|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
After having COVID, through my isolation, I’m resuming my life. I had a mild case – thank you for your prayers.
I’ve been reading/listening that a sizable percentage of those with COVID are diagnosed afterwards with “mental illness” – that’s the phrase that I’ve been hearing.
I have been discouraged too. I describe it as a weird sense of loss, a lack of motivation, being disconnected. I’ve been using the word “addled” to describe what I’m going through.
Side note one: When I told my family that I felt addled after COVID, sort of disconnected and confused, they looked at me and said, “What’s new?” Hmmmmmhhhh.
Side note two: I believe that illness/depression/discouragement have physical, psychological, and spiritual causes. Illness can start physically, go psychological, then become spiritual. Sickness began spiritually with The Fall and separation from God, then became psychological with jealousy/anger when Cain killed Abel.
Finally, death – Adam was 930 when he died (Genesis 5:5).
I’m not a doctor (please see your doctor); I’m not a psychologist (nothing wrong with counseling); but I am a pastor. I deal with illness/sickness/depression/discouragement from a spiritual perspective.
From 48 years as a pastor, I get frustrated because physicians and psychologists can give a lifetime diagnosis. The doctor speaks the illness, the patient verbally affirms the sickness/illness, and it gets rooted – for a lifetime.
I believe Jesus can heal you right now. Some illnesses do last a lifetime; I would never tell someone to stop taking prescribed medication!
You can be healed of the COVID Addle. And all other diagnosed illnesses too.
In the New Testament there is a word – merimna. It is a Greek word translated “worry” or “anxiety”. It means “be divided into parts” or “going to pieces” or “feeling disconnected.”
Exactly how I feel with the aftereffects of COVID. Merimna!??
Peter writes, “Throw your object of anxiety [merimna] on God because He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:7)
Side note three: I use the word “addle” to describe my side-effects, not mental illness, depression, or even discouragement. Those words have a connotation of permanency or long-term.
I’m walking a tightrope here. I can fall off the side of “illness is permanent” or the other side, “if you have illness, you lack faith.” I deal with both as I converse with those struggling.
My solution is a middle ground of God’s healing. Yes, God may sovereignly choose to not heal right now, but why not ask, and continue to ask, for healing? Yes, we can increase in faith, but why dump guilt on someone not healed?
I cast my anxieties (merimna) as a solid Biblical/spiritual response to this COVID Addle. I take the Addle and give it to God. I’m not taking pills, nor have I been diagnosed by a counselor.
I am a child of God asking my Father for help. I believe that Dad gives the good gift of healing.