Who Watches Over God's Mental Health?

 

Friday I shared a poem for "Good Friday", and ended up in the middle of an interesting conversation with a friend online:

Dreaming Ace: Yeah we really don't talk about how reliving holy week each year must be really hard on Jesus's Mental Health. Honestly we don't talk about God, Jesus, or Big Mama's (The Holy Spirit) mental health enough. How do each of them preform self care? Who bakes them cookies? Who is there to listen to them when listening to us gets to be a bit much? Which mental health struggles have each of them personally experienced?

Friend: And God gets blamed for everything, that's a lot of guilt to hold onto, I suspect the are pretty good at mindfulness

Dreaming Ace: I would hope God was good at mindfulness and I would hope god at least has a Bob to be his therapist. (Clip)

Yes I worry about God's mental wellness. If we are supposedly made in their image, it must means God has experienced anxiety, and depression. They have have felt alone, they have needed a support network, they have struggled with shame, and isolation, they have struggled to be in the words of Wentworth Miller "here, here". 

“Up till then he had been looking at the Lion’s great front feet and the huge claws on them; now, in his despair, he looked up at its face. What he saw surprised him as much as anything in his whole life. For the tawny face was bent down near his own and (wonder of wonders) great shining tears stood in the Lion’s eyes. They were such big, bright tears compared with Digory’s own that for a moment he felt as if the Lion must really be sorrier about his Mother than he was himself.

“My son, my son,” said Aslan. “I know. Grief is great. Only you and I in this land know that yet. Let us be good to one another.”

- The Magician’s Nephew by C.S Lewis

I find comfort in the idea that God themself* understands mental health struggles and challenges too. This is one way that God can know us and one way we can know God. There is great power in shared challenges and in shared experiences.   

Leo McGarry : This guy's walking down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep, he can't get out. A doctor passes by, and the guy shouts up, "Hey you, can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a priest comes along, and the guy shouts up "Father, I'm down in this hole, can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. "Hey Joe, it's me, can you help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, "Are you stupid? Now we're both down here." The friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before, and I know the way out."  

God has been in the hole before and knows the way out. God has been in every hole before so no matter what someone is experiencing, no matter if others seem to understand, no matter if others have good advice or not, no matter if someone feels all alone or completely supported, no matter what, God knows the way out. 

(Note: God when you find yourself in a hole give a shout out and someone will jump in and help you out too, it is a give and take, a back and forth, God you are here for us humans and we are here for you God, to listen and let you vent when it all becomes a bit too much, take care of your own mental health God because if you are an empty vessel you can't pour out your Love on others)

Today's post is the start of a series of posts I plan around mental health and characters in the bible. My hope is it does not matter if you are God, a friend of mine, or a complete stranger you know you are worthy, you are loved, you are beloved, and you are not alone. 

*God is gender non-conforming, is non-binary, so I am using themself for their reflexive pronoun though there is something to say for using "I am" as God's pronoun instead.