2020 Was the Best Year Ever!Sample

Mental Health

How can one address a topic like mental health in a couple of paragraphs? I really don’t think you can. As someone who’s been in the darkest pit of mental illness, I don’t take this topic lightly. I’m certainly not going to tell you to just “trust God and have more faith,” because while you should do these things, mental health is much more complicated than that--but that’s for another time. 

2020 left us all scratching our heads and grasping for some semblance of understanding with what was taking place all around us. It wasn’t just one thing that ravaged our country. It was multiple things--heavy things! The uncertainty of the future, the constant stream of negative news, the disruption in our routines, the loss of loved ones from covid-19, the conflicts that stemmed from disagreements over current affairs. It was a hard year. 

If you are feeling off, if you are having a hard time getting out of bed, if it seems as if every thought that flows through your brain is negative or if they cause debilitating anxiety, then I will tell you what I wish someone would have told me: don’t do it alone. In fact, let me scream it at you in obnoxious capital letters, PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS ALONE! 

Vulnerability is risky. Sometimes it may lead you to someone who just doesn’t quite understand what you’re going through and you may walk away feeling misunderstood. I’ve been there. But… I have learned that vulnerability can also bring lifelines that would have otherwise remained hidden. And as I have found healing and have discovered my true identity in Christ, now I can walk out 2 Corinthians 1:4, where it tells us to comfort those with the comfort we have received! 

A church my family and I recently attended was promoting their small groups, as they were about to start again for the year. Workers in pink shirts greeted us at the door, inside the auditorium, and from the stage. The pink shirts all said different things to promote community within the church, but one caught my eye and made an impact on my heart: Jesus was in a group. If Jesus had a group, then we certainly should have one too. Paul wrote in Galatians to bear the burdens of others. A group allows us to carry burdens and allow others to carry ours, and when this takes place we are in obedience to Jesus’s command to love one another. 

Unfortunately, it’s easy to spiral and find yourself in a pit with no ladder to climb out. And sometimes in that pit, we don’t even have the strength to pray or to hope. Allow the faith and prayer of others to bolster you and to lift you up. And then take what you’ve learned through the healing process and carry someone else’s burden. 

Don’t wait any longer to tell someone how you are feeling. Ignore that annoying inner voice that likes to make you second guess. You are worth it because God deems you worthy and loved. Thank You, Jesus!