What does it look like for the church to love its
neighbors (and its members, lay leaders, staff,
and clergy) who live with mental illness?
clergy and seasoned clergy mentors for reflection,
prayer and support. Over time the Bethany
Fellows created the space for me to deepen my
spiritual identity and connect with what kind of
pastor God was calling me to be in the world.
SAFE SPACE
In my Bethany small group, for the first
time, I broke my silence about my childhood
experiences with my father who lived with severe
and untreated mental illness. I began to tell my
hidden story, one which I had kept secret
out of a sense of shame and a false belief
that ministers shouldn’t come from families
like mine. Over the course of our four years
together, I asked for my small group to pray
for my healing. This was a safe space for me
to accept who I was and how mental illness
impacted my sense of self and my spirituality.
I experienced significant healing through
my Bethany Fellows experience. As I became
healthier, I realized that breaking the silence
about mental illness by telling my story about
family and the church was (and continues
to be) a key part of beginning my healing
journey. Through a partnership with The
Young Clergy Women Project and Chalice
Press, in 2011, I submitted a proposal to
share my testimony about how God showed
up in my “crazy” family. Over the following
three years this proposal turned into the
book Blessed are the Crazy: Breaking the
Silence about Mental Illness, Family and
Church (Chalice Press, 2014). Kim Gage
Ryan co-wrote with me the six-week small
group study guide for the book. In many
ways, it is a story of healing despite the
illness, and it is a story rooted in hopeful
faith in God’s deep and abiding presence with
us, even when we walk in “the valley of the
shadows of mental illness.”
Since the book’s publication, I’ve
received an overwhel