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Thoughts on Mental Health

by Jessica Achugbue

As a marriage and family therapist, I often think about what God—our Creator, Healer, Counselor, and Liberator—means for our mental health during life on Earth. In the communities I work in, traumatic events happen frequently, e.g., violence, tragic deaths, poverty, and homelessness. Traumatic experiences like these can create physical changes in the human nervous system, resulting in intense bouts of panic and anxiety in everyday life. Sometimes these changes in the body are passed down through generations.

The human nervous system is part of Creator’s brilliant design. And, like any other body part, the nervous system can get sick or become injured by harmful events.

When I think about the struggles many of us face with managing trauma, anxiety, and other debilitating emotional experiences, I remember how the Bible showcases a diverse combination of Jesus’ words, movements, instructions, and materials. And though the components look different case by case, his tenderness, attentiveness, and culture-defying patience remain constant. I’ve found that thinking about mental health the way we think about other kinds of health can be helpful for recognizing the internal healing work God is doing. As with any kind of illness or injury, the healing of mental health issues is sometimes:
  • Instantaneous
  • A matter of enduring chronic illness, with symptoms that come and go in waves
  • A lifelong process that may never be fully resolved until our final healing after this earthly life.

Our Healer has provided us with a variety of tools that we can use to partner with Him in caring for our individual and collective mental health, including quality time with Him, therapy, medication, rest, coping skills, support systems, and more. Like the folks whose stories of healing are documented in the Bible, our own healing journeys are often medleys of resources orchestrated by God’s loving hand. The complexity of the human mind, body, and soul is fully known by the One who made them. My prayer is that knowing this will free us to resist the world’s methods of dealing with the suffering (shaming, impatience, measuring human worth based on productivity, etc.) and instead rest in our Healer’s arms, allowing Him to counsel us in using empathy and practical care to say to the hurting, “the Kingdom of God has come near to you.” (Luke 10:9)