We Are the Body of the Wounded Healer

Because of the tragic death of Robin Williams, I’ve seen people out there commenting on suicide and depression who, I can tell, have not loved someone who was devastated by them.

But then I came across a post by Ann Voskamp, whose mother battled mental illness, and who attempted suicide herself:

We could tell you what we know.

That — depression is like a room engulfed in flames and you can’t breathe for the sooty smoke smothering you limp — and suicide is deciding there is no way but to jump straight out of the burning building.

That when the unseen scorch on the inside finally sears intolerably hot –  you think a desperate lunge from the flames and the land of the living seems the lesser of two unbearables….

You don’t try to kill yourself because death’s appealing — but because life’s agonizing. We don’t want to die. But we can’t stand to be devoured.

Her words to you and me as part of the church:

Don’t only turn up the praise songs but turn to Lamentations and Job and be a place of lament and tenderly unveil the God…who wears the scars of the singe. A God who bares His scars and reaches through the fire to grab us, “Come — Escape into Me.” …

I once heard a pastor tell the whole congregation that he had lived next to the loonie bin and I looked at the floor when everyone laughed and they didn’t know how I loved my mama. I looked to the floor when they laughed, when I wanted them to stand up and reach through the pain of the flames and say:

Our Bible says Jesus said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a doctor, but those who are sick.” Jesus came for the sick, not for the smug.

Jesus came as doctor and He makes miracles happen through medicine and when the church isn’t for the suffering, then the Church isn’t for Christ….

I wanted us to turn to the hurting, to each other, and promise it till we’re hoarse….

“We won’t give you some excuses — but we’ll be some example — and that will mean bending down and washing your wounds. Wounds that we don’t understand, wounds that keep festering, that don’t heal, that down right stink — wounds that can never make us turn away.

Because we are the Body of the Wounded Healer and we are the people who believe the impossible — that wounds can be openings to the beauty in us.”

We’re the people who say: “there’s no shame saying that your heart and head are broken because there’s a Doctor in the house. It’s the wisest and the bravest who cry for help when lost.

There’s no stigma in saying you’re sick because there’s a wounded Healer who uses nails to buy freedom and crosses to resurrect hope and medicine to make miracles" [emphases in the original].

Amen, and God help us.

Comments

[Mo]

What's disturbing is the assumption - especially among Christians! - that everyone who commits or attempts suicide is mentally ill.

Just because you are depressed because you are overwhelmed with life's problems does NOT mean you are mentally ill.

How can you not be depressed if you've been out of a job for years and are about to be homeless? Or if you're caring for a family member with severe, long-term/permanent illness or disability? Or because you are sick yourself?

Do we ask the Christians and others in the Middle East who are being displaced, have lost everything and who are watching their children die if they are mentally ill? I'm sure if we asked them, many of them are depressed and despairing. But how could you not be so, in these terrible circumstances?

Why is the normal reaction of sorrow over legitimate problems now considered a mental illness? I cannot believe how common this idea has become - again, even among Christians.

Such people are not mentally ill. They are simply overwhelmed with life's very real difficulties.

Job was not mentally ill.

Not everyone who is depressed is mentally ill. Telling them that just makes them feel more hopeless and without control.

[scblhrm]

Amy's post seems balanced as it approaches emotional pain as the substrate - as contrasted with diagnostic criteria leading to comments of pathology. This was set up in the context of Robin's long history of MDD (major depressive disorder) and suicide - to be fair - as the backdrop for the stage. MDD is an enormously under-treated problem. Lots more to offer for Mo's terrible situation but in between tasks here.... God love on Mo today - Amen.

[Jim Pemberton]

Mo, I think I understand what you are saying. However, the term "mentally ill" is usually not helpful without some indication as to what you mean by it.

Vis:

Category 1: There are people who have good circumstantial reasons to be depressed and are not saddled by a deficiency of neurotransmitters associated with clinical depression.

Category 2: There are people who have good reason to be depressed and are also clinically depressed. There is usually some causal relationship between the two.

Category 3: There are people who are clinically depressed with no good external reason.

All three categories of people warrant kindhearted ministry and none, on their own, warrant shame.

Examples of unwarranted shame: social awkwardness, over-spiritualization by themselves and others resulting in false accusations of sin.

There are also examples of resulting actions that are sinful that would warrant shame. However, shame is often not the best route when ministering to a person suffering from depression who sins where their reason is clouded by clinical depression or where their family is grieving in the aftermath of suicide.

[moose]

is robin williams in hell now?

[WorldGoneCrazy]

Moose, IF he didn't place his faith and trust in Jesus, and IF Jesus is Who He says He is, then yes.

[scblhrm]

Fortunately the reach of His immutable sufficiency outreaches, out performs, out distances contingent and insubstantial paradigms such as Time and Circumstance and we need not honor the pale accusations which Man's Accuser levels against those of unsound mind before the Bench of Man's Emancipator. The soul’s delight at the sight of its true felicity spied in an unguarded Tree through that Door that is His All-Sufficiency effortlessly traverses the entirety of the Accuser’s barricades - be they material or immaterial. “The vast majority of those preaching mixture have a good heart and their motives are pure. I know, because I was such a person. I put price tags on grace while loving Jesus with all of my heart. I fully expect heaven to be full of people with stunned expressions on their face. And since we’re all learning, I have no doubt that I will be one of them.” (Ellis)

[scblhrm]

As we are not so unfortunate as to be five point Calvinists, we can and do say of Robin Williams that Immutable Love has not created him for the express purpose of damning him. The contours within the Necessary Being's triune reciprocity necessarily grant possible worlds within the contingent's more narrow arena.