By Sarah Stanton, Celebrate Recovery National Director of Mental Health
Did you know that May is Mental Health Awareness Month? In 2016, Celebrate Recovery started a Mental Health Initiative. Seven years later, CR continues to intentionally create safety in our local ministries for those working through mental health challenges.
The church hasn’t always known what to do or even wanted to help “those” people. But WE are those people. Mental health, like physical health, is something that we all have. Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being.
Here’s your opportunity to take a quick mental health check-up. How is your emotional, psychological, and social well-being? Do you need a tune-up? Do you need a safe person to share this with? Do you have a safe place to share this in?
Fear and anxiety are both something I’ve wrestled with. I have wrestled with it since I was a little girl. I was worrying about the time, the thoughts, and opinions of others, loved ones and their salvation, and my girls in this current climate. You name it; I’ve probably felt anxious about it.
Something I’m learning is that perfect peace is not found in the absence of problems. True peace is found in the presence of God. It’s peace even when I send my kids off to school; it’s peace when I hear awful news. It’s peace when there’s a report of a terminal illness. It’s peace in the midst of pain. It’s peace when the money isn’t there. It’s peace when you have absolutely no control.
It’s a peace only God can give. Praying you will experience that peace—a place where your soul is well, even if your circumstances are not.
“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it” (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 NIV).
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If you would like to learn how to start your own Celebrate Recovery ministry, to contact your Celebrate Recovery Rep, please visit: https://crgroups.info/. To get involved in an already existing Celebrate Recovery ministry near you, please visit: https://locator.crgroups.info/.
Last year at the region trading at your church Sarah, I talked with you regarding mental health and left my email hoping to learn more on how to better identify and include those struggling with mental health issues into our meetings. I am the ministry leader and have my own struggles with mental health so I was excited to hear back from Sarah so I could better lead our group. I have not heard a thing and would like to know, while we say “Mental Health Matters”, what specifically is available through CR resources to help me and my local forever family?
Hi Bill, thank you for writing to us. You can check out this CR page to find more information on mental health resources for you and your church: https://www.celebraterecovery.com/about/ministries-of-cr/mental-health.
Blessings – Celebrate Recovery Store Team