Standing Together

As you have parented those with mental illness, have you found yourself trying to hide your circumstances and the pain you experience? When you have opened up your heart, have you experienced dismissal, misunderstanding, blame and condemnation? Or worse—unsolicited advice.

I was recently working in the food pantry at church and chatting with a new acquaintance in the ministry. We organized cans of food, vacuumed, and moved boxes. We shared stories about previous churches we had attended and what led us here. And as we finished the tasks at hand we sat for a bit and continued our fellowship. Then the real ministry began.

We discovered that we both are parents of children with mental illness. We continued the conversation and I shared some of the struggles that my family has experienced when parenting through mental illness: the lack of church support, some friends not understanding, fearing who to trust when the next “storm” dysregulated our family.

“We lost our son to bipolar,” she surprisingly confided.

I sat with the statement for a moment, appreciating the weight of what she had shared. I looked upon this new friend, having only interacted with her one time before, and my heart ripped and wept for her. There, in the food pantry, we experienced our Lord in the midst of the pain.

I have had some amazing friends and mentors over the years who have so lovingly demonstrated this kind of love. This is the kind of love that says, “I’ll sit here with you in the pain. I won’t try to fix it and I won’t judge your reaction to it.” It’s the kind of love that doesn’t require a mask or pretending we are doing just fine. It’s the kind of love that allows God’s Grace to abound among us. I long to do this better.

I just finished reading an amazing book in which the author says, “What if it was less important that anything ever gets fixed than that nothing has to be hidden?” I had to read that line several times. The author calls us to a place of vulnerability with God and with each other where the goal is to fully trust God, experience His Grace, and to then extend that hand of Grace to each other with authenticity and humility.

What if we trusted God so fully with our hearts that we could let others trust their hearts with us?

God hasn’t promised us carefree, easy living. Mental illness, like other chronic medical conditions, often robs us of that. But He has promised to stand in the mess with us. My desire is for us to emulate what He does for us, that we would be able to also stand together in the mess with arms linked in understanding, kindness, and His love.

Are you a Christian parenting an individual with mental illness? Join the Eleventh Willow private Facebook support group to meet other parents who understand. Let’s help each other walk this path.

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash