How often do you consider how to land? Is it when you have to throw laundry into the basket and it just misses the rim landing on the floor? Is it when you try to throw that pillow onto the couch, it lands on the couch but some mysterious gust of wind topples onto the floor? Is it when instead of walking to the trash can, you become a Steff Curry wanna be, and airball that trash just to see it land nowhere near the rim of the trashcan? Is it when putting groceries into your car thinking you securely put the bag of groceries into the trunk but helplessly you watch it topple over and land onto the ground? Poor spilled blueberries! Is it when trying to run with socks on forgetting there is no grip under them like the ones from the hospital. Instead of running upright, you run tilted and I don’t mean like a football slant route, instead like the Tower of Pisa, trying to regain vertical equilibrium but landing hip sliding first? Is it when skipping down the stairs you try to clear two steps at a time but totally miscalculate and instead of landing on your feet you land bottom first or up? For me it depends on the day! Don’t worry, I don’t know your business, I am spilling the tea on my clumsy self.
Now that you have a glimpse of my inner world, it should not surprise you that I have a fascination with landings. I have been watching a lot of landings lately. Including my slips and falls, I have seen birds land, airplanes landing, skydive landings, and more. I thought the intrigue was the descent but within the last four months I now understand that God was trying to remind me of an important guide post for living as a Christian. He was teaching me how and where to land, and what will guide me to land safely. In life it is not about how high you can go or from what level of floor you have to pick yourself up from, it’s the landing for me.
I believed more times than others that the picture of that righteous man falling a slew of times (7) but getting up instead of the wicked who stumble when disaster comes was independent of Jesus’ grim metaphoric picture of the wise man building on the rock vs the foolish man building on the sand. Here are the two passages.
Proverbs 24:16 (ESV) for the righteous falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity.
Matthew 7:24-27 (KJV) 24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: 25 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. 26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: 27 And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it.
It had to take more than one fall in my life for these two life lessons to hit home. Now when I say falls I don’t mean the countless falls we have while learning how to walk, ride a bike, run, climb, after surgery, or slipping on rocks into a bed of sea urchins like me! These falls, through the encouragement of our parents, mentors, doctors, or friends. Although mentally and physically touch, there is that thing in us which we find and then we do it. Why, because we believe that we could or we believe the ones who believed that we could and that faith transferred into our minds and we did! I believe that one of the reasons why we don’t think twice about these experiences as having deeper life lessons is because these are normal growing experiences but they do not hold the shame and vulnerability component which emotional, spiritual, or mental falls bring. The stigma that only the weak suffer from those falls and can’t come back from them, have put these falling experiences into the category of the unforgiving and judgmental discouragement section of the Christian family. The section is where a person is never allowed to get back up again. Instead of encouragement and help to get back up again, one is met with harsh, scathing, silence or gossip with words which in themselves weigh more than the reason for the fall in the first place. Cruel words, lack of empathy, and compassion, and cruel treatment are so heavy that many stay down because the weight of accusatory words and discouragement pins them down. The weight of these words and the actions which accompany them carry a weighty penalty which Jesus lifted for everyone.
Mental health is one of those life experiences which is in the forefront of not just society and the medical realm but in our homes, schools, places of employment, worship, in many other spaces, and if we can be honest we see it looking back at us in the mirror. According to the National Alliance on Mental Health on their web page entitled Mental Health by the Numbers, they remind us that;
Millions of people in the U.S. are affected by mental illness each year. It’s important to measure how common mental illness is, so we can understand its physical, social and financial impact — and so we can show that no one is alone. These numbers are also powerful tools for raising public awareness, stigma-busting and advocating for better health care.
Fast Facts
1 in 5 U.S. adults experience mental illness each year
1 in 20 U.S. adults experience serious mental illness each year
1 in 6 U.S. youth aged 6-17 experience a mental health disorder each year
50% of all lifetime mental illness begins by age 14, and 75% by age 24
Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death among people aged 10-14
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Suicide Data and Statistics share these soul awakening data;
1 death every 11 minutes.
Many adults think about suicide or attempt suicide.
13.2 million seriously thought about suicide.
3.8 million made a plan for suicide.
1.6 million attempted suicide.
Although the numbers are higher because the voices of those who did not take the survey are silenced, these numbers should wake us up but it was the next four simple yet life altering words which caused chills to go down my body, a deep sigh to escape, and tears to flow down my face…“You Are Not Alone.” This loneliness and isolation placed in the basket with misunderstanding, miseducation, bullying, and at times satanic induced cruelty is heavy enough to keep anyone down. Now you may be saying that those passages have nothing to do with mental health. They do this because we can apply any life experience including spiritual, where storms, hurricanes, tornados, calamities through the post offices of death, divorce, loss of income, sickness come and all of a sudden the most vertical human being find themselves horizontal with immeasurable grief, guilt, or depression. Falling is not black and white, falling houses are quite comfortable both the subjective and objective. We cannot tell someone how to experience calamities and storms and at the same time we can see the facts and details of the events which the person is experiencing in their own way. I believe everything which we experience, we experience it holistically. our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual selves function in relationship with each other. Our nervous system interacts and is connected to the circulatory, digestive, endocrine, and skeletal system.
Australian Academy of Science calls the neurons which make up the brain and nervous system a “telegraph…messages in the form of electrochemical impulses throughout the body.” When I understand the complexities and fearful design of our bodies, activated and made alive by the breath of God, I see no argument which tells me that life happening does not affect every aspect of us, including our spirit man. After all, from Adam and Eve to David, to Naomi, to the Woman of Shunem, to Mary and Martha, to Jesus’ mother, to Peter, to Jesus himself. Even more poignant for us Seventh-day Adventists who continue to hold on to the hope in Jesus the Christ which the Millerites found to stand again after their hearts fainted in disappointment 180 years ago. These and many more, can testify that mental health is affected when storms, calamities, and great disappointments come, knocking us off our feet, but grounding ourselves in the unshakable Love of God will always get us back on our feet quicker than if left alone to bear our burdens.
This summer was one for the books where all aspects of my being succumbed temporarily to the weight of life. I experienced a mental breakdown and could not pick myself back up or encourage myself like I had before and so I crashed and needed to be institutionalized for a short time. I needed more support and psychiatric help to get back on my feet again. Although this time was truly shameful for me not because of where society stands concerning mental health and self care, but where the church stands concerning mental health and the Gospel ,and the unrealistic expectations to be in perfect mental health as a Pastor. Yes, I am a Pastor struggling and maneuvering through my mental health and I Love God with all my heart and mind and soul! We find it really hard to reconcile failing mental health with a Christian of strong and unfailing faith. What helped me greatly because I thought that I had failed God, was the journey of my doctors trying to find out why I had not been in the hospital before with all that life had thrown at me. He finally came one morning, saw me reading the Bible and said, ” Ah, I see why now. The Good Lord has been holding you together!’ My response to him was that he was correct and that now the good Lord told me to get the next phase of help. Then the two passages hit home. The question was not why PTSD and depression had me flat on my face, but the real question was “do I have faith that not only can I fall under the weight of calamity as many times as they come but get back up again and simultaneously ensure that I stand vertically and in my right mind? The answer was found not in me but who was in me. Not my strength as foundational but the foundational glue which makes both falling many times and standing up again firmly in calamities possible. That glue is Jesus! And both the men, women and children of the Old and New Testament knew that in their storms and mental anguish God was their Rock.
Isaiah 28:16 (ESV) Therefore thus says the Lord God, “Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste.’
Psalm 78:35 (ESV) They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God their redeemer.
1 Corinthians 3:11 (ESV) For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Like I said earlier, I gained some clarity on falling many times and getting up and making sure when I fall, I fall on the Foundation who will keep me from breaking and who is firm and grounds me, helping me to not only get up but stand secure and strong in Him. A study of buoyant force and density introduces its relationship with the Archimedes’ Principle. The website www.lumenlearning.com teaches that
If the buoyant force is greater than the object’s weight, the object will rise to the surface and float. If the buoyant force is less than the object’s weight, the object will sink. If the buoyant force equals the object’s weight, the object will remain suspended at that depth. The buoyant force is always present whether the object floats, sinks, or is suspended in a fluid.
When I look at the exchange of my burdens for Jesus’ yoke, an invitations to us who are so tired of the weight of life, I understand the science behind Jesus’ offer in Matthew 11:28-30 (NIV)
God’s unshakable Love through Jesus and the Sacrifice on Calvary is the force of buoyancy we need in order to not sink and to rise up and land on our feet. When I exchange the weightlessness of the Peace of God, He consumes it in the Heaviness of His Love! It is that Love which makes Standing possible. Jesus showed us how to have God as our foundation because He had God as His foundation. When death’s weight pinned Jesus down physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually, he laid Himself on His Rock, His Father.
Luke 23:46 (KJV) 46 And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
But He didn’t stop there, this Righteous man, having the firm foundation of God the Father, not only survived that calamity but by Faith we Believe that He got back up from the weight of Death. It’s His landing for me! That is why when we fall in any way, even death, if we fall on Christ the Solid Rock, rejecting the temptation to trust other grounds which are sinking, we will live in the best of both experiences with God. We can get back up again and the temple of God, His house, our bodies will always be grounded and secure. So, do not let anyone tell you that you cannot come back from any physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual fall. Society calls this resilience but because of my relationship with God, and knowing I can’t stand without Him holding me up, I call it Kingdom Resilience. Keep the Good Lord with you and see how He Picks you Up over, and over, and over, and over, and…
Websites Cited
