Category Archives: life

The Uncomfortable D or The worst Six Things about Living with Mental Illness – Part 1

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This week is Mental Health Week. Despite the fact that 1 in 5 Australians will suffer from a mental illness in any given year, there is still far too much stigma surrounding it. 
The following post is part 1 of 2 written by a friend of my about her experience of living with a mental illness. For more info about mental health visit Beyond Blue or Black Dog Institute. 

The Uncomfortable D or The worst Six Things about Living with Mental Illness

The Stigma

So you’re having a good day, and then, out of the blue, a friend tells you they’ve got cancer. How do you respond to that?

The correct answer, for all you sociopaths out there, is with sympathy. As a halfway decent friend you’ll support them – bake cookies for them, come visit them in hospital, back them up as much as you can. After all it isn’t their fault, – cancer can happen to anyone.

Now imagine that same friend told you they had a mental illness. Would your attitude be the same?

My guess is no. If you’re like most people I know, your response is going to be less ‘Oh my God, I’m so sorry. What can I do?’ and more ‘Wow, this conversation just took a really awkward turn.’

Why is that? Why does having one chronic, life altering and (at times) deadly disease get you sympathy, while admitting to the other gets you shunned? And having a mental illness will get you shunned – not as badly as in the past perhaps, but even today admitting to depression, bipolar or schizophrenia in a job interview is a sure-fire way to never hear from them again.

Live with mental illness, and you’ll find yourself splitting the world into two categories, those who can know and those who can’t. The difficulty is in knowing which is which. Tell the wrong person and that’s the end of the conversation and possibly the relationship as well. I try to be an honest person, but if a stranger asks me why I don’t work, I tell them I have chronic fatigue.

But why do I have to lie about it? – Asks the small green alien who’s right now reading this from Rygel 12. You have a disease, and surely one disease is no worse than another. Well, life form from another world, I lie because here on Earth, admitting to a mental illness is tantamount to admitting that you regularly talk to small green aliens from the planet Rygel 12. Tell people that you’re mentally ill, and suddenly that’s all they can see.

I can’t tell you how much I hate being defined by my disease. I’m crazy, but I’m also a good flatmate, good sister and occasionally a good cook. I’m crazy, but that doesn’t make me any less of a person. I am more than my messed up head, so don’t judge me on it. And don’t judge me by what shows up on the news, because if you judge any of us by that the Rygelians will wipe us out for the good of the galaxy.

The Attitudes

Someone once told me that mental illness is the rape of the disease spectrum. After being outraged and offended, I actually came to realise that they had a point. Mental illness and rape are the only cases in their respective fields where it’s acceptable to blame the victims.

Yes, I know that’s not always true. Decent, rational people everywhere recognise that a woman wearing a short skirt is not asking to be raped, that the crime is always the fault of the criminal, and that the perpetrators should be castrated with a hot poker and a spoon, but we’re not all decent people, and we’re certainly not always rational.

With mental illness it’s the same – the responsibility for the disease is placed, not on the bastard son of circumstance and genetics, but on the sufferers, as though we’re sick because of some weakness within us, or because we don’t have the right attitude.

I have been told (or yelled at, to be honest) to just get better, to get over it, as if my disease is somehow under my control, as if I’m just pretending, or doing it for the attention. For what other illness would that attitude be acceptable? How many cancer sufferers do you know get told that they’re not trying hard enough?

‘We all get sad sometimes – I just don’t dwell on it,’ ‘There’s plenty of people out there who have it worse than you,’ ‘You’d be more loved if you made yourself more lovable,’ – these are all phrases I’ve heard, from people who are genuinely trying to help, mind, and all fundamentally fail to understand the problem. I’m not just sad – my brain has forgotten how to be happy. People might have it worse, but I’m feeling pretty bad right now. I need to be loved, because I no longer love myself. 

The Loneliness

Earlier I mentioned visiting friends in hospital, something that I hope most have you have done at some point, or you will do if someone you know gets sick, (if you know someone who is currently sick consider this a hint). Hospitals are unpleasant places at the best of time, and seeing a friendly face really helps you get through it.

I mention this because, back when I was first diagnosed I spent two months in a mental hospital, and other than my magnificent family I was visited by exactly one friend, once, and that hurt more than all of the other stuff that was happening to me.

And that was back when I actually had friends, before I got put in the ‘too hard’ basket because I kept skipping meetings, and my agoraphobia got so bad I couldn’t leave my house.

Do you have any idea how hard that is? To struggle to relate to people who can’t really understand what you’re going through, and frankly are too put off by your illness to even try? And it’s not like I’m not a social person. One day I’d like to meet someone, have a family (although the thought of passing this onto my kids is terrifying), but the way things stand it feels like that’s never going to happen. My disease pretty much guarantees I’ll be miserable for the rest of my life, do I have to be alone too?

(to be continued…)

The Valley of Vision

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A Puritan prayer from The Valley of Vision

Lord, high and holy, meek and lowly,
Thou has brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars shine;
Let me find thy light in my darkness,
thy life in my death,
thy joy in my sorrow,
thy grace in my sin,
thy riches in my poverty
thy glory in my valley.

Traditional Sexuality, Radical Community

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From the Gospel Coalition 

I looked nervously across the table, fidgeting with my coffee cup. Do you realize what you’re asking of me? he questioned. We’d been meeting for more than an hour, talking about his struggle with same-sex attraction and his decision about whether to enter into a more intentional relationship with his boyfriend. He’d been part of our church and community group for a couple of years, always intelligent and effervescent, exhibiting many marks of a mature Christian. Yet my friend’s dark internal struggle had finally reached its culmination, and here we were together in a coffee shop, grappling with the reality of his decision.

Do you realize what you’re asking of me? I did. I was asking him not to act on his same-sex desires, to commit to a celibate lifestyle, and to turn away from an important romantic relationship. Yet as I reflect on that discussion, I now realize I didn’t fully understand what I was asking of him. I was asking him to do something our church community wasn’t prepared to support. I was asking him to make some astonishing and countercultural decisions that would put him out of step with those around him. In many ways, I was asking him to live as a misfit in a community that couldn’t yet provide the social support to make such a decision tenable, much less desirable. No wonder he walked away.

Several years have passed since that conversation, but it’s convinced me of the vital relationship between sexuality and ecclesiology. There are many churches like ours that believe there are two possible paths for followers of Jesus to live obedient sexual lives: heterosexual marriage and sexual abstinence. But among churches that are committed to a biblical sexual ethic, there are few, I’m afraid, that make living out that ethic possible for the average person dealing with same-sex attraction.

I’m now convinced any church that holds a traditional view of sexuality must also foster a radical practice of Christian community in which living out a biblical sexual ethic becomes possible and even attractive.

This is a great article on the need for Christian community to a place where living a godly, counter-cultural life plausible, practical and attractive. While it focuses on Christians who have same-sex attraction, there’s lots in here that is true of all single Christians. Though this is an important distinction to remember

Those of us who are heterosexual must realize, however, that even though God is calling us to the same thing (chastity), our LGBTQ friends will experience this calling differently. When heterosexuals commit to chastity, they do so knowing they may meet someone, get married, and be able to have sex. When those tempted by same-sex attraction commit to chastity, though, they’re doing so knowing that unless God changes their sexual desires, they may never know the intimacy of a sexual relationship.

Of course for those of us who are still single in our mid-thirties, the possibility that we may never marry is very real. And, speaking on behalf of women, we live every day with the unforgettable sadness that every day that passes brings us closer to the possibility of never having kids. It does often feel like I have to bear this burden on my own. But Christian community should provide a better way.

Now picture the other scenario. Bob’s been introduced to Jesus by a community group at the invitation of a colleague. The group shares deeply and vulnerably, confessing sin and praying for one another. As Bob struggles with the prospect of chastity, he looks around the group and sees ways others in the group have embraced hard things because of the gospel. At least two other singles in the group are straight and have also embraced chastity. There’s a married couple who are honest about their struggles and failings but committed to not leaving each other despite the immense pain. Another person wasn’t willing to participate in the fraudulent activities of her company, and lost her job because of it.

In this scenario the demands of Jesus don’t lessen for Bob, but he does look around and see he’s not the only one being asked to lose certain things for the gospel. He sees a mixed community of married and single, same-sex attracted and straight, all bearing their crosses together and helping one another bear those heavy burdens. Our gay friends must see a church community in which all of us—not just those who battle same-sex attraction—are facing the demands of the gospel and the struggle against sin.

This is so important. I’m thankful for my married friends who are honest enough to share their struggles with me. Because it reminds me that the grass on their side of the fence has just as many muddy puddles as the grass I’m standing on. When I see the hardships that come with marriage, I’m much more likely to see the goodness of singleness. This is how I persevere.

But here is the most important challenge for churches.  Honour singleness & demystify marriage.

Another way we can create healthy countercultural plausibility structures is by removing marriage from the idolatrous pedestal on which it’s often placed. At times marriage, and the presumed sexual joy therein, is cast as such an objective for Christians that it starts sounding like the supreme goal, surpassing Jesus himself. Talk about “family values” cements this idea, suggesting God’s basic desire for human flourishing is for you to be married and start a family and, if you’re not experiencing that, then hurry up and try.

But the great chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13, isn’t describing love between husbands and wives or parents and kids but love between Christians in a church community. The Bible sees the church, not the nuclear family, as the primary level of relationships in our new kingdom life.

Further, we must return the New Testament’s high honoring of the single life. Whenever we treat singleness as a “second tier” calling or minor league to marriage we’re communicating to our single brothers and sisters that they’re experiencing less of the full human experience. This is obviously not the case. Jesus was single, and he was the perfect human. Paul advocated for singleness and even dubbed it a “higher calling” than marriage: “He who marries his betrothed does well, and he who refrains from marriage will do even better” (1 Cor. 7:38).

Imagine a community in which many celibate singles, both same-sex attracted and straight, are taking full advantage of their singleness as they live the life of the kingdom together. Imagine a community in which sex and marriage are seen as good gifts but not ultimate gifts—indeed, things a follower of Jesus can live without. In such a community, the possibility of a single life of chastity wouldn’t be the fate worse than death it’s sometimes portrayed to be.

In short, we should not call our single friends to sexual abstinence until we create the social environments (plausibility structures) that make such a life meaningful and viable.

Spot on. Read the whole article here.

Book Review: True Friendship by Vaughan Roberts

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9781909611511The past 2 weeks I’ve been taking advantage of school holidays (i.e. no SRE to teach) to give myself a little reading time each day. I’ve been working my way through Don Caron’s Love in Hard Places which is excellent, but a tough read. So today I decided to take it easy and start Vaughan Roberts’ True Friendship instead.

What a great book! Which I can say because I finished the whole thing in about an hour.

Friendship is such an important topic. Despite the multitude of social media that supposedly keeps us connected, one of the biggest needs we have is for true, deep friendships.

True Friendship is …

Crucial, Close, Constant, Candid, Careful & Christ-centred.

The book starts by reminding us that the Bible is a story of friendship. A friendship between God and man, ruined by sin & restored by God himself. The gospel is a message not only of restored friendship with God, but also restored relationships with others. We are called into a new community.

[Christians] have been called, as brothers and sisters, to belong to Christ’s family, as we travel along the way of the cross throughout our lives, with our eyes fixed on the destination of the new creation to come, which Christ will introduce when he returns. It is a long journey, with many challenges along the road. We will often fall and need someone to pick us up; waver, and need another to spur us on. Let us resolve therefore to obey the Bible’s instruction: ‘let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds … let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching’ (Hebrews 10:24, 25)

Roberts’ quotes a colleague of his who once said of her friends “For those of us who are single, our friends are our lifeline”. I love this. It’s so true for me. And yet as I read this book I realise how easy it is to forget how important friendships are, and therefore how important it is to put in the effort required to do friendship well.

Chapter 2 reminds us of what we should already know – there’s a big difference between being Facebook friends with someone and actually being friends with someone. There’s also a difference between friendship and marriage – though marriage should be more than friendship, it should not be less.

The Bible certainly has a very high view of marriage, but it is not designed to bear the weight that is placed on it when a husband and wife expect all their relational needs to be met by one another. The result is that they not only put impossible burdens on each other, but also give insufficient attention to other friendships. Single people suffer from the same delusion, too often believing the lie that they are bound to experience miserable isolates live unless they can find a spouse. In their commendable desire to protect marriage and the family from contemporary challenge, churches can unwittingly become part of the problem by giving the impression that romantic olive is an essential ingredient to human flourishing.

Something that really stands out to me is the need for friendships to be candid. I hate criticism. Yet I recognise they need for it and that, when it comes from a friend, it is motivated by love. As Oscar Wilde says ‘a true friend stabs you in the front’.

Above all, what we need from out friends is the application of the gospel in our lives. The ministry of God’s word is not limited to those with public responsibility for preaching and teaching out churches, but is shared by all of us. We are to teach and admonish one another with all wisdom’ (Colossians 3:16). As we seek to be helpful to out friends, we need to ask how we can bring the gospel to bear on their lives.

Very helpfully the book both starts and ends pointing us to Jesus. The final line of the book says

[Jesus] is the perfect friend who enable us to be true friends ourselves.

At the end of each chapter Roberts has helpfully includes some questions for reflection & discussion that are worth taking some time to prayerfully work through. It’s a great book and definitely worth the short amount to time it takes to read.

You can buy it here or as an ebook here.

Faith like Hannah

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Today we started a sermon series on 1 Samuel. Here are my reflects on Hannah from 1 Samuel 1.

If I’m honest, I have mixed feelings about Hannah. On one level we share a deep sadness. We’re both childless women who desperately want that to change. But that’s where the similarity stops. Because Hannah got what she wanted. And so I wonder what can I learn from Hannah, when there’s no guarantee my story will end happily ever after.

For me there’s 2 things that really stand out about Hannah. Her mistake and then what she does right.

In the first 17 verses Hannah is miserable. Verses 7 and 8 tell us she wept. And her husband describes her as being downhearted. Verse 10 says in her deep anguish she wept bitterly. In verse 15 she tells Eli she is deeply troubled, then in verse 16 she talks about her great anguish and grief. She is utterly miserable.

She’s miserable because she’s made a mistake that many of us do. She has defined herself and her life and her happiness by what she doesn’t have. That’s the reason Peninnah is able to provoked her to tears. Both Hannah and Peninnah really only care about what Hannah’s life is missing. Not what she has already. Her Husband Elkanah notices this too. He asks her why are you downhearted? Aren’t I worth more to you than ten sons? Elkananh loves her and makes sure she is taken care of. So it’s no wonder he is surprised that she is so utterly miserable.

Hannah is so focused on what’s missing, that she can’t see the good things that are right in front of her.

Don’t we do the same thing? I know I do. It’s easy to daydream about a husband and kids, and forget that I get to sleep in at least once a week. I don’t have to check with anyone before I make plans. My time, my money, my energy, my holidays are all my own.

What do you daydream about? And what good things are you missing while you daydream?

It’s not that wanting things is bad. Many of the things we really long for are good gifts from God. But focusing so much on the things we don’t have that we forget to be thankful for the good things we do have will only leave us weeping bitterly. Just like Hannah. That’s her mistake.

But then she does something right. It’s something that’s very ordinary. She prays.

Despite her sadness, she responds in faith. She acknowledges God’s sovereignty. She’s not bitter towards God, she’s not angry with him. She knows he is the Lord Almighty and she turns to him with the very deepest desires of her heart.

Verse 11 says

And she made a vow, saying, “Lord Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the Lord for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

As she’s praying Eli the priest, thought she was drunk. She quickly corrects him – ‘I’m not drunk. I was pouring out my soul to the Lord.’

Hannah’s response here challenges me in my own sadness and desires because I have to ask, is that how I respond? So often I’m very quick to pour out my soul to family and friends, or pretty much anyone else who’ll listen and be sympathetic.

But Hannah says “I was pouring out my soul out to the Lord.’

It’s easy to be caught up with sharing your problems with everyone else and forget to share them with the one who can actually deal with them. If you are convinced that God is completely in control of all things, and if you are convinced that he is good and loving all the time, why wouldn’t you pour out your soul to the Lord? Hannah’s prayer is ordinary, but it’s the response that makes the most sense.

Hannah’s prayer was turning point for her. In verse 18 we read that as she got up and left the temple ‘Hannah’s face was no longer downcast.’

We could easily assume that Hannah’s attitude changed when she a baby – when she gets the thing she wants. But the changed happened before that. Her prayer changed her attitude, her disposition, her ability to cope with he sadness. That change happened well before God in his grace gave Hannah and Elkanah the child they longed for.

I have a mug at home that someone gave me years ago and it say ‘prayer changes things’. To be honest I’ve always found it a little cheesy and I never use it. But as I read Hannah’s story those 3 words keep popping into my mind. It’s true that prayer changes things. It changes us. When we pray we remember that our God, our Father in heaven knows us and loves us. Hannah prayed that he would not forget her. And he didn’t.

He hasn’t forgotten us either. To be sure of that we don’t need to look any further than Jesus. Hannah’s love for God lead her to keep her vow and give her son to live in service to God. God’s love for us lead him to send his son die in place of us. We have even greater reason to respond in faith than Hannah did. We know that in Jesus we have forgiveness, and the hope of eternal life. Our biggest need is already dealt with.

For all the other things we want, the deep desires of our hearts, we can pour out our soul to the Lord in confidence, knowing that he has not forgotten us.

Hannah prays again in chapter 2. She starts her prayer by saying ‘My heart rejoices in the Lord’.

You may never get the things you want. I may never get the things I want. Hannah teaches me to express my faith by praying. She teaches me the right response in sadness – to pour out my soul to the Lord. And she reminds me that I have many reasons for my heart to rejoice in him.

Forgiving the unrepentant. Is it necessary?

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Or even possible?

This series of posts from The Briefing are a few years old but an excellent exploration of this question.

I’m also slowly working my way through D.A. Carson’s Love in Hard Places. This quote is particularly challenging

Over against the personal hatred that some people thought was warranted on the basis of their selective reading of Old Testament texts, Jesus mandates something else: “Love your enemies,” he says, “and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt 5:44). Here is a vision of love that is rich and costly: it extends even to enemies. It is manifested not least in prayer for enemies. We find it difficult to hate those for whom we pray; we find it difficult not to pray for those we love. In no one is this more strikingly manifest than in Jesus himself as he writhes on the cross and yet prays for his enemies, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). If Jesus is our example as well as our Lord, what arrogance, bitterness, pain, or sloth could ever justify our failure to pray for our enemies?

Don’t focus on the absence

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The is what I call ‘the messy shelf’. It’s a space on my bookshelf reserved for all the books I’m currently reading.

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The Jesus Story Book Bible usually finds its way here. Today I used it to at our local pre-school to tell the story of Zacchaeus and his life changing friendship with Jesus.

The next book along is John Stott’s Through the Bible Through the Year. It’s a great devotional book that takes you through the Bible in a year, with a Bible reading and a daily reflection each day. I’m almost at the end and I’ve loved reading it. I thought that sharing part of today’s reflection on Revelation 4:1-6 would be a perfect return to blogging after a rather long absence.

It is immensely significant that, when John peeped through the open door, the very first thing he saw was a throne, symbol of the sovereignty, majesty and kingly rule of God.

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We seize on the assurances of the Revelation that one day there will be no more hunger or thirst; no more pain or tears; no more sin, death, or curse, for all these things will have passed away. It would be better and more biblical, however, to focus not so much on these absences as on the cause of their absence, namely on the central dominating presence of God’s throne.

 

 

The problem with forgiveness

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I’ve been pondering this for the last few weeks. The problem with forgiveness is it’s hard. When we’re hurt, the precious and sought after ‘I’m sorry’ rarely satisfies. It never changes what happened. It certainly is no magic fix to relationships. So even when we’ve heard the words, we must choose to put aside our hurt if we are to forgive. As much as we’d like them to, no-one can take the hurt away. We absorb it ourselves. True forgiveness means giving up the desire for vindication (or revenge).

But what about when forgiveness seem impossible? Like when a man walks into a school and shoots 26 people. How does anyone forgive him? Even if an apology helped, it’s not possible. Not even the strictest of guns laws will restore the life that was lost. No mental health care improvements will ease the pain for those who grieve. How do we begin to even contemplate forgiveness in this situation?

As Christians we remember that we have been shown overwhelming forgiveness. That our own sin, which is just as evil as this man’s, has been dealt with on the cross. We remember that true justice is not ours to enact, but God’s. A day will come when he will judge in perfect righteousness. And we cling to the promise that Jesus will return and the world will be as it should.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away. Revelation 21:1-4

And we pray come, Lord Jesus!

‘It’s a girl’. Why are these words so deadly for so many?

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Last night I saw a documentary called ‘It’s a girl’.

In India, China and many other parts of the world today, girls are killed, aborted and abandoned simply because they are girls. The United Nations estimates as many as 200 million girls are missing in the world today because of this so-called “gendercide”.

Girls who survive infancy are often subject to neglect, and many grow up to face extreme violence and even death at the hands of their own husbands or other family members.

The war against girls is rooted in centuries-old tradition and sustained by deeply ingrained cultural dynamics which, in combination with government policies, accelerate the elimination of girls.

Shot on location in India and China, It’s a Girl reveals the issue. It asks why this is happening, and why so little is being done to save girls and women.

The film tells the stories of abandoned and trafficked girls, of women who suffer extreme dowry-related violence, of brave mothers fighting to save their daughters’ lives, and of other mothers who would kill for a son. Global experts and grassroots activists put the stories in context and advocate different paths towards change, while collectively lamenting the lack of any truly effective action against this injustice.

Here are some truly frightening stats from the documentary –

  • each year China & India ‘eliminate’ more girls than the number of girls born in the USA
  • each year in India 100,000 women are killed because they haven’t produced sons, or their husband and in-laws are unhappy with the dowry paid by her parents
  • dowries have been outlawed in India, however ‘dowry deaths’ still occur and are rarely investigated by authorities
  • female feticide (abortion due to discovering the baby is a girl) is socially acceptable in India
  • techniques used to enforce China’s ‘one child policy’ include forced abortion & forced sterilisation
  •  the ‘one child policy’ means that there are many more men than women in China. This leads to increased child trafficking from nearby countries and kidnapping of child brides

Horrifying.

The film shared stories of women who have killed baby after baby waiting to give birth to a son. But it also shared stories of brave women fighting to save their daughters lives.

One such women was Dr Mitu Khurana. Her husband and mother-in-law starved her for days, then feed her food they knew she was allergic to in order to get her to a hospital so they could bride a doctor to secretly find out the sex of her unborn twins (in violation of the PCPNDT Act). When it was discovered they were girls she was pressured to have an abortion. Instead she fled, gave birth to her daughters and now, years later, she continues to try to have her husband & doctors held accountable for what they did. In return she has been threatened with rape and the death of herself & her daughters if she doesn’t drop her complaint against the doctor.

Read more about her story here.

And visit itsagirlmovie.com to find out what we can do to speak for the voiceless girls around the world.