Life on Planet Earth on Mental Illness

illustration

A Bone Fracture & Mental Illness

Author

Keywords

I sense that mental illness resembles a bone fracture. Bones have remarkable durability, but also, once broken, can rapidly heal and be reset. With normal daily use, one might never be aware of past p...

illustration

Mental Illness Around the World

Author

Shelly Miller

Keywords

According to the World Health Organization, one in thirteen globally suffers from anxiety. In the United States, one in five adults have a mental health condition. That’s over forty million Americans;...

illustration

Mental Illness Creeps Up on Us

Author

Ryan Casey Waller

Keywords

Which is mostly how mental illness works. You don’t know you have it until it’s all up in your grill trying to destroy your life. This happens, most often, because getting honest with ourselves about ...

illustration

Mental Health Today

Author

Alan Noble

Keywords

Scripture

1 Kings 19:1-18, Job 3:6-7, Lamentations 3:17-26, Matthew 26:36-46, 2 Corinthians 1:3-11, Psalm 42:5-11

We don’t know what we are doing, and I think this is especially true about the way our society deals with mental health. In just the past fifteen years, I have witnessed a massive shift in how evangel...

illustration

Approaches to Mental Health are not Enough

Author

Caroline Leaf

Keywords

Modern psychological and psychiatric approaches to mental health, particularly the use of drugs like antidepressants and antipsychotics, don’t address the complexity of the human mind. Indeed, they ha...

liturgy

Gracious God, forgive us for when we

Author

Austin D. Hill

Keywords

Gracious God, forgive us for when we fail to recognize the destructive power of mental illness. Every day we are surrounded by people with real emotional and mental difficulties that we ignore. We con...

illustration

A Sign that Something is Wrong

Author

Caroline Leaf

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 11:28-30, Psalm 34:18, Ephesians 4:26-27, Proverbs 3:5-6, James 1:2-4

Anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress are all ways of describing natural human responses to adversity and the experiences of life. And we all face adversity in many different ways: challengin...

illustration

“It is Not the Healthy Who Need a Doctor”

Author

Ann Voskamp

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 6:2, Romans 12:15, Matthew 25:40, Isaiah 53:3-5, Psalm 34:18, Luke 5:31-32

Ann Voskamp, in her book The Broken Way, describes what it was like to have mental illness trivialized from the pulpit, as someone who identified with similar struggles: I was eighteen, with scars a...

illustration

What We’ve Learned About the Mind

Author

Jennie Allen

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 4:23, Luke 6:45, Matthew 12:34-35, Luke 6:45, 2 Corinthians 10:5, Proverbs 17:22

Did you know that more has been discovered about our minds in the last twenty years than in all the time before that? Did you know that an estimated 60 to 80 percent of visits to primary care physicia...

illustration

The Difference Between Jesus and Mental Patients

Author

John Stott

Keywords

Some years ago I received a letter from a young man I knew slightly. ‘I have just made a great discovery,’ he wrote. ‘Almighty God had two sons. Jesus Christ was the first; I am the second.’ I glanced...

illustration

The UK’s Minister of Loneliness

Author

W. David O. Taylor

Keywords

According to a 2018 CIGNA study, loneliness in America has reached “epidemic” levels. After surveying twenty thousand adults, researchers found that 46 percent felt alone either sometimes or always, 4...

liturgy

Lord–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Thank

Author

Richard Herman

Keywords

Scripture

Nehemiah 1:1-11, Acts 16:25-34, Mark 4:35-41, Acts 2:1-13, Luke 10:25-37, Matthew 11:28-30, Acts 1:8

Lord–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: Thank You that there’s no place we can hide from Your Spirit, no place we can flee from Your presence. We can’t go beyond the reach of Your love, nor out-distance the...

liturgy

God of nations and Lord of all

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Philippians 4:6-7, Romans 15:5-6, Isaiah 58:10-11, Psalm 34:18-19, Matthew 5:4, Isaiah 41:10

God of nations and Lord of all creation: You were there at the beginning of time and at our beginning, and You will be there at the ending and when we finally come home. There is no time You are not t...

illustration

Attending to God Through His Pain

Author

Richard Plass and James Cofield

Keywords

Scripture

James 1:19, Proverbs 18:13, John 7:24, Matthew 7:1-2, Psalm 25:9

I (Rich) remember a time while serving as a young pastor at Peace Community Church. At the beginning of my sermon every single Sunday an elderly believer in the church tilted his head to the right and...

Quote

Author

Guy de Maupassant

Keywords

“A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.”

Quote

Author

Guy de Maupassant

Keywords

“Solitude is indeed dangerous for a working intelligence. We need to have around us people who think and speak. When we are alone for a long time we people the void with phantoms”

Quote

Author

Robert L. Leahy

Keywords

The average child today exhibits the same level of anxiety as the average psychiatric patient in the 1950s.

Quote

Author

Caroline Leaf

Keywords

Population studies indicate that something is going terribly wrong: people ages twenty-four to sixty-five are dying eight to fifteen years younger than previous generations from preventable lifestyle ...

Quote

Author

Gillian Marchenko

Keywords

I think of depression as a visitor who comes more often, uninvited, unwelcomed, and stays longer than ever before.

Quote

Author

Gregg Easterbrook

Keywords

Adjusting for population growth, ten times as many people in the Western nations today suffer from “unipolar” depression, or unremitting bad feelings without a specific cause, than did half a century ...

illustration

Depression is a Thief

Author

Sergei Marchenko

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 1:3-4, John 16:33

Depression is a thief. A pickpocket. Swiping a memory here and there. An emotion, a plan for the afternoon, part of a conversation. It is a burglar. Leaving behind empty surfaces and containers that u...

Quote

Author

Carl Jung

Keywords

Neurosis is the natural by-product of pain avoidance.

illustration

A Beautiful Mind Learns Discernment

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Some of you may remember the film A Beautiful Mind , named after the book with the same title. The book is based on the life of John Nash, played by Russell Crowe, a brilliant mathematician and profe...

illustration

A Shift into Chaos

Author

The Pastor's Workshop

Keywords

Scripture

Micah 5:2, Luke 2:4-7, Matthew 2:16-18, John 1:46, Isaiah 61:3, Matthew 5:1-20, Isaiah 5:20

It is remarkable that a word like ‘Bethlehem’, forever connected to the birth of our savior, could be transformed into a symbol of confusion and chaos. Yet, this is precisely what happened. St. Mary o...

illustration

Anxiety Feels Like a Weight

Author

Jessica Thompson

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:7, Matthew 6:25-27, Psalm 94:19, Psalm 55:22, Proverbs 12:25

Anxiety feels like a weight. It has been described as the feeling of tripping—the “moment where you don’t know whether you are going to catch yourself is how you feel all day long.” Or “when you tap y...

illustration

The Three “Christs” of Ypsilanti

Author

Peter Berger

Keywords

Milton Rokeach wrote a book entitled The Three Christs of Ypsilanti….there were three patients in that hospital, each of whom thought he was Jesus Christ. One was too far gone in his psychotic isolati...

illustration

Rather be Shocked than Alone with their Thoughts

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 10:5, Ecclesiastes 5:1-2, Mark 6:31, Psalm 46:10, Isaiah 30:15, Philippians 4:8

In a study conducted by Timothy Wilson, a social psychologist at the University of Virginia, researchers discovered what most of us already know: people do not like to be left alone with their own tho...

illustration

The Beach Ball Phenomenon

Author

Jessica Thompson

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 6:34, Proverbs 12:25, Psalm 34:17-18, Philippians 4:6-7, Isaiah 40:29-31

I have often heard anxiety described as a big beach ball that you try to push under the water. Do you remember playing that game as a child? Keep that beach ball under the water as long as you can! Yo...

liturgy

Lord–bless your people this day. God

Author

Richard Herman

Keywords

Lord–bless your people this day. God our Father—in Your love and compassion; Jesus, God the Son–with Your grace and truth; Spirit of God–in Your power and with Your love. Triune God, pour out Your bou...

liturgy

God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—You are

Author

Richard Herman

Keywords

Scripture

Jeremiah 17:14, Psalm 51:10, Philippians 1:6, Psalm 147:3, James 5:14-15, Isaiah 40:31

God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—You are ever the same in Your grace and truth, Your power and love; Yet, You always challenge us to grow, change and become more like Jesus. We’re not yet what we w...

life on planet earth on Mental Illness

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

liturgy

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

liturgy

liturgy

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

illustration

liturgy

liturgy

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

Genesis

Exodus

Leviticus

Numbers

Deuteronomy

Joshua

Judges

Ruth

1 Samuel

2 Samuel

1 Kings

2 Kings

1 Chronicles

2 Chronicles

Ezra

Nehemiah

Esther

Job

Psalm

Proverbs

Ecclesiastes

Song of Solomon

Isaiah

Jeremiah

Lamentations

Ezekiel

Daniel

Hosea

Joel

Amos

Obadiah

Jonah

Micah