The following information was originally posted on today’s Lectio 365 daily devotional resource that helps me pray through the Bible every day.
May I encourage you each to check it out @ 24-7 Prayer where you can download it via the App Store or Play Store.
In part this is a bit of a follow up to today’s Word of Encouragement post as today is World Mental Health Day (Saturday 10 October).
World Mental Health Day was started in 1992 by a man called Richard Hunter, who at the time was the Deputy Secretary General of the World Federation for Mental Health. Over nearly thirty years, it has helped to raise awareness around the world and mobilise efforts in support of mental health.
The arrival of Covid-19 earlier this year, and the months of disruption, isolation and uncertainty since then have been hard for everyone, but they have been particularly dark and difficult for people who suffer with their mental health.
On their website, the World Health Organisation (WHO) writes: “This year’s World Mental Health Day comes at a time when our daily lives have changed considerably as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The past few months have brought many challenges:
- for health-care workers, providing care in difficult circumstances, going to work fearful of bringing Covid-19 home with them;
- for school pupils, adapting to taking classes from home, with little contact with teachers and friends, and anxious about their futures;
- for workers whose livelihoods are threatened;
- for the vast number of people caught in poverty or in fragile humanitarian settings with extremely limited protection from Covid-19;
- and for people with mental health conditions, many experiencing even greater social isolation than before.
And this is to say nothing of managing the grief of losing a loved one, sometimes without being able to say goodbye.” (World Mental Health Day)
How have these challenges affected me over the past few months?
Pressures with work. Health concerns. Isolation from friends. Anxiety about the future. Grief and trauma.
In spite of the fact that much has been done to raise awareness of, and reduce the stigma around, mental health, it’s still not easy to talk about this stuff sometimes. (Especially for guys) It’s easier for me to hold and hide everything inside, to respond with, ‘I’m fine’, when a friend asks how I’m doing, and to pretend that I’m OK. But it’s not a god thing to do.
“Our mental health is just like our physical health,” says the charity MIND, “everybody has it and we need to take care of it.”
Imagine standing in front of a mirror for a moment and asking yourself ‘How are you doing?’ Are you holding or hiding anything inside?
According to the World Health Organisation, ‘half of all mental illness begins by the age of 14, but most cases go undetected and untreated.’
Many children and young people suffer in silence with anxiety and depression.
In these days of uncertainty and constant change, where things are less than stable and our lives could be turned upside down through the actions of one or two that have very little regard for others.
We need to be constantly on our guard, encouraging and building others up – as we don’t know the journey that other people are on, unless we get alongside them and share in a coffee and a chat.
Here in New Zealand we set aside a week each year to raise awareness around Mental Health (I posted about it here) and yet, we still have one of the highest suicide rates in the world for young people – So there is so much more that we can do in this space, to not only raise awareness, but also be a safe haven for those affected by mental health issues.
Your harsh, brash or reckless words could be enough to cause someone to start self-harming, they could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and leads a person down a darkened corridor that they feel that they cannot escape from.
That is why the words of Solomon to his son David are so important for us to take on board in this day and age; as our words (and our actions) can either bring ‘Life & Hope‘ or they can completely annihilate us.
Refer also to Proverbs 18:8 and Proverbs 26:22 and many more verses that relate to our words and actions here.
The thing is if we are carriers of the light, we need to set aside everything that hinders people from experiencing the light that shines through the darkest recesses of our thoughts and shed love, peace, grace and mercy upon all those that we come in contact with – the merest smile that we show to another person can literally change how they are feeling about themselves and their day.
It is hard to believe that a little over a month ago we also celebrated here in New Zealand Random Acts of Kindness Day (I posted about that here) – Just maybe we need to revisit this each and every day so that we can be true ‘followers of The Way’.
The life and times of Perry... 