MENTAL ILLNESS AND MY MINISTRY CALLING
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Kilyn Colerick
Two ideas that do not seem compatible with one another.
How can one love Jesus and want to die? How can one have faith and suicidal thoughts? Have you not prayed hard enough? Believed hard enough? Tried hard enough? Are you qualified to lead other people if you can’t control your own thoughts? Does my mental illness make me incapable of being a pastor? Does it disqualify me from believing in healing for others even though I have not received healing myself?
These are the thoughts that have often run through my mind days following some of the darkest moments in my life. I am a pastor and I also have a mental illness. I am both called and clinically depressed. For a long time, I thought that if I wasn’t able to make these things go away, I would never be able to fully step into my calling. I would never be able to pastor and shepherd others if I was suffering myself. These are thoughts that the enemy planted in my head to keep me in a vicious cycle of shame and isolation and hopelessness and anxiousness that rotated around me on an axis.
I asked God over and over, “Lord, how could you call me but make me incapable to live out that call?” I would find myself internalizing these feelings of hopelessness and sadness inside of myself because I was scared that if I let anyone else into these thoughts then maybe they too would disqualify me and if they disqualify me, they will tell other people to not consider me. If I could just keep it all to myself, maybe no one will know I am suffering. If I can fake it until I make it, maybe no one will know how incapable I think I am. This internalizing of feelings in return, made me feel more isolated and hopeless and lonely.
Many of these pent up feelings would lead themselves to explosive uncontrollable episodes. I would build everything up until I was no longer able to have any control over my thoughts or actions and entered into a cycle of depressive episodes where I was not sure if I was going to make it out alive.Nights where I was so anxious that I didn’t know if my next breath was going to come out. Or when the thought of tomorrow just seemed so incomprehensible. Where I felt so outside of myself, and I just sat and thought, “Lord, where are you in all of this?”
Those common verses come to mind when you are in times of suffering. The Lord is near to the broken-hearted. Don’t be anxious about anything, pray about everything. Come to me all who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. I can’t tell you how many times I cried out to the Lord and asked why He didn’t feel near or He wasn’t answering my prayers, why He wasn’t healing me or wasn’t giving me rest.
And sometimes I still don’t know the answers to those questions. The one thing that God has let me be sure of is that this suffering is only on this side of Heaven. It is not a permanent thing. One day I will receive full healing in a glorified body, but sometimes on this side of Heaven, I am going to be depressed. I am going to feel ill. I am going to struggle. I am going to have bad days.
But why am I sharing this? Why am I sharing this even though my worst fear is people knowing my struggles? What if I share this and exactly what I think happens? That someone thinks I am unqualified? Or unable to lead? Or unable to pursue a calling in ministry?
I am sharing this because maybe you too, or maybe someone you know both loves Jesus and struggles with their mental health. Maybe you too are in ministry and are trying to reconcile the idea of being able to sustain a ministry life when you are struggling to sustain your own life or to help those who are suffering when you are suffering? I am sharing this to share with you what God has shared with me.
That He knows my suffering. He knows my struggles. And He has called me anyway. He has called me in spite of them. And He will take the things in my life that the enemy has meant for evil and He will sprout fruit from them. He will turn them for good. He will reap a harvest from the ground that I believe to be soiled. Because when God speaks something to be, nothing, NO THING can interfere. And He does the same for you.
He knows your deepest hurt. He knows your deepest sufferings. And you are not too far beyond His abilities to heal. You are not too far beyond His ability to use your circumstances. You are not too far beyond His ability to call you to a purpose of serving Him. And if we break down the stigma that is attached to mental health, if we break down the shame that accompanies it, think about the healing that we can bring about. Think about the decrease in isolation and loneliness in the body of Christ. Think about us being able to bear the burdens of one another. Think of the boldness that the daughters and sons of Christ can walk in knowing that regardless of circumstances or setbacks or illnesses or past sins or your family background, Christ can and will use you. He will use you and turn your sufferings into beautiful gifts for His Kingdom.
So my advice for those who love the Lord and sometimes want to die. Talk about it (with a trusted friend, parent, mentor, therapist). The Lord made modern medicine, you are not faithless for being on medication or going to therapy. Don’t let shame hold you back into living out everything the Lord has for you. Continue to pray for healing. The Lord is still in the miracle business. Use your weaknesses as strengths for His Kingdom. Walk in the knowledge of knowing that one day, you will be in glory with Jesus and suffer no more.
My advice to those who don’t suffer with a mental illness but still love the Lord? Love your brother and sister in Christ who does struggle. Understand that their emotional struggles are not the sum of who they are. Have an open heart and mind. Continue to pray for them, advocate for them, help them, support them, and don’t count them out. See beyond their struggles.
Brother or Sister in Christ, the Lord knows you and loves you deeply. He hurts when you hurt. Keep His Kingdom in your heart at all times, even when it feels like you can’t see it. There are better things ahead.
For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. - Romans 8:18.
MENTAL ILLNESS AND MY MINISTRY CALLING
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Barrett Colerick
Anxiety has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. There have been times in my life where I have let anxiety define who I am, where I have let anxiety choose what I do or don’t do, where anxiety has got the best of my emotions, or quite frankly times where anxiety has been the only feeling I have known how to feel. When I was in elementary school, the school recommended my mother take me to a stomach doctor to check to see if I had a stomach disease, but in reality, my anxiety was just so terrible that I had panic attacks daily at school.
I attempted things in my life to cope with anxiety whether it was friends, performing arts, awards, lust, or extracurriculars, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t work because for a while it did. But those are things of this world, and they are only temporary, but there is one thing that is not temporary and that is the one true God.
When I said yes to following Jesus, it helped my anxiety, but it did not free me from anxiety entirely. The enemy attacked me even more, there have been nights where I have been up constantly in full sweats because I was stressed. For a while, I felt ashamed that I told and proclaimed how much I loved Jesus, yet I still struggled with anxiety. I told everyone how much I love the name of Jesus, yet I was crying out to Him asking God why did He make me like this? Why was He punishing me? The thing is God did not make us sinful creatures, He created us in His image, we worry because of what Adam and Eve did in that garden. The enemy wants us to give into our sin and our anxiety because he comes to steal, kill, and destroy, while Jesus has come to give life and it abundantly.
I still struggle with anxiety to this day. I have now said, “Yes” to my calling of ministry that the Lord has placed in my life. I have had times where I have gone “How am I supposed to pastor when I still have anxiety? Or when I have doubts about what He says about me?”. I have had times when I have felt discouraged “How am I going to lead people to Christ when I am not trusting Him?”. That is because the enemy wants us to not walk in the calling the Lord has placed on our life. After all, He knows the authority Jesus has given us and how powerful we can be because of Him.
The truth is God does not call the qualified because He qualifies us. There are numerous examples in the Bible where God calls someone and they have anxiety/doubt. That is what is so beautiful about the Bible, God shows us in the books of the Bible the low points of the Biblical figures. Job suffered massive anxiety attacks to the point where he lamented the day he was born, he did not even want to exist anymore, yet the Lord used him and blessed him more than He could imagine. Moses, one of the greatest biblical figures, told God he was wrong, he told Him, he was not qualified for the job, and then Moses was the one to lead the Israelites out of 400 years of slavery in Egypt. The disciples felt anxiety many times, you cannot tell me that none of the disciples didn’t have even a little bit of anxiety in the story of Jesus calming the storm, and they had the master of the universe with them. King David struggled with anxiety in the book of Psalms, he cries out to God multiple times praying for Him to not leave Him. and of course, I have to save the best for last, JESUS HIMSELF DEALT WITH ANXIETY. He plead with God in the garden of Gethesmane before His death asking for the Father to take this cup. Jesus was the only perfect human to ever walk planet Earth, yet even He dealt with anxiety. He did not need to feel anxiety either, but He did because He loves us so much He wants to empathize with us. He wants to feel our pain and feel our struggles. Jesus wants to be the one who walks with you in your valley and He wants to walk with you on your mountain top.
As you can see, Anxiety is normal. What we need to know about anxiety is that we cannot let it stop us from living our life. We cannot let anxiety prevent us from walking in our God-given callings, Jesus has called us to be children of light and to walk in His light because He has already defeated darkness. He has already declared that darkness cannot overcome the light. He has already declared victory over our life, so now it is time we live it!
My advice for those who know people that struggle with anxiety:
Pray for them. Pray for life over them, declare victory over them. Pray that they would walk in the confidence that the Lord has given them.
Reach out to them. You do not even know how much it means to them when you reach out to someone and just say “Are you doing okay?”, or “Hey I am so happy you are in my life.”
Encourage them….encourage your friends with anxiety to do what they are having anxiety because that is how we beat anxiety by conquering it
My advice and words to those who struggle with anxiety:
Find a verse, and read it anytime you are starting to feel anxiety. Pick a verse that you feel connected to, and just remember that that verse is the Lord speaking to you
Find a Christian Therapist. This is so important having a therapist that will support you from a faith point of view and through a psychological point of view. I finally got one here at Bible school, and it has helped me so much.
Knowing you are not alone, and having anxiety does not make you any less loved by God, nor does it mean you are any less called or a Christian. Jesus loves you more than you can even fathom.
I am always here, I might not always have the answers I know I won't have all the answers, but I will always be here to listen and pray with you!
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound mind.- 2 Timothy 1:7
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