Lights and Shadows

Posted on by Ekko Church

There are days when the sadness weighs like lead in your chest. When your ribs cave into themselves to board up the broken pieces of your spirit — to hide, to protect, to disappear. I shouldn’t still be dealing with this, you think to yourself. I should be healed of this by now.

Frustration binds itself with every cell until you are at war with yourself. Breath becomes shallow; thoughts billow like smoke to poison the air. Until you can’t distinguish between what’s real and what’s not. Until you can’t remember if morning will come again.

I am too much. I am too messy. I am too broken, you reason, tightening your lips. In days like this, you forget the refrain of this song.

You forget that you are not defined by your storms.

You forget that healing is a process. That it can take a moment, or it can take a lifetime.

Like bones, minds can break and they can mend. And they can break again. And when it gets cold, sometimes old fractures can still ache.

And hope, even if you can’t see it at the moment, is ever present and ever constant.  

Until the dawn comes, as it inevitably does, to warm the dark corners of your mind and settle like a salve on the wounds, wait and press in. Until the prayers you have whispered can be more than a breath. Until you have remembered the truths that His grace and restoration are not static, but moving to and fro like waves painting the shoreline. They are ceaseless in their step; they are unconditional in their ebbing and flowing.

When some days and seasons are harder than others, remember that the presence of mental illness isn’t a metric of your faith or spirituality; that it can affect members, leaders, and pastors. We all experience this tension of light and shadow within, turning in varying degrees and contrasts. 

Dr. Jessica Lee, a clinical psychologist and Ekko member, writes that mental illness “isn’t something that goes away if you pray harder or stop sinning. Some of the most depressed people are some of the most deeply spiritual people I’ve met.”

Because just as one of our panelists said on Mental Health Awareness Sunday, “God can heal our deepest hurts and pains, but if you have a broken bone, you need to see a doctor.” If you are suffering from a mental health condition, therapy and medicine are God-given tools to guide you as you wade through the waters of mental health.

For some, recovery can be a season.

For others, it a can be a lifetime.

And that’s okay.

As the church, we offer hope and the healing power of God’s grace through wholeness in community. We are a place of refuge and guidance for those who are suffering.

In His ministry, Jesus cared for the mentally ill and the sick.š

“The Spirit of God, the Master, is on me
    because God anointed me.
He sent me to preach good news to the poor,
    heal the heartbroken,
Announce freedom to all captives,
    pardon all prisoners.” — Isaiah 61 (MSG)

Jesus’ healing is twofold: he heals the condition of our minds, spirits, and bodies, and he also restores us back into our families and communities. As Rick Warren writes, “In Christ’s name, the Church extends compassion, acceptance, and unconditional love to all who suffer from the pain of mental illness, and as his Body, we offer hope and the healing power of God’s grace.”

Our hope isn’t rooted in the fact that by focusing on God all our problems and sickness go away, but rather, our hope is in Jesus who enters into our mess and heals us. He is our peace from the unrest in our souls. There is not one of us who is too far, too broken or too dark for Him.

He is our hope that is ever-present and constant. He is the light that pours through the crevices in our spirit. 

And it is because of him, that we can, in turn, be a safe place for those in and around our midst suffering from mental health issues — even as we are being healed in the process.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. According to a study done by Mental Health America, one in five Americans lives with a mental health condition.

If you are struggling with mental illness, here are some resources to help guide you. Open up to someone you trust or one of our leaders. There is hope. 

Mental Health Professional Referral List

Mental Health Awareness Sunday

š Matthew 4:24