Mental Health
Pastor Kevin Canterbury
May 15, 2022
Series: Clickbait
8 min. read
In 2013, I was a young youth pastor when I came across another youth pastor my age on Twitter with a significant following. He was just all about Jesus, and I loved his encouraging posts. I followed him for years! Pastor Jarrid Wilson. I remember seeing his posts the week he got married. I remember his posts on the days that his boys were born. I remember how often he would push others to focus on Christ and see the goodness of God.
While it was common to see other young pastors promoting themselves and trying to increase their platform and influence, Pastor Jarrid just focused on Jesus and sharing Jesus with others.
But then came the shocking news in 2019 that Pastor Jarrid died by suicide. He was 30 years old.
In the last years of his life, I noticed how often he had begun to teach the importance of mental health. He advocated for Christians to understand mental health. That pursuing mental health is not just “you need to go outside more often, read your bible, and be thankful”, but that there is work to be done, there is listening that needs to happen, and that there has to be understanding. Especially to understand the importance of a healthy relationship with medication.
I’m no expert, but I know the benefits of medication in the arena of mental health are real but have unfortunately been stigmatized. Medication that helps someone’s mental health is not indicative of sin or a lack of faith or weakness or anything of the sort. There are people of great faith that I know and love personally that have greatly benefited from a healthy relationship with medicine and professional therapy.
If that is you, I couldn’t be prouder of you. I hope today is a day you find a bit more freedom. Freedom that many fight for and many have unfortunately passed away fighting for.
Just hours before his death, Pastor Jarrid’s final post read:
“Loving Jesus doesn’t always cure suicidal thoughts.”
He had just finished officiating a funeral for a believer who had taken her own life
I know this entire series has been heavy, but there really is a time and place for these conversations – If the Church isn’t intentionally leading the charge to discuss some of the most important issues of our day, in a way that honors Jesus, then what are we doing?
There is a man in the bible whose name was Elijah. He was a towering figure of faith, and was trusted to take on the prophets of the pagan god, Baal.
After Elijah has this incredible moment of victory, he runs into a situation I believe he didn't see coming, and it got the best of him. A powerful woman sent a messenger, threatening to kill him because of what he did.
1 Kings 19
4 while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. “I have had enough, Lord,” he said. “Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.” 5 Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, “Get up and eat.” 6 He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. 7 The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, “Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.”
I want everyone to know this sacred truth-
You are not alone.
But we have an enemy that wants us to believe we are. Honestly, it can be tempting to go it alone. At Rock Vineyard, we are a smaller church. There’s a lot of good that can come with that, but as is true with anything, you can still hide.
Show up late, and leave early. Never serve. Avoid small groups or any sort of commitment that will get you talking to others… When you choose self-isolation, on top of mental health struggles, then you end up keeping yourself to yourself and it’s easy to believe you are the only one suffering like this.
But that’s not true! You are not alone. God did not up and leave Elijah when Elijah wanted to give up. God did the opposite.
Your faith is not broken.
We have an enemy that will whisper lies and attempt to convince you otherwise.
“You aren’t as strong… You must not love Jesus…”
Lies upon lies are spoken over us, and when we are in a vulnerable place, the jump to believing this isn’t a big one. But your faith isn’t broken!
The great reformer, Martin Luther
The epitome of generosity, Mother Teresa
Famous theologian, Charles Spurgeon
Famous author, preacher, and Civil Rights leader, Reverend Dr. MLK, Jr.
These are incredible people who walked through the hardships that come with mental health, and God used these people to do great things.
You are not alone in your struggle and your faith is not broken because of your struggles.
Look what God does with Elijah:
1 Kings 19:11
11 The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
”And after the fire came a gentle whisper”
In the chaos of life, it’s hard to see or hear God sometimes, isn’t it?
I think this is a beautiful picture of how life feels.
Wind and shattering rocks, earthquakes, fires… unending bad news, never-ending suffering or struggle. It can have our attention for so long… and we can ask questions like-
“God, where are you?”
And yet He is right there, as a gentle whisper.
God is for you.
God calls Elijah out of his darkness, out of the cave:
“Come closer… in your struggles.”
“Come closer… in your depression.”
“Come closer… in your darkness.”
God is for you in the midst of your struggles and often speaks to us in ways we aren’t necessarily looking for – the gentle whisper, His loving presence, through the prayers of people in our Small Groups. God isn’t too busy to help you. He is here and He is for you.
Mental Health is not only a spiritual issue
I’ve heard folks say, “They just need more Jesus… They just need to read their bibles more… They just need to pray more…” And I’m not sure there’s anything worse you could say to someone than something like that.
In the midst of Elijah’s depressive state, God doesn’t tell him to “focus on my promises”, or chastise him: “Have you forsaken your faith?”
No, God tells Elijah to get some food, get something to drink. Rest up.
God’s remedy for Elijah is not some sort of worship-filled remedy where Elijah begins prayer walking around his home declaring faith over fear, but God’s immediate help is simple, the remedy is a natural one.
Now, I want to demonstrate some self-awareness here. I, to this point in my life, have yet to struggle in a significant capacity with my own mental health and I certainly don’t want to be the pastor that just tries to slap some motivational speech around a bible story.
Here is a real story from one of my heroes, and I am honored to share this stage with her most weekends here at Rock Vineyard, and I am honored to call her my bride.
Kelsey shares her story…
———
I wanted to kind of put a bumper on this. My story and my experience are not prescriptive. I’m not saying “This is what happened to me, so this is what will happen to you.” Everyone’s mental health, just like everyone's physical health, is very personal. You know your body and how it's different than other people's bodies. This is my story. The things that have been healing for me… maybe those things will look different for you.
But for me, throughout most of my life, I thought that I was an introvert and a little bit quirky. But that was it. I remember my mom taking me aside several times throughout my life and saying, “This is a strange thing for a mother to say, but I feel like you read alone too much?” And I was just like, Nah, I'm good. I'll shut the door to my room, turn up my music and read for the next 10 hours, and do that on repeat every day. Not thinking to myself “All this, plus the teeth grinding and a few other things… Maybe I'm finding it a little hard to cope.” Because things weren't too much. As it often happens with your physical health. You can eat poorly, sleep poorly, or do whatever poorly up to a certain point. And then your body sort of reaches a breaking point.
That was true of my mental and emotional health. It wasn't until I got to college. The summer after my freshman year, I was employed at a job that was very physically demanding. There was very little sleep. I had also entered into a romantic relationship for the first time in my life.
That really triggered a lot of things for me that I just didn't know were there. And I began having these obsessive episodes. I can't sleep. I'm thinking about the same thing, always. The same thought is ever-present to the point where I can't eat. I'm dreaming about it at night. And I'm thinking… “This is normal! This is a fine thing to happen.!
I entered into a really low state. And during that time, I slept with my Bible. I memorized passages of Scripture that were enormous. And the Lord really did give me comfort in that time.
But nothing changed in my mind because I was unwilling to admit that it was a mind problem.
And so, as I continued throughout my college career, these patterns in my life remained the same.
My body started breaking down.
Not only was I sleeping too much or not sleeping at all, but I was unable to keep any food down. I had a rash all over my body. I kept going to doctors trying to figure out what was happening. I couldn't focus on anything. This kept going until my senior year of college when I progressively got worse.
It wasn't all downhill. There were times when it was easier. Times when I thought I was fine. You know, I was OK. But those deep downhills would last for months. When I would talk to some of my college friends, they would say, “I didn't know anything was wrong. I mean, you were by yourself a lot with your headphones on. But I had no idea.”
And that's kind of what we've been talking about today. That sometimes it's easy to just internalize all of this. In my senior year. I finally went to a psychiatrist and a counselor, and he helped me to put some boundaries around what was happening to me, and to see that I was not inherently broken.
My biggest fear was that I would go and he would say there is nothing wrong with me. That I’m just like this. And that the entirety of my human experience- is what I was experiencing. But instead, he was a Christian, and he gave me hope. And he said, “Here are the things that are happening in your mind.”
And at that point in time, God not only used the support of family and friends to help me open up and be willing to go see a professional. He used medicine to help me come out of that period in my life. It helped me get the clarity that I needed to be able to read my Bible and see that God was talking to me with love, not condemnation.
I always understood this scripture as “Here are the things you need to fix yourself. I'm waiting on you to fix yourself. I'm waiting on you to get better. So this can be true for you.” But that's not who He was. Instead, He spoke to me with such love and tenderness that it was almost painful to hear because that's not how I felt about myself. I was waiting on me to get better. But He was loving me when I was ill. That was a healing moment for me. As life has gone on, some of the diagnoses I have don't change, but my season of life did, and my maturity level did. And the people that I surrounded myself with did. And my vulnerability with people did.
And so, those periods of being alone and periods of darkness became less and less. And through the honesty and wisdom of people around me- saying, maybe eat this, not that. Maybe sleep more. Maybe be kind to yourself. Maybe see God as a loving father. Who came to rescue you from the brokenness of the world. Maybe don't make this your identity, but instead, your identity is in Christ. These things can still be true. And while depression is also still true, it's not who you are.
Throughout my life, I've been on and off medication. I've had low periods, I've had medium periods, and I've had high periods. This isn't me saying, “and now it's managed,” but it is better. And I have more support.
We all have brokenness because we live in a broken world. But God came to heal, and to save out of his innate kindness and compassion toward me. He looked at me, a thing he created with such love and tenderness, saw that I was broken, and said, “Let me help.” Because of who he is.
As I continue throughout my life, I'm able to look back on the me of different times and have compassion and say “well, I didn't know what I was doing in my illness, in my weakness, in my sin. I hurt other people. Mental illness is not an excuse for hurting others, but it is a reason. And we need to get in there and dig deep. Even if you’ve only walked alongside someone who's experienced these things, that can be really hard. Give yourself grace, too. You are also doing your best to deal with something you don't understand.
And now, as I read Scripture, I can see it as God's love toward me.
There was one passage in particular in Habakkuk that I always held on to in times when things were dark, because sometimes what I didn't want to hear was “it'll get better” because then I felt like even more of this impetus, this rush, this push to figure out what I was doing wrong, to make it better.
It'll get better when? Like, when? It's like telling your kids “you're going to get cake.” But you don't tell them when, you don't tell them for what, or what kind of cake. It could be ten years from now. It could be tomorrow. They're going to start getting mad, you know?
So sometimes that's not what I wanted to hear. But instead, the Lord brought me to this passage, and I see it now as not him saying “It might be forever. Are you going to deal with it?” As I sometimes heard.
Habakkuk was a man in the Old Testament that was watching his nation crumble.
He was literally on the wall watching an army advance, knowing that his friends and family were going to die. And he wrote this at the very end with rejoicing.
17 Though the fig tree does not bud
and no fruit is on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though the sheep are cut off from the fold
and no cattle are in the stalls,
18 yet I will exult in the LORD;
I will rejoice in the God of my salvation!
19 GOD the Lord is my strength;
He makes my feet like those of a deer;
He makes me walk upon the heights!
I always loved that last part because he wrote this knowing that everything he knew was coming to an end.
Yet at that very end, he writes it with the hope that someone will read this one day and it'll matter to them too. And it did.
So that's my encouragement to you all today. I don't know if it's encouragement. Some things are just a lamentation. They are the act of faith in the season of waiting without knowing the end.
I still have times where it's rough. I still have difficulties. And then, I have more and more days of peace. And who knows, one day that might be switched. But I do know that I can still rejoice in my God who knows my body, who knows my feet, and puts them on my high places individual to me.
So I hope in some way you know that you're not alone, even if your journey looks a lot different.
-Kelsey Canterbury, Worship Director
Church, I believe one of the best things we can do for those we love is to listen and be present.
The Church can feel like: If you suffer, you suffer alone.
The Way of Jesus is: If you suffer, we suffer.
That’s not trying to place a burden on you, that’s us saying- Don’t do alone, because in Christian faith, from Galatians 6:2, we are to share burdens.
Yes, share the times you get to celebrate! Let us celebrate with you!
Yes, share the times you mourn and grieve and don’t know how to feel.
Could we enter into that space with you, too?
Philippians 2:4
“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
For those of us who have people in our lives who are struggling:
Listen, remain present, and advocate.
-
Local Mental Health Resources (Louisville, KY):
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
Watch or listen to this message-
About Pastor Kevin
Lead pastor at Rock Vineyard Church.
Discipled in the SBC.
Educated at Fuller Seminary.
Trained in the Vineyard.
Loved by Jesus
Eternally grateful.