I remember learning about faith in church when I was a young boy. To me and what my awesome little brain took in was quite simple; if you have enough belief in something it will happen. I thought this was the coolest thing in the world! It was like the force from Star Wars. Yep, I am honored to have been old enough to see those incredible movies when they first came out. Well, I remember sitting in the congregation as a meeting was getting ready to begin. I figured it was time for me to try this faith thing. Thinking about it I really can't tell you why I didn't try my new "faith" magic power at home. Anyway, the time was here. A song had been sung and a nice lady was getting ready to say the opening prayer. I bowed my head and closed my eyes preparing for this first great experience of faith. I closed my eyes tighter and began to repeat something over and over, "she will fall down the stairs. She will fall down the stairs." Yep, my first act of this great power was to make a lady fall down some stairs. I'm thankful the man upstairs is very forgiving. Now, I'm not sure if it was the anticipation or this kind lady was saying a lot, but the prayer went on FOREVER! Finally, she closed the prayer and graciously walked over to the stairs preparing to walk down back into the congregation. I watched on kind of nervous, but excited. She finally took the first step and nothing happened except walking graciously down the stairs. I was shocked! I was stunned! I was greatly disappointed! I looked around for another little minute and figured that was that and moved on to something else.
I have read numerous articles, blogs, thoughts, quotes, etc about mental health. I have experienced an epiphany here and there, have been frustrated, have been angered, have laughed til I about wet myself, and the list goes on. The point about mental health is that it is different in so many ways and so different from individual to individual. There are A LOT of opinions out there, and of course the lovely stigma that goes with it. At times, it's like I don't even want to read or study about it. Usually, I will just shake my head thinking, "wrong!" when I come across something so left field. And of course, it's my opinion on that. I get that. Every now and then I come across a line of thinking that actually makes me cringe when I read it. I actually feel compelled to comment about it every time I read it. Usually I don't, but then .... there is now. So the line of thought goes like this, "If you had enough Faith, you simply wouldn't suffer from Anxiety." Or, "If you had enough faith, your depression would be far less extreme." There are other variations out there, but I think you get the gist.
First, let me step aside for a moment and spit out some thoughts. IF and only IF, one is defining "Anxiety" in this line of thought as a little fear of something, or, IF and only IF, one is defining "Depression" as a little sadness, then I can give a little head nod here. However, and oh man do I mean however; if one is talking about mental health Anxiety and Depression they are carelessly bringing harm to many!! Why? Let me shed a little light here. Those that fight anxiety and depression and really any mental health problems think they really aren't worth that much. You may think I'm exaggerating, but the mind simply tells you over and over that you aren't worth much at all ... even a burden. It doesn't take much at all to explode any self worth that one has mustered up and fought for. Also, those that fight mental health problems have spiritual side effects. What do I mean? Imagine not being able to find a heavenly peace at all doing all the things you have done in the past to find it. "Man, God must be mad or must think I'm not worth anything at all as well" is the darkness of depressions biggest tool. So, if I'm told the reason I have these mental health problems is because my lack of faith ... boom! The impact is devastating to say the least!
Some other thoughts here. My take on this life is that we have hurdles, walls, skyscrapers to over come or even deal with the rest of our lives and having faith helps. Yep, that learn and grow thing. If it was all about just having enough faith though to make them simply go away there really wouldn't be a lot of growing going on. To me, faith is actually an act of love that we do. See, I simply can't close my eyes believing for something to happen, hopefully better than falling ladies, and do nothing. There has to be an act and it's an act of love because the faith is in the one with the greatest love, which is God. Making it through another day for the mentally ill is a huge act of faith! In fact, making it through a dark lonely moment is a huge act of faith! Saying one suffers from mental illness because of a lack of faith is simply a slap in the face from someone that simply doesn't understand. So, those that know someone with mental illness, remind them they are taking great acts of faith everyday! Remind them that over and over! And those out there that are fighting mental illness, you are awesome! You have an immense of amount of faith! I know it sure doesn't feel like it, but you do! You do! And that alone, makes you have infinite worth!
Love!!!
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