:

Mental illness is demonic possession

With that, my heart broke.

Have we not learned anything about mental illness in the church over the past decade?  Did Jarrid Wilson not teach us anything?  Being a Christian does not make you immune to depression, hopelessness and suicide.

If someone has a porn addiction, we are quick to point them in the direction of a support group.  For struggling marriages there are workshops and counseling services.  For money issues we’ll offer Dave Ramsey’s course.  Temptation, gossiping, pride — all on the “acceptable” list of problems the Church is willing to address.  These are issues people feel comfortable going to the church for.

But crippling anxiety, deep depression or suicidal thoughts?

For some reason these are often seen as spiritual in nature.  That they are either not truly trusting God, committed to prayer or understanding God’s great love for them.  And if they just had enough faith and trust in God it would go away.  As you see above from the Pastors sermon topic, some Christians not only believe that but preach about it.

I’m here to tell you that is simply not true.  That is like saying someone with cancer didn’t have enough faith BUT if they had greater faith and just prayed a little harder it would be healed.

The sad reality is that our judgmental reaction makes everything worse. With depression you already feel isolated and hopeless, and when our own church family alienates us or downplays what we’re going through, it accentuates the reach of darkness in our souls.  And when they feel they have no voice, it leaves them more susceptible to despair.  This will further stigmatize, shame, and isolate those who are struggling. It is stone throwing people who need understanding and a helping hand.

My beautiful daughter is a Christian and loves God with all her sweet little heart.

The truth is, Christians get mental illnesses at the same rate as everyone else.  This should not be a surprise to anyone.  After all, Christians catch colds as often as everyone else.  Christians get cancer or heart disease or high blood pressure at the same rate as everyone else.  No one thinks of these things as spiritual failings.

My daughter has an anxiety disorder.  Anxiety disorders are what happens to a person when the brain’s fire-alarm center—the amygdala—gets a “chemical burn” from bathing too long in stress chemicals, making it hypersensitive and over-reactive to new problems.  Anxiety Disorders are not a failure of character or spiritual maturity.  They are what happens when the brain’s stress-warning systems become overwhelmed and hyper-activated.

I also think as Christians we need to be very careful when we discourage the use of medications in treating mental health conditions.  We wouldn’t dismiss a diabetic who uses insulin or a cancer patient who uses chemo as someone who obviously doesn’t trust God enough.  In the same way, we shouldn’t look at those who take medication for a mental illness as somehow lacking in their faith.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a firm believer in prayer!  And there is nothing wrong with praying for recovery from a mental health condition.  But encouraging someone to “pray away” a mental health condition could have serious ramifications.

Brandon Peach wrote:

Most churches probably have the very best intentions when dealing with issues of mental illness. Like the rest of society, however, the Church may misinterpret these clinical conditions and respond to them in ways that exacerbate them—and as a result, demoralize those suffering. Christ, the Great Physician, came to heal the sick. As His body, it’s time the Church leads society in helping to do the same.

If someone with a mental illness comes to you for help, please don’t diminish or downplay their feelings.  They already feel vulnerable and are trusting you.

Here is what you can do for them.  Pray for them and with them.  Love on them.  Encourage them to seek counseling, faith-based if possible.  Check in with them.  Let them know that we serve a God who knows brokenness.  A God who is well acquainted with pain.  And since He also knows everlasting life, He is with them even in the midst of a heart-thundering anxiety attack.  He is with them in the deafening silence of 3 a.m. depression.  His presence doesn’t mean we won’t suffer hard things.  Some of our struggles may never go away, but He is with us in the midst of them, keeping us, helping us.  Mental illness will tell them you can’t handle this.  But the truth is with God we are stronger than we think, because in our weakness He is the strongest!  Even though it might be uncomfortable that you can’t fix them with a meal or an errand or a Bible verse, you can show them the gospel by loving them through their darkest times.

As a Christian and as a mother of a beautiful daughter with a mental illness I think it’s time I raise my voice and say:

Therapy is not demonic.

Taking antidepressants is not a sin.

Seeing a psychiatrist is not anti-christian.

And those who suffer from mental health problems are not a failure.

God has called us to shed light on that which is dark instead of burying the darkness under our discomfort, misconceptions and lack of authenticity.

September is National Suicide Prevention Month.  We can all help prevent suicide. This lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals.  Call 1-800-273-8255 or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.