This week is Mental Health Awareness week. This weeks blog is both in recognition of this, and recognising this season is difficult for most people.
When we have a physical ailment, we do things to help us recover – an ice pack, rest, a bandage, plaster or medication. We might see a doctor with no shame and may talk to others about our condition. However, mental illness is unseen and for too long people have assumed it’s either weakness to be ‘stressed’, ‘anxious’, relegating this to circumstances or difficulties, or it’s assumed that mental health is purely in disorders such as bi-polar.
It’s OK to not be OK.
We have a God who loves us and is for us. There are times in life when there is extreme pressure, traumatic moments, experiences we go through, and this can affect our mental health detrimentally. We must pray and receive prayer. But we must also seek help; see a doctor, take some exercise, slow down or where appropriate and diagnosed by a doctor take the medication which balances the imbalance. God works through medicine and miracle. We pray expecting a miracle, but we also make the most of the science which God has revealed and provided for us. Receiving prayer and taking medication is not a lack of faith – if someone had a heart attack, we would pray, but we wouldn’t say it was a lack of faith for them to have the appropriate treatment and make lifestyle changes!
Too often as people – inside and out of the church – slip into the fine lie. “How are you?” “I’m fine”. As family, we must be honest and real, and realise it’s OK to not be OK.
In the 1500s, St John of the Cross coined a phrase ‘the dark night of the soul’, referring to the wilderness, the difficult moments when it’s hard to see where God is at work, or where the surrounding situations seem to impose on everything in life, including your walk with God. It’s not that God has given up on you, and you haven’t given up on God – but it seems like you can’t feel Him in the moment and your joy has gone. However, John of the Cross reflected, “the dark night purifies the human heart so that it can live in the love of God’. The dark night, the wilderness, is a struggle, but it’s in this struggle that God refines us. Our series on 1 Peter also draws on suffering as a means towards holiness. Similarly, many of the Psalms reflect these challenges too, Psalm 88 being the most obvious.
The Bible shows us some of the people whom we look up to as heroes of the faith, go through wilderness experiences or dark nights of the soul; Abram and Sarai’s inability to conceive; David running away from Saul; Jeremiah lamenting about the current and foreseeable situation.
Maybe the most obvious is Elijah in 1 Kings 19.
Elijah has had a wonderful victory over the prophets of Baal, God has done wonderful things. Elijah prophesies again, and after three years of drought, rain is coming on the land – a celebration moment. Yet the next moment, Elijah wanders off and sits under a tree, wishing he was dead. Elijah is exhausted; imagine the physical and emotional effort of all he has done in the previous chapters; imagine the spiritual exhaustion from being the only prophet faithful to God – the prayers, the crying out, trying to teach the people, challenging the king. Elijah is exhausted.
God sends an angel to Elijah and provides Elijah with three things: rest, food, drink.
After taking these things repeatedly, Elijah is refreshed, and from v9, God appears to Elijah in a powerful way. We must look after ourselves with healthy food, water and good sleep.
Elijah also converses with God; we must also pray.
Later, God provides Elijah with Elisha – someone to ‘do life’ with, share the load and the burden.
God had not forgotten Elijah. Elijah was exhausted, mentally, physically and probably spiritually too. At the moment when he should have been celebrating, he was lamenting. But God was with Elijah; God provides for Elijah, and God appears to Elijah.
If life is hard, know that God is with you. It’s OK to not be OK. There is a Father in Heaven who loves you and is with you; spend time with Him, and care for yourself too. Remember, you are part of a church family who cares for you and will always be happy to listen; and there is advice and medical help where needed too. Share the journey with someone else too – take wise advice, share your concerns, pray and receive prayer. I’m always happy to listen and pray, similarly, members of our pastoral care team (through Dot R.) will be too.
Pastor Lee.