I was troubled, deep in the abyss of epilepsy, depression and anxiety I struggled to grope for hope and I felt helpless. I thought, “Where is the Jehovah Rapha that I really believe and serve?” Why has He departed? Why has He forsaken me?
It was then that I found a woman convulsing on a road and started The Nijali Foundation. I wondered how I could minister to other Christians who were suffering from mental illnesses and mental disorders. I started a section here titled, “Mental Health” but only a few articles stood.
Many people I met suffering from mental disorders forgot of God, others ceased believing and others totally dispelled the idea of a deity. I was troubled of reconciling my faith with mental health.
Then a friend sent me an article on messenger. I won’t say anything about it, just have a read. God bless.
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By Bhuto Arvin
‘’I am sorry I cannot participate. I actually have a hard time reconciling God and my mental illness. I guess it is because I wonder how a loving God can let someone go through so much struggle. Especially the paranoia and the psychosis which seem real to me –on any given day- than God.’’
‘’I am also conflicted about God and who we deem to be God. I put my belief in the power of the Universe’’
These two statements from my friends in my Mental Health Support Group still linger in my mind to date, months after I had heard them. Just recently, one of my friends was bold enough to challenge my belief in God amidst all the mental chaos that were threatening to crush my spiritual life. She had recently ‘converted’ to atheism just because of these sentiments. “How can a loving God let someone go through so much struggle?” Before subscribing to atheism, though a non-believer, she had no struggle reconciling and connecting with the concept of the existence of God.
The more I relate with people struggling with various mental illnesses and disorders, the more I realize how much their perception of God varies. On one extreme are those who have completely detached themselves from the belief in the existence of God and on the other, those who believe in God despite their circumstances. The majority are those who believe in anything in between depending on the current mental status.
Naturally, when the human mind is troubled, we lose focus and all that may be left in the human mind is to wallow in worry. The mind is a powerful thing. More often, when we are in trouble or suffering, we worry and worry and then worry some more until we find a solution. In Genesis 41:5, when Pharaoh had a bad dream, his mind was troubled and he strived so hard to find a solution to settle his troubled mind.
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With mental illnesses, you worry about nothing at all and however mundane the cause of the worry is, your mind magnifies it so much so that, all you focus on in the turmoil in your mind. When I first encountered someone disconnected from God as a result of mental trauma, my first reaction was judgment. How could they not see? God is God. He is evident in all His creation and as much as we may not physically see Him, He is here with us. It is easy to believe the person has chosen to focus on all the things they did not see Him in and not all the good things they had. That they have chosen to live by sight and not by faith.
I had to hit rock bottom to understand their predicament. It was in the darkest days of sinking deep in depression, the moments that I came out to gasp for air while drowning in all manner of psychological battles, that it dawned on me that one can actually doubt the existence of God. To start praying and feel how far and absent He was at that moment. To start reading the Bible and realize the only reason you understand the scripture is because you are literate and not because you have a spiritual connection. To listen to a sermon in a congregation and loudly wonder what all the ‘’Amens’’ were all about because you cannot at that time relate with the Word.
There were those moments when I would share with friends my inability to pray and most would retort ‘’When you feel you cannot pray, that is when you should pray harder!’’ The more I heard this, the more I sank into prayerlessness. How could they not understand? I cannot pray! How then can I pray harder? I felt I was being instructed to drive faster yet I could not even drive, I was only seated on the driver’s seat. Sometimes people will say, ‘’I am praying for you.’’ Yet all you need to be told is ‘’Let us pray….here….NOW!’’
Some people say ‘’God will not give you more than you can handle” as a way to encourage in times of turmoil. This statement, however, seems to depress more than encourage. You start wondering then why you are not handling the situation. Why you are grieved so much that you cannot even function. Why you feel the suffering is too much that you cannot even stay afloat.
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What most people use to back up this statement in I Corinthians 10:13
‘’No temptation has overtaken you except what is uncommon to mankind. And God is faithful, He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so you can endure it’’
‘’…He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear…’’ The context of this verse is ‘’in temptations’’ not suffering. When we are tempted, we can choose a way that God provides – out of temptation. But when we suffer, we cannot choose a way out. Jesus our Savior was also at one point overwhelmed with suffering to the point of giving up,
‘’My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me, yet not as I will but as you will.’’ Mathew 26: 38-39
Yet He went through the suffering, in the will of God, enduring it for the purpose of our salvation.
I have learnt that in our darkest and deepest of valleys, the Lord is still with us. He has not left us even for one moment. Even at that moment when we cannot pray or read scripture, He does not depart from us. Loves us unconditionally even as we surf the storms of life that threaten to detach us from God’s presence. He is the High Priest who intercedes for us to our Father in heaven (Heb 7:25). He who knows our every weakness, He can relate to our deepest sorrows and can empathize with us. He who can ‘’feel us’’. (Heb 4:14-15)
I have learnt to delight even in weakness, to boast in weakness because through that, the power of Christ is manifested for his power is made perfect in our weakness. (II Cor 12:9-10) That through suffering, God molds character in us through perseverance that we may have hope. (Rom 5:3)
I have come to the point of being a pillar of support to those in turmoil about their belief in God. I have been to that place and I know that we can be so troubled in our minds that our belief is shaken. That the decisions we had or have made with so much conviction become meaningless and we turn our backs on them.
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For God said ‘’If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt’’ (Ex 13:17b)
It is possible to lose touch with God when our backs are against the wall and we may think that He has forsaken us. The mind can trick us into that idea because in suffering, it is easy to believe in physical manifestations rather than in a God one cannot see. Easier even to put our hope and trust in things rather that in God and worst, to sin against God in that moment of frustration. But just like Job, in the midst of all the turmoil and suffering, may we stand out and proclaim that ‘’OUR REDEEMER LIVES AND IN THE END, HE WILL STAND ON THE EARTH’’ (Job 19:25)
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