Mental Health as It Relates to Believing in God

When I think of a being that is perfect, eternal, and ever-present, I think of God.

Am I able to think about these supernatural things because I was once face-to-face with them, somehow? I'd go to the book of Genesis to answer this question and I wish I had a simple answer to it, but this is more of a rhetorical question.

We're able to think about perfection, eternity, and omnipresence because we're designed to experience these things with God.

I believe in God because He is true. A very simplistic way of thinking about truth is to think about how useful something is for one and many others.

I believe that I was created to be an image-bearer of God. Admittedly, the brokenness in myself and the world has gotten in the way at times.

"We're only the lightbulbs …, and our job is just to remain screwed in."

-Desmond Tutu

I've been labeled as caring, bipolar, smart, perfectionistic, disciplined, calm, and so on. But I'm unlearning to identify as these and learning to identify more as a believer and image-bearer of God. This process of unlearning and rightly identifying myself is where mental health comes in, to allow me to experience God more.

In honor of May being the Mental Health Awareness Month, let us dive right in.

Your Life, Your Mental Health

Mental health can be highly personalized.

Nowadays, it's becoming more common to take a mental health day from work. The reasons for taking one of these can range from wanting to treat yourself to a spa day for some stress relief to feeling totally dysfunctional with serious thoughts of not wanting to live anymore.

We find freedom when we don't blame others for our mental health challenges and start taking responsibility to heal. There's power in realizing that it's not my fault that I'm broken, and that I'm a leader of my healing process.

Without mental health, we could have outstanding physical health and still feel miserable, like life is not worth living.

I can tell from my experience as a clinician and as a person diagnosed with a mental illness that good mental health generally involves:

• Having the ability to enjoy naturally pleasurable things (in a healthy amount)

• Thinking in a goal-directed, logical way when needed

• Maintaining meaningful relationships

• Setting mindful boundaries with ourselves and others

• Coping with stress in ways that promote overall wellness

• Having self-awareness of strengths and areas to develop

This is not a personalized list, so I