Category: Fellowship - The Serenity Project

To Know and Be Known: Let's Talk Suicide Prevention (and Let's Start with One Another)

6/15/2018

I never heard of Kate Spade before last Tuesday. I never cared for Anthony Bourdain's TV show. But I read some headlines in the past week, and instantly knew these people on an intimate level—the kind of understanding that goes deeper than words.

I didn’t have to click links to suicide notes; I didn’t need to read any lurid details about potential divorce, ongoing addiction, particular method, or personal pain. From the headlines alone, I saw into two people living in places where I’ve been before.

Maybe it was just poor timing after that. The other night, while channel surfing with my husband and stepson, we passed by a popular music entertainment channel, and I saw Stevie Ryan’s face on our television screen. My heart went still for a moment. Stevie Ryan took her life last July. And MTV's still replaying her appearance on Ridiculousness, as if Stevie’s doing just fine and dandy.

I mean, she sure looked great on the screen: vibrant and quick-witted and full of personality. To the untrained eye, the charisma looks natural and unforced. To me, the brittleness in her eyes is unmistakable.

Stevie Ryan was 33 when she died; I’m 33 right now. I know her too, now, in a way many people never did.

At some point this week, I came across a blog post by Pastor Chris Owens, called, “So I Have Mental Illness…” That's probably not the kind of title that calls for rejoicing, but I rejoiced.

Reflections on Seven Years of Sobriety

1/20/2018

Hi, my name is Serenity, sober by the grace of God since January 15, 2011. Tonight, I received another medallion to commemorate that date. I celebrated seven years in the fellowship of my community of recovery. And tonight, more than ever, that community of recovery is what I’m celebrating.

I hesitated to talk on fellowship tonight because the knee-jerk response drilled into me is “the fellowship doesn’t keep you sober,” and no, it doesn’t. God keeps me sober. But it just so happens the God of my understanding does a lot of work through fellowship. And I’m appreciating that in a lot of ways this year—because all over again, I’m seeing that what we have in the rooms of recovery is something most of the world only wishes they had.

That All of Them May Be One: Partnering for Hope

12/18/2017

I blogged recently about some encouraging developments observed in terms of mental health awareness in my community, where resources have been limited since, well... forever. This fall, I learned my healthcare provider has introduced depression screenings as a component of annual exams. I kid you not, folks, I rejoiced! Just one move by one organization, and yet what a positive, meaningful investment in reaching so many people to start normalizing the conversation around mental health.

Frankly, it's about time. It’s no coincidence Christian media has been increasingly marked by headlines like "Suicide, Mental Illness, and the Church," “1 in 3 Protestant Churchgoers Personally Affected by Suicide,” and "With Rising Teen Suicides, the Church Cannot Afford Mixed Messages on Mental Health." Mainstream awareness has been gaining traction on a national level for a while now. But since my annual wellness check last month, I've been nearly overwhelmed, noticing how much action is taking place at the local community level. All around us—all of a sudden, it seems—there are resources and partnerships taking form and function, specifically working to address the topic of mental health in Brookings, South Dakota. And that is a blessing.

God laid the burden on my heart to start confronting this reality in my own life about two years ago. Now I see others doing the same, right here at home. With every step forward, the Lord is showing me answers to prayers I didn’t even know how to pray yet. We are not alone; the Lord of the harvest is bringing the workers.

Out of the Darkness: Becoming Visible, Becoming a Light

12/17/2017

“But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.” (Ephesians 5:13)

If there's one lesson I've learned about God more frequently than any others, it's that He calls us to obey first, understand later. This past spring, with many confirming messages and a special nudge from my husband, I felt specifically led to attend an Association of Certified Biblical Counselors regional training in Sioux Falls. I had no idea how God might be planning to use that in my life, but He'd been awfully particular about putting the opportunity in my path. And, through those three training weekends, the Spirit spoke loud and clear. I saw what I’d sensed missing from my past experiences in seeking counseling, and I saw a clear picture of healing in biblical community.

Let me be very clear here: this is not an either/or conversation. It’s an and issue. Since the day God called me to go stumbling down a path toward ordained ministry, back in early 2012, I've been wrestling to get a firm grasp on a personal either/or conflict. For a long time, I was nagged by a question over Christian counseling. I couldn't tell yet whether God meant me to pursue that vocation, too, or if He just planned for me to see this ordination track through to the end. Was I supposed to be a pastor, or was I supposed to be a counselor?

Through the ACBC training and a memoir by Eugene Peterson, the Lord gave me a definitive answer: "Yes." I realized, for me, it’s not one or the other. It’s an and.

Changing the Pattern: From Isolation to Invitation

11/5/2017

There's plenty of rationalization about subduing the public conversation around depression and self-harm. Like “misery loves company,” and “suicide is selfish,” and if we entertain depressive thinking, we’ll just encourage more of the same. Right?

"Somewhere along the way, some of us may have gained the mistaken notion that to address suffering means minimizing sin and capitulating to secular psychology perspective on victimization," writes Robert W. Kellemen, executive director of the Biblical Counseling Coalition. "While I understand that concern, biblically it is unwarranted."

Previous <<< Mind-Body-Spirit: It's the Whole That Needs Healing

Sure, dwelling in negativity is a self-centered, self-destructive habit. If we’re “just venting” because we “just need to be heard” while we fixate on “just saying what I need to say,” then we’re basically just poisoning our relationships and getting ourselves nowhere constructive. Talking about our problems is a great addiction, as long as that’s all we plan on doing. Diagnosing our issues is not the solution to our issues. Discussing our problems is not the same as doing something about our problems. Even confessing the sin of fallen thinking is not, in itself, repenting of our sin, much less a stand-alone solution to suffering.

Misery does love company, and it’s really tempting to jump in the negativity pit together. But we're not called to crawl into each other’s dung piles and just sit there. We're called to confess to one another and pray for each other so that we may be healed. We're called to speak the truth to each other in love, encourage each other, and build each other up as members of the body. It does us no good to simply stand back at a distance and "give out passages like prescriptions or dispense platitudes like pills” (Jay Adams, The Christian Counselor’s Manual). We are called to be doers of the Word--not just repeating what it says, but actually doing it, together. That means bearing each other's burdens and bearing with one another in our infirmities, as the Lord Jesus bears with us day after day.

Sometimes, that means having some uncomfortable conversations.

Mind-Body-Spirit: It's the Whole That Needs Healing

11/1/2017

Last week, I went to the doctor for my annual wellness check. At the end of the normal intake routine, the nurse handed me a clipboard with a form and a pen. "One last thing," she explained. "We've begun depression screenings for all of our patients. You'll have a few minutes to go through and answer these questions, and then the doctor will talk with you about them when she comes in."

My reaction? "That's great!"

The nurse gave me a second glance on her way out. Probably not your typical patient's response to a random depression screening, I guess. But on a personal level, for the last couple of years, I’ve been deeply attentive to moves toward de-stigmatizing depression and recognizing the holistic physiology of mind-body-spirit health. So I was more than just casually intrigued by this unexpected, timely development with my local healthcare provider.

Still, I couldn't resist texting my husband, only half-joking: Now depression screening is part of my annual appointment. I better start scheduling that appointment in spring instead of fall.

My husband, well acquainted with the cutely coined "fall blues," texted back: Uh oh. I'll bail you out.

Self-deprecation aside, it's a bittersweet improvement in a chronically under-resourced awareness of mind-body-spirit health that impacts so many of us in my local community. We know there's a need for more comprehensive counseling and care services, and we know there simply aren't enough well-equipped counseling or care workers to go around. As depression gains recognition as a mainstream health epidemic shouldered by the public at large, it’s encouraging to see healthcare providers partnering to share the load.

So there I sat, left to myself for a few minutes of quiet contemplation in a cold, clinical exam room. Serenity vs. the screening questionnaire, with a heart both gladdened and burdened by the same gesture of care.

After all, if I'm going to keep speaking out about de-stigmatizing depression, then I had better keep speaking honestly about my own struggles with depression, right?

Cigarette Smoke, Hypocrisy, and Freedom From Sin

12/20/2016

"For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you." (Romans 12:3)

I started smoking when I was about 15 or so. I don't really remember why... I didn't really care if other people thought I was cool, but I guess I thought I was pretty cool.

By the time I was 16, most of my friends smoked, too. We would disappear to our cars during lunch breaks at school to light up and crank the music. After school, we'd cruise for hours, driving in circles and listening to pirated CDs, talking about boys and smoking cigarettes. The "good kids" would sneer at us and talk about us after we passed by. We told each other it wasn't like we ever wanted anything to do with them anyway. They were "too good" for us. We were much more interested in the twenty-something crowd who would buy us cigarettes and other things.

Along a main highway between my town and a nearby town, there's an anti-smoking billboard posted next to the road. I don't remember the exact wording of the "quit smoking" message, but I remember that every time we came up on that billboard, my friend Juli would say, "Time to light up!" And we would all light a cigarette as we drove by the "quit smoking" sign.

Juvenile? Sure. Hardheaded rebellion? Bingo!

When I was 27, toward the end of my first year of sobriety, I quit smoking. Having smoked for more than a decade by then, I'd tried quitting cigarettes dozens of times before. But that time, after learning to work the steps of a spiritual program of addiction recovery, with prayer and conviction, I finally had the tools to quit and stay quit.

For me, it was more than just changing a few behaviors. By then, I'd seen God in a way that made me long for the purity I'd disdained as a youth. I wanted to be washed clean and made new. I was finally ready to be "that good."

I was so tired of my stupid decisions and self-destructive habits. Cigarettes were the least of my problems, after the life I'd lived, but I wanted to be free from all of it—substance free and dependence free, physically and emotionally. I wanted God to remove my shortcomings and restore me to an innocence I had never truly known or appreciated. After years of looking down on the "good" people, thinking them pathetic and boring, now I wanted to be free from sin, with the full assurance of faith.

Being There is Enough: Pastors in High Heels, and More About the Vulnerability of Presence

12/9/2016

Not so long ago, when I was just taking my first couple of stumbling steps toward faith, I was driving down the road one day when I received a phone call from a friend. In a matter of moments, I learned my friend's ex was coming over, the ex was hysterical and vindictive, and my friend said, "I need a spotter."

My first question was honest enough: "And you want me there?!"

I couldn't see my presence adding anything other than fuel to the fire. But I didn't have time to weigh the repercussions. It was a God moment. Before I knew I was going to do it, I was turning my car around to head for my friend's house. I was driving directly into an explosion, and it was going to be ugly, and I had no idea why my friend had called me—of all people on earth, why me?—but my friend asked me to be there, and so I went.

It was ugly. There was an explosion. I didn't say a word. I stood there. It was awful. And I knew if I hadn't been standing there, it would have been so much worse.

After the dust cleared, after the police statements were made, I sat with my friend for hours, looking at the prospect of trying to put a life back together. And my friend said, "If you hadn't been standing there, it would have been so much worse."

I didn't do anything. I didn't say anything. Physical presence was the only thing I had to add to my friend's life at the moment. Showing up and letting myself be seen in that moment was one of the most dreadful, most meaningful moves I've ever made. I felt terribly inadequate, horribly exposed, completely out of place, awkward and intrusive beyond compare, and 100% thankful I was there for my friend. Being there was enough.