AN UPHILL BATTLE
Fighting the good fight is always an uphill battle, no matter what your story is. There are always good times and bad times. Even on days when it’s not raining, the sun’s heat can be sweltering. One has to take life on this earth with a grain of salt. Or, in a twist of irony, one could be the salt of this earth. And, as Christians, we are called to be just that.
However, how can you act like salt when you feel like dirt? And how long can you go on trusting God when he doesn’t seem to care about your feelings? How can you concentrate on others when your basic emotional needs aren’t being met? When the climb isn’t only uphill, it’s completely vertical?
EPIDEMICALLY SPEAKING
Emotional instability is becoming an epidemic in our society, and especially in our young people. Approximately 1 in 5 youth aged 13–18 (21.4%) experiences a severe mental disorder at some point during their life1. 6.9% of young adults in the U.S.—16 million—had at least one major depressive episode2, and mood disorders, including major depression, dysthymic disorder and bipolar disorder, whether diagnosed or undiagnosed, are the third most common cause of hospitalization in the U.S. for both youth and adults aged 18–443. In an age where minds are constantly being bombarded with worldly messages, it isn’t a far cry to believe that mental health has plummeted in recent decades.
This spike of emotional instability has created a need for professionals who know the mind inside and out, and the psychiatrists and therapists of the world did not disappoint. Secular specialists have come out of the woodwork to grind the poor minds of these searching souls, molding them like so much putty, but the results have not changed significantly enough to determine whether or not their treatment is working. Even so, Christians with mental health issues still take their troubles to the worldly shrinks. Why is this?
For anyone suffering from depression, anxiety, or other emotional or mental health issues, the world is a bleak one. But for a Christian, the struggle is augmented by the confusion of wanting to be right with the Lord while still being unable to control the emotions that well up from deep within. Many Christians feel ashamed of their feelings and do not want to share them with Christian counselors for fear they will say one of two things: either, that they are sinning by dwelling on their "passions of the flesh", or that they are faking their feelings for attention. Neither option sounds like the truth, so the fading Christian turns to the only other option available to them: the secular therapist, who will invariably lead them astray.
THIS WORLD OF GRAY
I know this because I have lived this lie. For far too long, I was the one sitting in the pew, watching smiling church-goers sing about the joy of the Lord while my world was shadowy and gray. I didn’t know why. All I wanted was for God to take away my bitterness, my loneliness, my numbness. I prayed but I felt like my prayers didn’t get as far as the ceiling. I read my Bible every day, striving for the connection I had once felt with my Lord, but I felt nothing. I began to think that maybe, just maybe, God had decided that I wasn’t worth His time. I began to descend a downward spiral.
I began to lose hope.
Until one day, someone told me something completely life-changing. “You may not be able to choose your feelings right now, but you can choose to trust God, even if you don’t feel Him close by.”
Isaiah 26: 3-4 says this about trust: “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal.” Trust is a choice, friends. And even though trusting God through depression or mental illness feels like clinging to a rock while being tossed by a sea storm in the ghost-black darkness, that Rock will never falter. You just have to choose to cling to it.
TRUST IS WORTH IT
Sure, it’s still a challenge. Life is all uphill, from the moment we’re born until we meet Jesus at the pearly gates. But God is there, whether we are on the mountains of life, or crawling through the valleys. Tauren Wells's song Hills and Valleys is always an encouragement to me, because God is the one who put me on the high places, and he will not leave me in the low places. Getting up, getting dressed, and going about each day will still be hard, but it will be worth it, and one day, you’ll wake up and find that life is a little bit easier. Don’t seek the help you need through secular mental health professionals. Find someone who can keep you accountable, who can encourage you, and who can remind you of that Rock when you have lost sight of it. God does care about your feelings.
You, fellow Christians, have not “lost your saltiness” (Matthew 5:13-16) just because you are in a low spot right now. Get help. There are many Christian help lines who will see these diseases for what they are and not make them into something they are not.
Choose to trust.
Choose to hope.
Choose to live.
Choose to trust.
Choose to hope.
Choose to live.
Citations
1. Any Disorder Among Children. (n.d.) Retrieved August 14, 2017, from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-disorder-among-children.shtml
2. Major Depression Among Adults. (n.d.). Retrieved August 14, 2017 from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/major-depression-among-adults.shtml
3. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, The Department of Health & Human Services. (2009). HCUP Facts and Figures: Statistics on Hospital-based Care in the United States, 2009. Retrieved August 14, 2017, from http://www.hcup-us.ahrq.gov/reports/factsandfigures/2009/pdfs/FF_report_2009.pdf
