{"id":3964,"date":"2019-07-21T17:12:04","date_gmt":"2019-07-21T21:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/?p=3964"},"modified":"2019-07-29T12:15:40","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T16:15:40","slug":"the-mentally-ill-christian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/?p=3964","title":{"rendered":"The Mentally Ill Christian"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s hard to\u00a0have mental illness, but it&#8217;s even harder for a Christian.<\/p>\n<p>Most days, it feels like you&#8217;re drowning.\u00a0Drowning in isolation, fears, and worries that\u00a0shoot at you like a barrage of stray bullets.<\/p>\n<p>If only it would stop. If only there was peace.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3965\" style=\"width: 418px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3965\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-3965\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/davide-pietralunga-NkAHKgZIqwQ-unsplash-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"408\" height=\"613\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3965\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by Davide Pietralunga on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/NkAHKgZIqwQ\">Unsplash<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, most don&#8217;t understand what it&#8217;s like, not even the Church. Where acceptance, understanding, and tolerance should exist, but doesn&#8217;t.<\/p>\n<p>They treat you like they are flicking a piece of lint off of their lapel. There&#8217;s no understanding, support and even compassion for those suffering and their families. They&#8217;re only willing to offer you cheap platitudes as a way to assuage their conscience.<\/p>\n<p>Many sufferers\u00a0are forced into silence due to the stigma, lack of acceptance and intolerance.<\/p>\n<p>The pain of being misunderstood and rejected gets\u00a0tucked away like tidy towels in a linen closet.<\/p>\n<p>But, nothing can erase the\u00a0guilt and shame of a broken brain.<\/p>\n<p>Christian&#8217;s suffering from mental illness have mastered the art of pretending. They&#8217;ve had to become world class actors to survive because most people&#8211;inside and out of the Church&#8211;simply can&#8217;t handle the truth.<\/p>\n<p>What is the solution? Optimally, it would be for Churches to get on board and educate the congregation on mental illness to eradicate the stigma.<\/p>\n<p>The more education and awareness, the less stigma will exist in and outside the Church.<\/p>\n<p>People shouldn&#8217;t have to feel alone, misunderstood, isolated, rejected and marginalized in the Church.\u00a0 The Church should be a place of refuge and a catalyst for change to bring hope and healing for families.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s hard to\u00a0have mental illness, but it&#8217;s even harder for a Christian. Most days, it feels like you&#8217;re drowning.\u00a0Drowning in isolation, fears, and worries that\u00a0shoot at you like a barrage of stray bullets. If only it would stop. If only there was peace. &nbsp; &nbsp; Unfortunately, most don&#8217;t understand what it&#8217;s like, not even the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1540,1449,10,8,1568,7,1539,1541],"tags":[224,1027,810,56,655,175,1525,635,1455,1576],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3964"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3969,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3964\/revisions\/3969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ordinaryservant.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}