Pastor

Mental health describes a broad continuum of struggles from the mildly depressed to those with full-blown psychotic and personality disorders. Because pastors are often the first-responders in some of these situations, it's important to understand how pastors tend to view mental health issues and their part in providing support and encouragement to those with significant struggles.

Many Christian struggle to know how to address the issues of mental illness and to define what is good mental health. Some write it all off as being a lack of faith. Others confine it to the realm of the demonic that requires deliverance. And still others make it purely an organic disorder that requires medical treatment. A balanced perspective is needed that takes all these perspectives into account.

Feeling good about myself and positive about my circumstances is what many people describe as good mental health. But unfortunately, that describes an unbalanced and unrealistic perspective on good mental health. On the other hand, the Bible provides a perspective on mental health that revolves around how we handle relationships with others, including God.

Sunday Gospel Comment (in Italian). VI DOMENICA DI PASQUA (ANNO A) www.sabinasantacroce.org

In this message from Sunday, May 15, 2911, we encounter Jesus as a looking glass through which we see God and live to tell about it. This is exciting news that prompts us to consider what type of looking glass we present to the rest of the world.

Even though Christians have been commanded not to worry, we still do. Why? Could it be that we simply don't trust that God is up to the task of providing everything we need to be the man or woman He's calling us to be? Was Oswald Chambers right when he wrote that the root of all sin is in the suspicion that God is not all that good? Maybe simply trusting God is the solution to our worry.

Shame is one of the most effective tools of the Evil One for sabotaging meaningful relationships. Shame has to do with our fear of being seen as flawed and deficient and then be discarded instead of loved. God comes along and offers us unconditional love as His remedy to our shame.

When we are truly honest with ourselves, we are all painfully aware of our failings and inadequacies that leave us vulnerable to rejection. The fear of exposure leads to shame, and shame is one of the most powerful forces for shaping human behavior. How we learn to handle shame will determine how we respond in relationships with others.

Shame was one of the first feelings that Adam and Eve experienced after the Fall in the Garden of Eden. The fear of exposure, of being seen as flawed and then being discarded as unlovable is a devastating feeling that not only shuts down the heart, but effectively sabotages any possibility for a person to give or receive love.

Marriage does provide an end to a certain kind of loneliness that a single person experiences. However, many couples feel lonely in their marriages in spite of the fact that they are not alone. Loneliness can come from a lack of meaningful connection with one's spouse. But it can also come from a realization that our core loneliness can only be filled by God Himself and not our spouse.

From the beginning of the human race, being alone wasn't a good thing. But, we can be lonely even when we're not alone. Loneliness is the experience of being isolated or disconnected from someone that we love. While the experience is pain, we can learn much about who we are and how God made us through our experience of loneliness.

Loneliness is a reality that all human beings live with at the core of their being whether they're happily married or single. Loneliness is a constant reminder that we were designed for a perfect relationship with God that was marred at the Fall and will not be restored until heaven.

Many people experience bouts of hopelessness through various stages of their lives. For people of faith who embrace the concepts of faith, hope and love, hopeless seems to be a direct contradiction to the very faith that is to breed hope. Exploring the reasons why we sometimes battle with hopelessness will assist us in discovering where our ultimate hope lies.

Hatred just seems to be inconsistent with God's call for Christians to be known for being loving. However, there is a good side to hatred that Christians are called to demonstrate that is consistent with God's imperative to authentically love (Romans 12:9).

True guilt is what we experience when we do something wrong. But sometimes we feel guilty even though we didn't do anything wrong. False guilt is often tied to a belief that we must perform well in order for us to be loved by the person we're attempting to please.

Lots of people feel guilty. Guilt functions as a warning that there is something wrong with the way you're living and you need to pay attention to it. Too often people want to simply get rid of the guilty feelings. However, whenever there is sin involved, the Spirit of God will convict you of that sin and you will feel legitimately guilty.

There are times when the dark clouds of grief and loss seem to totally obscure any light of the sun. It's even difficult to believe the sun is still shining anywhere because of the gloom and darkness of grief. It's during those times that it's difficult to understand God's invitation through James to "count it all joy," especially when joy seems to be the farthest thing from our minds.

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After the Fall in the Garden of Eden, fear was one of the first human emotions mentioned in the Bible. Our disconnection from God and from one another has resulted in the fear of being alone and on our own, needing to provide for our own protection.

Despair is defined as a loss of hope. Rather than running from despair whenever we experience it, we need to step into it and seek to understand why we feel despair. What we may discover is that we have a demanding attitude towards life that makes us more vulnerable to despair.