The Lovely Broken Mind

It is good to be back!

My time away has been so very good and so very hard.  But that is for another devotional.  Today I have another purpose in mind.  So come to the porch of the farm and lets talk about a hard topic.

Mental Illness or Brain Disorder and Sin.

Mental Illness is a sickness of the brain.  The brain is an organ not unlike any other organ of the body.  They all can get sick.  So does the brain.  It does not work in a healthy manner.

The brain disorder is no more caused by sin than a heart attack or kidney disease.  Although it is true if you have a weak heart.  Or if heart disease runs in your family.  Stress or what the bible calls anxiety or worry can affect it.  You need to eat heart healthy.  Exercise and rest are required at the time of an attack.

So, in some cases, your mental health can be affected by wrong thinking.  It puts stress and over stimulation to the already weakened state of the brain. Your thoughts reveal in some way your heart is what I have found in me.  Either a fear, wrong thinking or righteousness, truth and faith.

When I got sick some 20 years ago.  My life fell apart.  I saw myself as a failure.  I turned inward and became depressed, severely.  I also had several surgeries that affected the harmon's of my brain.  I could not take replacement.  The illness was also in my background.  So many things were going against me fighting against this disease.

Wrong thinking and sin is common to us all...The bible calls us to renew our mind.  To take off our old way of thinking and put on new, right, true thoughts that are praise worthy.

It is my hopes that in the weeks to come I can share some wrong thinking I have had.  Also how the bible and the Spirit have helped me correct this thinking.  Along with lots of support from friends.

So just as a healthy lifestyle can improve and help you cope with an unhealthy heart.  So I believe right thinking can help, in most cases, with living and coping with a brain disorder.  It may even lead to recovery.  Along with other things, I hope to share with you in time.  Either way I believe there is hope.

I have a friend who exercises daily.  Eats healthy and has a lot of faith and trust in God.  But he had to have a stint put in.  Now he continues to live well but also is on medication.  Under a doctors care to help with his heart condition.  It is working.

So it is with a mental disorder.  Sometimes a support system, healthy thinking and lifestyle the person still needs the help of a doctor.  Possibly medication if needed.  This should never be a first resort but never not used if needed.  A good professional can help determine this.  Remember all thoughts in the mentally ill person are magnified.  They maybe as yours but so much more intense.  All the more important that their thoughts are truth.  They can become rapid or so magnified they are all consuming.

There is a warning...Ask for help...Do not isolate or deny your problem.

Many times those with this illness will refuse to admit they are sick.  That they have a problem.  They will not ask for help but try to try harder to do better.  They think if they just have more faith it will go away.  More times than not this is just not the case.  It can lead to them self medicating.  It could lead to many addictions of self destruction as alcohol and drug abuse.  Even smoking can make you feel healthy as it slows the brain down.  This only leads to a bigger problem down the road.  Harm to your body or breaking the lifetime addiction.

So ask somebody for help today.  Don't wait.  Keep asking until someone listens and gets you help.  Tell them what is going on and that you need help right away.

I am not saying to pull yourself up by your bootstraps...Just get a grip on life.

My concern in writing these helpful tools and ways of thinking you will rise up.  Try to be strong.  I do not want you to think I am asking you to be perfect in living.

God uses the weak things of this world.  It is not through a healthy mind that I have learned to live sane.  In our weakness His strength is made perfect.  Apart from Jesus we all are a little insane.  Sanity has come through knowing I am broken.  Hopeless without Jesus.  I am in Christ.  I am the Fathers beloved child.  I am so loved and cherished that the Father sent His son to die for the sick, not the healthy.  One day I will be with Him.  No more sorrows and no more pain.  All will be whole.

We all are sick in some way.  Only a few of us know it.  Only a fewer amount will humble themselves and ask for help.  I had to hit bottom to realize I could not do it alone.  I needed family, professionals and a support system of people wiser than me.  Most of all God Almighty

I am not here to defend sin or excuse it.  We all are becoming more like Jesus, if we are His.  But to say "Brain Disorder" is a real disease.  People are dying from it daily.  So lets learn to be weak together.  You will see how small my faith is.  But it is my prayer you will also see how "BIG" God is.

I believe He has brought you here for a reason.  I am blessed if I can give Him glory for anything shared in the weeks to come. Or help you may get.  Lets do it together even in your comments.  Its gonna be fun I hope.  We will laugh and learn and see God clearer.  We may even shed a few tears.  Lets pray for each other and encourage each other to think rightly about who He is and who we are.  To keep the faith and depend on Him.