Evangelicals, You’re Wrong about Mental Illness. (By Amy Simpson).

As I’ve written about mental illness and the church over the last couple of years, I’ve addressed the church in general. But today I especially want to address my fellow evangelicals.

A recent LifeWay Research survey produced some interesting statistics related to mental illness, among them two stats that reveal a shocking contrast. Among the evangelical, fundamentalist, or born-again Christians surveyed, 64 percent believe churches should do more to prevent suicide. At the same time, 48 percent believe serious mental illness can be cured by prayer alone.

Now here’s what I find shocking: That second statistic reveals an attitude that actually accomplishes the opposite of what 64 percent claimed they want the church to do. Here’s a tip: If you believe churches should do more to help prevent suicide, here’s one tangible and quick way to help right now: Stop telling people they can cure their mental illness with only prayer.

Granted, just because people say mental illness can be overcome with Bible study and prayer does not mean those same people would discourage medical treatment and therapy for someone with mental illness. But in far too many churches, such beliefs are widely held and regularly taught. And in others, although seeking treatment is not condemned in a wholesale manner, prayer and Bible study are prescribed as the first step to try to avoid treatment–and this, for many people, has the same effect as discouraging treatment. It certainly has the effect of delaying treatment, and delay increases the likelihood that mental illness will become severe, cause serious disruption to functioning, and potentially cost a person his or her life.

While most people who have mental illness (more than 25 percent of the American adult population) do not die by suicide, most experts claim that at least 90 per cent of people who do die by suicide have a diagnosable mental disorder. And many of those people do not receive treatment for their mental health. Clearly, the appropriate treatment and management of mental illness is one important way–possibly the most important way–to prevent suicide. And prayer by itself, although helpful, is not appropriate treatment of mental illness. In fact, one sure way to drive people closer to despair is to tell them their mental illness is simply a spiritual problem, tell them to pray it away, then when it doesn’t work, just tell them to pray harder. Laying a heavy spiritual burden on people suffering from serious mental illness is a way to encourage suicide, not to prevent it.

It’s easy for most to see that if you told people with cancer, diabetes, or kidney failure that prayer was the best way to treat their life-threatening illness, and because of your counsel they refused medical treatment, you would be contributing to their death. Do you realize serious mental illness is also a life-threatening condition? According to the United Nations and the National Institute of Mental Health, “On average, Americans with major mental illness die 14 to 32 years earlier than the general population. The average life expectancy for people with major mental illness ranged from 49 to 60 years of age . . . a life span on par with many sub-Saharan African countries, including Sudan (58.6 years) and Ethiopia (52.9 years).” Contrast this to the average life expectancy in the United States: 78.6 years. Suicide is only one small reason for this decreased life expectancy, but it is significant. People with schizophrenia are 50 times more likely to attempt suicide than the general population. Among people diagnosed with bipolar disorder, at least 25 to 50 per cent attempt suicide. Among people with major depression, the suicide rate is 8 times that of the general population. For anyone to self-righteously tell such people they do not have a medical condition that requires treatment, and that more rigorous religious activity is all they need, is inexcusable.

Consider what happens when, despite people’s sincere and frequent prayers, this prescription just doesn’t work–as inevitably it won’t for most people. Your faulty advice has condemned the person to suffer–on top of symptoms of serious mental illness–with feelings of spiritual inadequacy or abandonment. How can they not conclude that their prayers aren’t good enough or that God has walked away from them?

Believe me, if prayer alone were the standard cure for mental illness, my mother would be healthy and whole instead of ravaged by the symptoms of schizophrenia. In fact, if faith were an effective inoculation instead brain disorders, she never would have developed such an illness. If going to an evangelical prayer meeting ensured mental health, none of the people I wrote about in my book Troubled Minds would have had anything to say. I interviewed faithful Christians who take medication, engage in therapy, attend support groups, and yes, pray regularly.

God can heal anyone, and sometimes he does so miraculously. But most of the time, he doesn’t. Such an acknowledgment does not undermine God’s greatness or his goodness. He has placed us in a world where we live within the boundaries of the very natural laws he created–and with the presence of disease, decay, and death. Mental illness, like other diseases, is a reality of life in a world where parts of our body–including our brains–get sick and malfunction. We don’t consider it acceptable to prescribe prayer alone for diseased livers, hearts, and pancreases; why prescribe it for disordered brains? Prayer is critical to a healthy spiritual life, whether or not we are suffering from serious disease. But it is not a responsible replacement for medical treatment.

I love the church, and I’m a huge fan of the many ways God has used Christian people as a force for good in this world. But sometimes, in our ignorance, stubborn misconception, corruption, laziness, fear, or very human desire to believe we deserve a better life than others, we actually become a serious part of the problem. For Christians who believe prayer and Bible study are the correct replacements for mental-health treatment, this is one of those times.

It’s time for all of us to learn and tell the truth–and to help save lives.

 http://amysimpsononline.com/2013/09/evangelicals-youre-wrong-about-mental-illness/

Things You Should Never Wear On An Airplane. (Amy Foster).

So, I have done a little traveling this summer. Have you? Realistically, I fly about every month. I travel every other month on my own to Nashville for work and then it seems my family and I have weddings or big birthdays or something that requires flight time to attend during the months I don’t go away for work.

You can call me a snob (The Heatley Cliff is a pretend MANOR house, after all) or an elitist or whatever, but there are certain things that people wear when boarding a plane that just make me cringe. It’s as if passengers have grown to believe that the airport is their bedroom and the plane itself is their bed. Look, I’m all about comfort, especially on long flights, but there are ways to dress up extremely casual clothes so that you still have a certain flair. Why bother, you may ask? Because your flight attendants and pilots are doing their best to look professional so that you, their passenger, feels that they have everything under control. How confident would you feel if you saw your pilot in an Ed Hardy T Shirt and a pair of Tevas? They dress a certain way to make you feel comfortable, and the least you can do is reciprocate by respecting their place of work. Here’s how:

1. DO NOT wear your pajamas.  It seems fairly obvious, right? Your pajamas are what you sleep in. In private. In your bed. There’s a reason they are in the same section as “intimates” in the department store. Find something comfy or if you must, change into PJs on the plane if you are on a long haul and plan to sleep. But please do not walk around the airport in your bathrobe.

1. Shorts. Does this surprise you? The exception, of course, is if you are already in a tropical location and are flying from one island to another. But otherwise, put some pants on. You know why? Because airplanes are cold AND DIRTY. You want as little exposed skin on as possible on your seat.

1. Flip Flops. What if – God forbid – there is an accident and you have to make a run for it? It’s all about TRACTION, people! And also, with few exceptions, feet are just unattractive. I don’t want to have to look at someone’s talon like toe nails for five hours. Ugh.

1. Excessive cologne or perfume. A little spritz behind the ears is lovely, but dousing your entire body in Obsession or Axe body spray can be nauseating. Just because you like the smell of something doesn’t mean the person seated next to you will. Which brings me to my next point-

1. Underarms without deodorant. Maybe you are an au natural type of person. Maybe you are the type of person who uses a salt crystal and believes that the aluminum in deodorant causes Alzheimer’s. Fine! But have mercy on your seat partner and suck it up for a few hours. Even if you are SURE you don’t smell, please realize you might not be the best judge as you have been living with your personal BO every day.

1. Super short skirts and shirts that show off your boobs. A couple months ago, I sat next to a woman who kept stretching out and experiencing a wardrobe malfunction. This woman was not nursing a baby. I did not want to see her nipples. I kind of gestured to her chest area after a while and she just shrugged and pushed her shirt back up. She knew the risks involved when she wore a shirt that was so low cut, and she didn’t seem to care. A plane is not a club. Even if you are flying Virgin America and it looks like the inside of a club, it is still NOT A CLUB. There are families on your airplane. There are people going to funerals and important business meetings. I’m not saying you should wear a burka but I’m also saying that an airplane is not the place to show off your knickers or other assets. Keep it classy.

1. Unwashed clothes. Look, I get it. Sometimes your luggage gets lost. Sometimes you’ve been backpacking for a month through Thailand. But if you are planning to get on a 12 hour flight, please don’t just assume that the shirt you have been wearing for the past week does not smell. Hey, maybe it doesn’t- but be neighbourly and don’t risk it. I’ve washed out an entire outfit in my hotel bathroom the day before a flight, jeans included. A T Shirt is no big deal.

1. A rape-y expression. Yes, I just used that word because I have had to sit next to someone who gave me one for three hours straight. You might be a dude thinking you are just checking out a hot chick, but anything more than a passing glance is leering. Respect the fact that you are trapped in a metal tube thousands of feet above the earth and that the hot chick has nowhere else to go. It’s scary when someone is sitting that close to you and you just know what they are thinking. Look away! Read a book! Play Candy Crush!  Take cues. If your neighbour doesn’t want to talk to you, staring certainly isn’t going to get you any play.

1. A ski jacket, or similarly bulky coat in the middle of summer. We live in a post 9/11 world people! No need to alarm the plane unnecessarily. If you get cold as I do on airplanes, layer it up and throw on a wool cardi. I also always travel with a wrap of some sort- which can do double duty as a blanket or pillow.

1. A massive carry on that should technically be checked. Come on. Is checking a bag so terrible? Will that extra 15 minutes you have to wait at the airport ruin your trip? People can be so stubborn about their carry-ons. But if you cannot lift your bag overhead yourself, if you need help to get it into the compartment and help to get it back down again, IT IS TOO BIG. If there is an accident and that bag comes flying at me, I will die. The fact that you are holding the plane up because it’s taken you five minutes to try to wrestle it out of the bin till someone helps you and it keeps catching on the seats as you walk by means it is really not a carry on at all. Just check it.

Well, that’s me and all my preachiness done. Fly safe people!

 http://hellogiggles.com/10-things-you-should-never-wear-on-an-airplane

What About Hell? (By Leah).

Recently, I was sitting among a group of people who were discussing a speaker they had heard at their church in recent weeks who had apparently given a very in-depth and detailed message. Out of the blue one of the folks in the group said something that I just cannot get out of my mind. It went something like this, “And what about all that talk about hell? Hell is not something I like to think about, it is not something that I talk to my children about, it is not something that we hear sermons about. I just don’t think about it.”

I will agree that we don’t, for the most part, hear too many sermons on hell, but let me tell you, I can remember vividly the one I heard Rev. Dick Baker preach when I was a young girl. At that moment, I was convinced that I didn’t want any part of hell.

I feel like people fall out all over the spectrum on the topic of hell. Some know nothing about it, others don’t want to even think about it, while others are like me, and are absolutely convinced of its reality. Today, I want to give you FOUR things to consider about hell.

Hell is referenced in the Old Testament:

In Hebrew (Old Testament), the word for hell is sheol and it means underworld, pit, place of no return, without praise of God. The Greek (New Testament) word for hell is gehenna. In ancient Israel, this name identified an actual place known as the Valley of Hinnom. It was located south of Jerusalem, and was a continual fire where the trash of the city, as well as dead animals, were destroyed. Can you even imagine the place? Try for just a moment. The city dump that continually burned is a horrible picture, but then throw in the smell of rotten, burning flesh of dead animals, and it becomes hideous.

The prophet Isaiah spoke of hell in connection with the fall of Satan. Satan’s pride and his insatiable desire for power would cause him to be banished to the lowest depths of hell. King Solomon warns his son in Proverbs 27:20 that ‘hell and destruction are never full’.

Jesus spoke of hell in the New Testament

Jesus called hell the ‘unquenchable fire’ (Matthew 3:2), ‘destruction’ (Matthew 7:13), ‘outer darkness’ (Matthew 8:11), and ‘furnace of fire’ (Matthew 13:50). He referenced the ‘gates of hell’ (Matthew 16:18), and told His followers that it would be better to be without a hand or an eye than to be cast into hell (Matthew 5:29, Matthew 18). He told a story of the rich man in hell and Lazarus in heaven, and how one could not cross over from hell to heaven.

God does not SEND anyone to hell:

In Proverbs 23:13 Solomon says, “Do not withhold correction from a child, for if you beat him with a rod, he will not die. You shall beat him with a rod, and deliver his soul from hell.” This verse tells us is that hell is a place where people can go. Notice I did not say, ‘where people are sent’. God doesn’t SEND anyone to hell. People make the choice to spend eternity in hell. Hell will be the final destination for all who choose to reject Jesus as their Lord.

The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.2 Peter 3:9

How do I avoid hell?

This may be news to some people, but none of us are perfect! Only perfect people get into heaven, while everyone else is headed for hell. God knew that the entire human race was doomed because no one was perfect. Imperfection, disobedience, sin~~doesn’t matter what you call it~~requires death as the payment. I deserved to die because of my sin, and that would mean I was headed for hell. God allowed His perfect Son, Jesus, to step up and pay the price I owed for my sin. Jesus died on a cross, and took my punishment. He was buried, and rose again, and lives in heaven with God today.

Does what Jesus did keep me out of hell? Well, yes and no. Yes, His payment was enough, but it was only enough if I ask for it to pay the fine for my sin. Unless I admit that I am sinful, tell God that I am sorry for my sin, and ask Jesus to allow His blood to cover, or pay for, my sin, I am still an unbeliever and I am headed for hell (Revelation 21:8).

Again, God does not SEND anyone to hell. Those who refuse to recognize and admit their sin, and ask Jesus to forgive them, are the ones who choose hell. God simply honors their choice.

Hell is a very, very real place. It is a place that we all must consider in this life, whether we want to or not. God doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, but He leaves the choice up to you and me. Here is why I choose heaven.

So, what will it be—heaven or hell?

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16

http://www.leahadams.org/what-about-hell/

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Hi! I am Leah Adams.

Helping others understand the grace that is offered by Jesus to anyone who will accept it is the passion of my heart.

Happy days lets jump for joy we are awake