Thoughts…

People have been asking me more questions about the purpose of my blog.  I would like to answer these questions and remind the readers about what is coming from this blog.  First, I am excited to talk about mental illness in more depth.  There is so much to learn and to understand.  I am working on giving you all very basic neurobiological information as you read in my last post about neurons. If you missed it, it’s here: The Decade of the Brain and Neurobiology

Secondly, as a psychiatric and family nurse practitioner, I find it so discouraging that Christians often look at physical health differently than mental health. We are whole people! A lot of mental health is physical as it has to do with brain chemistry. It’s similar to blood pressure. We treat blood pressure with medication without a second thought, but we can’t see it outwardly. We can eventually see its effects on our bodies manifested by heart disease, kidney disease, blindness and others. No Christian says, “you shouldn’t take a blood pressure medication; You just need to ‘give it to God.’ ” When it comes to mental health, depression, anxiety, or other mental illnesses, it suddenly becomes strictly a spiritual problem. “You shouldn’t take antidepressants. You just need to let God take care of it.” We see so many people in scripture who suffer from mental illness. Job, Elijah, and David who had great faith in God suffered from depression.

Here is an article a friend sent me that may be interesting related to this topic: “Why the church should be on the frontlines of the mental health crisis”

I hope even if you don’t agree with what you are reading, you will stick with me, you will ask yourself hard questions, and you will ask me hard questions.