UNCONDITIONAL LOVE HEALS –

Please stop for a moment and think what it would feel like to be:

  • looked down on,
  • not understood,
  • not believed to have credibility,
  • shunned, rejected, excluded,
  • made to feel ashamed,
  • to have your abilities underrated,
  • to have your opinions ignored,
  • not to be taken seriously.

In human terms, what does this mean?

As a person with lived experience, I have experienced all of these and I can tell you that it makes me feel like I’m not considered as human as others. It hurts terribly. There have been times when I wondered if I should go on living.

But most people who do not have mental health problems cannot put themselves in my shoes and understand these feelings. They shrug it off, thinking it’s a natural part of having a mental illness and should just be accepted as an unfortunate thing.

But the emotional pain this causes does not come from my mental illness. There is no medication for it. It comes from what the world makes me feel about myself. Such pain should not be ignored in the same way pain from other health conditions should not be ignored.

But I have learned, through my own life, and through the lives of those I have supported over the past twenty years, that there is a way of reducing the ugly feelings left by stigma. The only way to deal with it is through spiritual support.

This kind of support, best offered by a peer, recognizes the immense love of Jesus and the healing it can bring. Peers who know Jesus and understand what we’re going through are the best individuals to remind us of this. It’s amazing how such a reminder can help us feel better about ourselves.

Unconditional love from Jesus, the man who walked the earth 2000 years ago—is the only kind of love we can depend on. This kind of love is trustworthy. Though we might feel rejected we learn that Jesus would never reject us. Through the accounts of his life in the gospels—which include the biblical books, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—Jesus shows what this love looks like. By believing in him and having faith that he will always be with us, our lives can turn around.

Spiritual support can help us gain a sense of hope and an ability to make sense of our lives. We will learn that we can contribute to our communities. We will gain confidence. Though negative attitudes towards us will occur, we will learn not to pay attention to them. We know that Someone much greater than us believes in us and values us.