Encouraging Words

As we near the end of Mental Health Awareness Month, I thought I’d share a selection of resources that I’ve found helpful at different times in life, some of which I’ve quoted in prior blog posts. I may not agree with everything these authors and speakers share, but have generally found them to be helpful and encouraging.

Books

Glimmers of Grace, Kathryn Butler

What Does Depression Mean for My Faith? Kathryn Butler

Not Quite Fine: Mental Health, Faith, and Showing Up for One Another, Carlene Hill Byron

Midnight Mercies: Walking with God through Depression in Motherhood, Christine Chappell

Pursuing Health in an Anxious Age, Bob Cutillo

Spurgeon’s Sorrows: Realistic Hope for those who Suffer from Depression, Zack Eswine

Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness, Kathryn Greene-McCreight

Untangling Emotions, Alasdair Groves and Winston Smith

Companions in the Darkness, Diana Gruver

Blessed Are the Misfits, Brant Hansen

Embodied Hope: A Theological Meditation on Pain and Suffering, Kelly Kapic

You’re Only Human: How Your Limits Reflect God’s Design and Why That’s Good News, Kelly Kapic

Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Tim Keller

When Darkness Seems My Closest Friend, Mark Meynell

A Christian’s Guide to Mental Illness, David Murray and Tom Karel, Jr.

Christians Get Depressed Too, David Murray

Sacred Endurance: Finding Grace and Strength for a Lasting Faith, Trillia Newbell

I Trust When Dark My Road, Todd Peperkorn (free pdf download!)

God’s Grace in Your Suffering, David Powlison

The Scars That Have Shaped Me: How God Meets Us in Suffering, Vaneetha Risner

Depression: Looking Up from the Stubborn Darkness, Ed Welch

Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, Mark Vroegop

CSB Life Counsel Bible- contains many of the New Growth Press minibook series

Blogs

CCEF Blog

Penetrating the Darkness, Terry Powell

Podcasts

Hope + Help Podcast, Christine Chappell

CCEF Podcast, Alasdair Groves

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Do It Anyway

More than a year ago I collected the following quotes as potential fodder for my blog, though little explanation is required.

“We live in what one writer has called the ‘age of sensation.’ We think that if we don’t feel something there can be no authenticity in doing it. But the wisdom of God says something different: that we can act ourselves into a new way of feeling much quicker than we can feel ourselves into a new way of acting. Worship is an act that develops feelings for God, not a feeling for God that is expressed in an act of worship. When we obey the command to praise God in worship, our deep, essential need to be in relationships with God is nurtured” (Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, 48).

“How does one feel thankful? ...It seems to be something which disappears or becomes a mere word the moment one recognizes one ought to be feeling it. I always tell people not to bother about ‘feelings’ in their prayers, and above all never to try to feel, but I’m a bit puzzled about Gratitude: for if it is not a feeling, what is it? A funny thing how merely formulating a question awakes the conscience! ...Act your gratitude and let feelings look after themselves” (C.S. Lewis, Yours, Jack, 95).

“...we have no power to make ourselves love God. The only way is absolute obedience to Him, total surrender. He will give us the ‘feeling’ if He pleases. But both when He does and when He does not, we shall gradually learn that feeling is not the important thing. There is something in us deeper than feeling, deeper even than conscious will. It is rather being. When we are quite empty of self we shall be filled with Him” (Ibid. 101).

“Feelings come and go, and when they come a good use can be made of them: they cannot be our regular spiritual diet” (C.S. Lewis, The World’s Last Night, 109).

These days we might hear someone say, “I don’t feel like going to church... reading my Bible... praying.” But could you benefit from doing it anyway? “I don’t feel like praising God?” But isn’t He worthy of praise at all times? There are a lot of things in life that we do whether we feel like it or not. And although faith isn’t a “to do” list, there are times when we simply have to trust that doing what God has instructed in His Word will be good for us in the end.

The spiritual disciplines have gotten lost in some Christian traditions, because they are confused with works-based salvation. Their value lies not in saving us, but in drawing our attention back to the One who did save us and gives purpose to our existence. Let us therefore draw near to God in worship and gratitude.

“Rejoice always, praying without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thess. 5:16-18).

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Forgiven Indeed

In his book The Yellow Leaves, Frederick Buechner related the following:

“Frank Tracy Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church... told me that once when he was taking a shower, he distinctly heard a voice from somewhere saying, ‘Why do you take your sins so much more seriously than I do?’ His first reaction, he said, was to burst into laughter. His second was to burst into tears.”

I had mixed feelings of my own when I read that. On one hand, sin is extremely serious. The smallest of offenses against the perfect, holy God is worthy of the death penalty, and in fact led to the death of Jesus Christ. And yet Scripture proclaims,

“And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross” (Col. 2:13-14).

For those who follow Christ, all our sins, past, present, and future, were nailed to the cross and removed “as far as the east is from the west” (Psalm 103:12). So while each time that we sin is a reminder of the penalty we owed, it is also an occasion for God’s grace to abound to us over and over again.

“But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many... Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Rom. 5:15, 20).

Those who are faithful Christians don’t take sin lightly, or think of it as “no big deal.” We don’t “continue in sin that grace may abound” (Rom. 6:1). But I believe that many of us hold onto the feelings of guilt and shame long after we’ve confessed our sins to God. I heard myself saying recently, “I know God doesn’t hold it against me, but I hold it against myself.” At times like that, God may truly ask us, “Why do you take your sins so much more seriously than I do?” If He has forgiven those sins, who am I to stand in judgment against those same sins? If His grace has “abounded all the more,” who am I to reject it for myself?

Of course, just knowing that truth doesn’t mean we always take it to heart. We have an accuser to loves to remind us of all the times and ways we have failed to love God and others. He wants to keep us wallowing in the mud so that we’re too distracted to serve God. And if we think of ourselves foremost as sinners, we may forget that we have the ability to say no to sin because of God’s grace.

From the vantage point of the cross, my sins are no longer on my record or my shoulders. Jesus’ shoulders bore the weight so mine do not need to. His hands were nailed to my sin, so my hands are now free.

Lord, help us to see ourselves as the new creations You have made us to be. Where we are forgiven, help us to forgive ourselves. Where we are tempted, guard us against the lies and lures of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

“The Lord passed before [Moses] and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness’” (Ex. 34:6).

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Yes, Mental Illness Exists

A prominent Christian leader is reported to have said recently that “There is no such thing as mental illness.” While I agree that we need to normalize the experience of suffering, mourning, and anxiety within the church, his statement is likely to have the opposite effect, which makes me sad. Those of us who take medication for various mental illnesses don’t need added shame for not being able to cope without them. We feel plenty of shame already, because it feels like everyone else has stronger faith and better coping skills than we do. Even if science can’t explain why, some medications do help some people. They don’t necessarily fix the problems, but they reduce the symptoms enough that we can carry on with daily life and, hopefully, get good, godly counsel as well. As Kathryn Butler notes in a new article from TGC:

“The first stop when seeking help for depression is your primary doctor’s office, but it shouldn’t be the last. While a doctor determines whether an antidepressant will help, it’s critically important to couple any medication with counseling.”

However, godly counseling can be hard to find as well, particularly if one is relying on the local church to provide it. Most pastors and church leaders don’t have the training or the time to provide the deep, long-term counseling that many of their church members need. And depending on their theology, they may create more problems than they solve. I’ve been blessed to find a Christian counselor within the medical system, but available appointments are few. For those with more intensive needs, it can be expensive to get the necessary help.

In the CT 2024 Pastors Special Issue, Jeannie Whitlock writes of Recapturing Wonder in a Cynical Age:

“Many of us haven’t even processed everything we have lost, pushed by a culture that urges us to quickly move on. But as Christian Wiman warns, unaddressed grief will make itself known, showing up in ‘every kind of crying but the kind you can see.’ Our bodies keep the score. Bottled sorrow can metastasize into physical ailments, unexplained fatigue, heartache, weakened immunity, or constant irritation. Yet, many American Christians are terrible at grieving.”

Often times it seems as though the church has lost the art of lament, in part because we’ve forgotten how to bear one another’s burdens. We’ve accepted superficial relationships as “good enough.” If the church were better at all the “one another” commands, there probably would be less need for medications and outside counseling services, but those will never completely go away in this lifetime. We live in a broken world, where our bodies and minds are impacted by sickness, suffering, and sin (our own and others’). Telling people “there’s no such thing as mental illness” is somewhere on the spectrum between “Just deal with it” and “If you just have enough faith you will be healed,” neither of which is helpful or encouraging.

In the midst of writing this, a severe storm moved through the area, providing me with an analogy. The property next to my house was recently clear-cut for building an electrical substation. When the storm came, a large pine tree that was left at the edge of the woods fell across the power lines. Because it no longer had neighboring trees on three sides, it was more susceptible to the wind than it had been before. Likewise, many Christians, and especially those struggling with mental illness, feel like they are on the fringe of church life with little support and protection from the storms of life. We need aid in whatever forms we can get it.

Perhaps we all need the reminder that God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer” (2 Cor. 1:4-6).

“Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:18).

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Image courtesy of SAMHSA.gov. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.

Remember This

Having grown up in a fairly “low church” tradition, I’ve never given much consideration to the repetition of rote prayers and sentences. After reading a variety of authors who have referred to the Book of Common Prayer, I started getting more interested. Then recently I started listening occasionally to The Daily Office Podcast from the Anglican Church in North America 2019 Book of Common Prayer. Although they occasionally include readings from apocryphal books that I would not normally read, I’ve grown to appreciate the practice.

In the past, I would have been concerned that repetition of something like the Lord’s Prayer might become rote and mindless. However, if you think about all the other things that we repeat frequently and mindlessly, we could probably all use some regular infusions of truth into our thought processes. For example, there are certain TV series that I’ve watched so many times I can quote the dialog from memory. And there are plenty of negative thoughts that I rehearse more often than is wise. So it can be helpful to have biblical truths embedded in memory to bring to mind at such times.

Over and over in Scripture we are urged to remember what God has said and done:

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy… For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy” (Ex. 20:8, 11).

“And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you” (Deut. 8:2).

“Remember the wondrous works that He has done, His miracles, and the judgments He uttered” (Psalm 105:5).

“Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me” (Isaiah 46:8-9).

“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away… I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you” (John 16:1, 4).

We will remember things that we’ve heard repeatedly, so the only question is what those words are going to be. Will it be TV shows and secular media, or will it be Bible verses, scriptural songs, or creedal confessions that have been used in some Christian traditions for centuries? Sure, there will be times when we repeat words without thinking about them, because we’re simply human. But there will also be times when the words come from our hearts with praise, repentance, and affirmation of what we know to be true.

Let us consider how to fill our minds with the things we really need to remember.

“My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food, and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips, when I remember You upon my bed, and meditate on You in the watches of the night” (Psalm 63:5-6).

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Related resources: 

Here are two songs that are often on my mind after I’ve listened to The Daily Office Podcast:

Lord, Have Mercy by Matt Boswell, Matt Papa, Aaron Keys, and James Tealy

Creed by Rich Mullins

© 2024 Dawn Rutan. Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture are ESV and all images copyright free from pixabay.com. The opinions stated do not necessarily reflect the views of my church or employer.