In many counselors there is safety. Proverbs 11:14
No pastor, troubled individual, or family should have to bear alone the overload of mental illness.
I recently got an e-mail that captures the kind of problems that are so often misunderstood. This person wrote,
“Raised in a strict Christian home, my first bout with depression in High School hit hard. But what made it worse were two loving parents that were embarrassed by any mental problem. I was out of school for months. Our doctor said I had the flu. I couldn’t talk to anyone and be heard. Ministers would say it was godlessness, a lack of faith. That only added to my guilt. The major breakdown came in my early thirties and nearly took my life. No reading, sleeping, eating for a straight 2 weeks. My brain was screaming incoherent things while my children slept by me in fear. I would do jumping jacks, run, everything to make the screaming stop. My weight plummeted. I was near the end of what I could take. God got me through it, with the help of medicines, and trial and error. Depression has never left me, but I have learned to cope and be more aggressive about it. The Church was my biggest heartache. Where was the understanding? Can every other organ have a disease but the brain is exempt?”
Such a story doesn’t for a minute mean that any counselor, doctor, or support group could ever replace our need for God. Nor can medical or professional counseling ever replace the right kind of pastoral and congregational care.
But what if those with spiritual insight don’t acknowledge the intimate relationship between mind and body. What if, as the letter writer suggests, followers of Christ add shame and guilt to an already overtaxed heart and sick body?
It has always been possible to get bad advice from trusted counselors. Along the way, any doctor, counselor, or spiritual leader might unintentionally mislead us. Yet that’s why we need to pay special attention to the wisdom of Solomon. It is because bad advice can come from some of our most trusted sources that we need to hear the Word of God when it says,
“Where there is no counsel, the people fall; but in the multitude of counselors there is safety” (Proverbs 11:14).
Pastors, doctors, counselors, social workers, friends, and family can all be gifts from God. All need one another. All can have important caregiving roles when it comes to problems of mental health that none of us should try to bear alone.
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