Illness doesn’t spare faithful — but coping is a lot easier

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/10/2005 (7569 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

‘LIFE is difficult.” You might recognize that sentence. It’s the first line of the book The Road Less Travelled by psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck. After it was published in 1978, the book became a best-seller, especially among Christians. This was partly due to Peck’s belief in a higher power, which was crystallized later in life when he became a Christian, but also to the fact that Peck spoke a truth we all know, but sometimes fail to hear in church — that just believing in Jesus doesn’t make life perfect and wonderful, or make us happy “all the day,” in the words of the old Isaac Watts hymn.

Peck died in September at the age of 69. In 2003, he wrote that “the most common response I have received to The Road Less Travelled in letters from readers has been one of gratitude for my courage, not for saying anything new, but for writing about the kind of things they had been thinking and feeling all along, but were afraid to talk about.

Why the fear? “For many Christians, there is a sense that they should not be struggling,” says Todd Sellick, a Winnipeg marriage and family therapist. “If they are, they think they’ve failed.” Part of the problem, he says, is the message sent by some churches that everything should go well for believers, and that if it doesn’t, “there’s something wrong with them.” But that’s completely false, he says. “You may be forgiven, and God is with you, but it doesn’t mean you won’t struggle in life.

The problem can be exacerbated when people who are experiencing difficulty go to church looking for help. “Some churches can be very unwelcome places for people who are failing,” says Sellick, when they should be “the safest and most grace-filled places. We hardly know how much we have damaged people though this kind of church culture.”

The church Sellick attends knows about struggles — a number of people in the congregation are facing health-related issues. “We are riddled with cancer,” he says. “All we can do is pray, offer support and bury our dead. There is a lot of pain, and there are no platitudes for that. But even in the darkest places we trust and believe that God is walking with us, that God is part of our journey.”

Eckhard Goerz is CEO of Eden Health Care Services in Winkler, which assists people struggling with mental illness, among other things. He tries to help Christians understand that faith in God isn’t a guarantee for good mental health. “There’s no reason to expect that people of faith should be anymore immune to mental illness than anyone else,” he says. “After all, Christians aren’t immune from cancer or other diseases.”

Goerz says that the church can play an important role for individuals experiencing mental illness, and for their families, by “standing by them and being supportive, and by demonstrating the love of God in all the messiness and challenges of mental illness.” The church can also break the stigma of mental illness by talking about it, either from the pulpit or in Christian education classes, learning about it and welcoming people who are experiencing mental illness.

In November, Eden is sponsoring Life Flows On, a one-day workshop for families, pastors and others who want to discover how faith and the faith community can play a role in helping people with mental illness — and how Christians can make sure they don’t make things more difficult for people with mental-health challenges. The workshop will be held twice; once, on Nov. 4, at Emmanuel Mennonite Church in Winkler, and a second time on Nov. 5 at Canadian Mennonite University here in Winnipeg. The featured speaker is Gayle Gerber Koontz of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind., who will speak from personal experience about how people can deal with their sense of powerlessness when dealing with a family member with mental illness; how Christians can reconcile mental illness with a view of a loving and caring God; and how the church can respond compassionately to families facing mental-health crises. Cost of the workshop is $70.

The fact of the matter is that everyone struggles or faces difficulty at some point in life — people of faith included. “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle,” said the ancient philosopher Philo of Alexandria. Or, as Joshua Halbersam, author of Everyday Ethics, puts it: “When you judge other people, remember one overriding axiom: Everyone is having a hard time. Everyone is insecure. Everyone is hassled. Everyone is tired — we all need more sleep. Everyone wishes he had more courage, more money and better social skills. Everyone wants more glamour in life, and we all desperately need more laughter. Few can figure out how they ended up living the life they lead. Don’t be misled by flippant talk; it’s a battle for everyone out there… Give people a break. It’s not easy doing a life.”

For more information about Life Flows On, call Eden Health Care Services at 204-325-4325 or e-mail edencare@valleycable.com.

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