FAITH-BASED SUPPORT GROUPS Show me your ways, Lord, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Psalm 25:4-5 A wise person warned me today, “Listen to God and be guided by him, and do not be led astray by our […]
Read More...MENTAL HEALTH AND SPIRITUALITY SPEECH DELIVERED TO NEW LIFE COMMUNITY CHURCH, JANUARY 29, 2023: In 1993, I answered God’s call to do all I could to build mental health awareness—a few years later focusing on the Church. I thought that if anyone could show the love of Christ, members of his Church could. They just […]
Read More...FAITH AND MENTAL ILLNESS “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” […]
Read More...MENTAL ILLNESS AND THE GIFTS IT OFFERS Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Corinthians […]
Read More...RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY IN MENTAL HEALTH CARE On December 20, I attended a seminar by Joseph Currier on Spiritual and Religious Competencies for Mental Health Care. The seminar was put on by Duke University’s Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, under the direction of Dr. Harold Koenig, a leading researcher in the field. Much research […]
Read More...MARJA’S REFLECTIONS ON SCRIPTURE – FREED It’s with great pleasure that I announce the release of 230 Reflections on Scripture. The writing of these devotionals began in 2013 and were emailed to individuals needing their hunger for God filled—those who needed help for their emotional needs and could not make it to meetings of the […]
Read More...DISABILITY AS A GIFT As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. […]
Read More...I wanted to help people gain confidence and overcome low self-esteem. Here is how the back cover describes it: “Would you like to live a more meaningful life? Perhaps you want to speak out against injustice or make a change in your own life, but lacked the courage to do so? Justice for all, recounts […]
Read More...SEEKING JUSTICE It has been seven months since my file was closed. I was cast out of the mental health system, having been a patient for all my adult life–in effect, punished for being too well. Why? Was it because I exercised my rights and tried to explain how a diagnosis I had been given […]
Read More...GRIEVING MY MENTAL ILLNESS September 2017 There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4 Sometimes life is such that one needs to give expression to what goes […]
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