“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” – Matthew 11:28
I’ve spent most of adult life in ministry. I have been a youth pastor, a small group leader, helped with two church plants, and worked in the para-church world (Christian non-profits). I’ve also been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and ADHD. A lot of people work hard for years to earn letters behind their names and, well, I was born with mine. I suppose you could call that *privilege*.
Should you decide to get vulnerable enough around good church folks to open up about your mental struggles you’ll typically be met with well-meaning verses like, “Be anxious for nothing…” (Philippians 4:6), to which I always reply, “Yeah…. I am.”
That doubles as a Bible joke and an autism joke. Don’t worry, you’ll get it later.
Throughout scripture we’re given many examples of people considered to be heroes of the faith who also wrestle with serious mental struggles. We know that Jesus was without sin, yet we see him in the garden before His crucifixion in Luke 22:44 feeling “anguish to the point of death”. Luke tells of his sweat becoming like blood in a condition called hematohydrosis, where the capillaries in the sweat glands break down and give the appearance of sweating blood. That is a rare condition brought on by extreme emotional distress.
David, referred to as a man after God’s own heart, wrestles with anxiety and worry all throughout the psalms.
Paul tells Timothy to take a little wine to settle his stomach because of the physical effects he’s having from the stress of the pressures of pastoring (1 Timothy 5:23). While not a healthy coping mechanism, it does highlight that godly people, doing God’s work, considered in right-standing with God, deal with mental struggles.
A few years ago I broke my foot. Unfortunately it’s not a cool story, I was just walking past a chair and the chair leg won. But I am a mom and as any mom would do, I looked down at that foot and said, “Meh. I’ve got work to do” and went about cleaning, vacuuming, grocery shopping. Over time it started to get harder to do those things and the pain got worse. My husband, having had that same break before watched me try to Superman my way through the pain and tried to talk me into putting my foot up, telling me I needed a walking boot, it to which I said, “But if I do that, who’s going to do the things?”
How weird, though, would it be if when I noticed that my foot wasn’t getting better, and I started to complain to my husband that I’m not able to do the things I need to do, he looked down at my foot and said, “You know what I think? I think you’re not in the Word enough.”
That would be weird right? Because that’s not a logical response to a complaint about a medical condition. What if he said, “You know, when you share about your injury with me, I can’t help but wonder if you have some secret sin somewhere?”
Too often, Christianity has approached mental health issues as a moral or spiritual failing rather than a physical symptom of a body functioning in a fallen world. Yes, we absolutely should be leaning into Jesus when we’re in distress and ask the Holy Spirit for comfort in anxiety or depression. We need Jesus for all those things.
But also… just like my broken foot, sometimes we need a walking boot! So that’s how I started approaching mental health.
Mental health is health because the brain is a body part.
It’s also the part of the body that scientists know the least about. Professionals have dedicated their entire careers to studying this mysterious part and we’ve only scratched the surface of understanding how this organ works. Here’s a tiny sampling of what we know so far (Source: Sentis. How does Neuroplasticity work?) :
When we experience trauma, our brains shut down the non-essential systems and activate the sympathetic nervous system, releasing stress hormones that activate our fight or flight. These exist to help us survive and create nuero-pathways in our brains.
Those are the connecting neurons that send signals from one part of your brain to another creating your unique roadmap for your brain’s communication system and thought processes. The connectors, or intersections for these pathways are called dendrites, and they increase in number with the frequency that the behavior that caused them is being done, further solidifying those pathways and reinforcing those behaviors.
These reinforced pathways don’t just tell us what to think, but how to think and behave, based on the patterns given to them by our experiences, genes, and environment.
These pathways aren’t just created by our own choices, in fact, most of the time they’re created by the choices of other people that are done to us. If you had neglectful or abusive parents, if you’ve lived through extreme poverty and fought to survive, lost a loved one, or had to earn love through performance, all of these create neuropathways that train our brains how to think and behave. Sounds kind of hopeless, but there’s good news.
God made our brains malleable!
It used to be thought that your adult brain was permanent, but it turns out, you can teach an old dog new tricks. The word is called neuroplasticity, and recent science has shown us it lasts well into adulthood. In yet another example of where scripture is far ahead of discovery, Romans 12:2 says, “Do not conform to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
So how does neuroplasticity work?
When we learn a new thing, we begin to carve out a new road, the more you use that pathway, the more that new way of thinking, feeling, or doing becomes second nature, and the old pathway gets used less and less and begins to weaken. So, like seeking a walking boot for my brain, I started seeking out ways to improve my mental health.
One of those things includes treating my ADHD with medication (because people in my life occasionally enjoy it when I return a text message). I also decided to take advantage of my brain’s neuroplasticity by receiving EMDR therapy. The process was a partnership with the Holy Spirit and a trained therapist working through trauma and abuse and getting tools to move forward. When my therapist described how neural pathways work, I remember being overcome with hope that there existed for me a healthy and whole way to think and be. I’ve always known with Christ that was possible, I just didn’t know the practical steps to pursue it.
I’ve had mental health struggles that have been relieved and even resolved by nothing else than spending time with Jesus like anger and feeling unloved. I have issues from trauma and abuse that are being overcome with therapy. I also have functioning deficiencies that are being helped with medication. None of those approaches are any less spiritual than the other because each one propels me toward doing what God has called me to do: to live happy and healthy, to step out and use my gifts, and to love others.
I’m going to shift here a bit to address neurodivergence specifically. I love this account from Mark 5 about Jesus’ encounter one special woman. Your Bible might use the subtitle, “The Woman With the Issue of Blood” but here we’re going to call it, “The Woman on the Outside of Her Community.”
Mark 5:25-34
25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. 27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped, and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
According to their law, when you were bleeding, you were considered unclean. That meant you:
- Weren’t permitted to touch anyone.
- Not allowed at gatherings
- Not allowed intimacy.
For this woman, her health issue meant she was doomed to loneliness in perpetuity. She broke the law to touch Jesus, and Jesus called attention to her for what she did. When He asked, “Who touched me”? He knew. It was a set up for what else He was about to do for this woman. He was asking for the benefit of the crowd. Verse 33 says she trembled when she answered Jesus. Why? Because she didn’t just touch a man while being unclean, she touched a famous Rabbi. Anticipating a scolding from Jesus she receives public praise for her faith instead. That was very intentional by Jesus.
He set up a scenario where He could bring attention to a woman who had been put on the outside of community for something that was completely out of her control in order to right a wrong. This one really hits home for me as a neurodivergent person who has been put down and othered for my quirks and deficiencies. Jesus didn’t just heal her body, He healed her heart and demolished the false narrative she had of being less than, unworthy, or othered.
By publicly praising her faith He healed her standing in the community. That was important to Him. Just some random nobody, cast aside, not taken seriously and Jesus, on his way to go do something else, turned His attention to her, and healed her wrong perspectives of how God views her. That was important to Him. I am just as important to Him. So are you.
If you are struggling with mental health, reach out. If your people aren’t safe enough for you to say something, find new people. There is nothing wrong with an all-fronts approach to treating your mind just like you would any other precious part.
Reflections of a Variant 
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