Somewhere along the way we decided that struggling Christians just weren’t praying hard enough.
Depression? More devotions.
Anxiety? Claim the victory.
Trauma? Have you tried fasting?
We meant well. We also did damage.
Adventists of all people should know better. We built hospitals. We trained physicians. We have an entire theology built around the idea that the body and the mind and the spirit are not separate compartments—that what happens to one happens to all. We called it whole-person care and put it on the brochure.
Then someone in your Sabbath School class admitted they were seeing a therapist—and the room got weird.
The same God who made the human brain made the people who study it.
Medication is not a lack of faith.
Therapy is not a confession of spiritual failure.
Sitting in a counselor’s office working through what your childhood did to you is not the opposite of prayer—sometimes it’s the answer to it.
Jesus healed people. He used mud, spit, touch, words. He was not precious about his methods. He just wanted people whole.
You are allowed to want that for yourself.
If you are carrying something too heavy to carry alone, putting it down is not weakness.
Getting help is not giving up on God.
It might be the most honest thing you’ve done in years.
The church should be the first place that says so.
We’re working on it.
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