I am frequently not at peace. Anxiety twists and torments me, makes me run through my head over and over the same worries and fears. Anxiety makes me fear, and fear turns to depression in me. My soul is troubled by many horrible thoughts, by destructive thoughts, by the haunting idea that I am not […]
10 Things NOT To Say To Someone Who Is Depressed
January 12, 2013 by 10 Comments
I have posted before about a few things that are unhelpful to say to someone who is experiencing depression (here and here) and I thought I would draw together the ten least helpful things in one post. Similar lists can be found all over the internet, of course! 1) Pull yourself together. This, and similar […]
Flat-Pack Furniture and the Body of Christ
January 10, 2013 by 4 Comments
A particularly strenuous bout of flat-pack furniture making and carrying said furniture up the stairs has led me to reflect on weakness. The Bible is very clear that we all do different things within the body of Christ – that we all are different parts of his body, and all equally valuable. Paul wrote, in […]
Why, Lord? The Book of Job
November 22, 2012 by Leave a Comment
I have been reading the book of Job, in the Old Testament, today. I must confess that I have found this a difficult book in the past, with its many speeches, and I found it difficult to know whether Job’s comforters were right about him. Now that I have finally got round to reading it […]
Labels and Identity
November 10, 2012 by 4 Comments
Sometimes it is tempting to label myself, to claim the title “bipolar”, “anxious”, “depressive” and “self harmer” as being me. I went without declared diagnosis for some time, and I remember being keen to know what was wrong with me, to understand – to have some anchor point that I could read about. I was […]
8 Steps to a Mental Health Friendly Church
October 27, 2012 by 4 Comments
These are things I would like to see in churches, things that would help me and, I think, others who are experiencing mental health difficulties. I will also point you to the excellent Mind and Soul listing of mental health friendly churches which has their draft ideas for what churches can do, and also the list […]
Is it a Sin to Take Medication?
October 19, 2012 by 1 Comment
Some people, if you say that you are suffering from a mental illness, will tell you not to take medication. Some say that the drugs will make you worse, that you will be addicted, that you should be able to “man up” and deal with whatever you are experiencing. Some Christians who believe this will […]
Review: God’s Will for Your Healing
October 11, 2012 by 3 Comments
“God’s Will for Your Healing” Gloria Copeland (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland Publications, 1972) I have to say that this is not my sort of book at all. Gloria Copeland, and her husband Kenneth, are prosperity gospel teachers. That is to say, they are charismatics who believe that God wants all believers to be healthy […]
Believing for Comfort?
July 4, 2012 by 1 Comment
I have occasionally been told by others that I only believe in God because of my illness, that I have in effect chosen to believe in order to give myself comfort and a sense of purpose, to make sense of why I have a mental illness and not because God actually exists. I came across a […]
Believer's Brain 