NAMI: National Alliance for the Mentally Ill -The Nation's Voice on Mental Illness

Here is a resource for you to be aware of: NAMI: National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. Covenant pastor & journalist Stan Friedman recently mentioned this resource on a listserv I am on. Stan also mentioned his own story and journey with mental illness. Thank God for people like Stan Friedman with the courage to be vulnerable and let their lives speak of hope to others. Mental illness touches nearly everyone's life. I've lost 2 parishioners to mental illness related deaths within the past year. They were both schizophrenic and residents at a halfway house the next block over. I know an army psychiatrist, who is stationed here at Ft. Drum and comes to my church. Just a beautiful, gentle, young man, with 2 young daughters and a lovely wife. They had us to their home for a wonderful brunch recently. He's not a long time church goer. In fact his wife said to mine that he didn't seem to have a lot of interest in church until they came to ¡alive@5!, and now they are there faithfully. He recently asked me what I thought of how God deals with people who have a mental illness. I said, "Compassionately." In the Scriptures, God appears to me as one who has tender heart to the oppressed, the poor, the fatherless and He expects his people to do the same. The Gerasene demoniac in Mark 5, has many of the DSM IV traits for schizophrenia. Jesus healed him without the man even asking. Now certainly in this case, the man was demon possessed, not just schizophrenic. Regardless, Jesus was compassionate and grace bearing. He didn't make the man repent of his sin first, didn't make the man ask for help or demonstrateenoughh faith to be helped, didn't make him clean up his life to be helped. He just healed the man without the man doing anything to earn or deserve it. It would seem to me that this would demonstrate God's heart to those with mental illness: grace bearing & compassionate.