We all make choices and experience the consequences of those choices. When I was seventeen, I made the choice to disobey my father and deliver pizza at work one night. On that fated night, I was delivering pizza and reading the address on the receipt and not watching the road. Well, the road curved and I went straight and hit a telephone pole dead center. This was before seat belt laws. Naturally, I wasn’t wearing mine. My jaw bounced off the steering wheel and my head slammed into the windshield. Long story short, I was badly hurt, concussed and I believe I had a traumatic brain injury. Six years later I had my first anxiety attack. Seven years later, my first bought of depression. Forty years since the accident and I still have days of crippling anxiety and depression. Today is one of my depressed days.

I have asked God many times to heal me from this. His answer has always been the same. Depression and anxiety are a consequence of my blatant choice to not listen to my father. God refuses to remove this consequence from my life. However, He has helped me survive it. He even saved me from a suicide attempt. As a result, I understand the depression and anxiety that my fellow veterans experience who suffered trauma during their service. I can love people with mental illness where they are and show them that God loves them even if He doesn’t choose to heal them. God may not remove the consequence of a bad choice, but He will teach you how to live with it and love others despite it.

There are those of us who are mentally ill naturally. Their illness is not the result of a bad choice. Their brains just naturally work differently, and severe symptoms are the result. They too have asked God to heal them. And He chooses not to. Like me, they have asked why. God uses these “thorns in the flesh” as common ground for people to love and support each other. Everyone has something in their life that makes life difficult. God loves to teach us how to love like Jesus. The natural tendency is to feel sorry for ourselves and make selfish choices. God uses these difficulties as a tool to teach us to love. When we love others despite how we feel, that is a sign of spiritual maturity.

First, we have to learn to love God and ourselves, but that’s another post.