Marja Bergen

author, mental health advocate, follower of Christ

Page 120 of 143

Why fight stigma?

LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 2 (August 28, 2006) One of the main goals in my mental health work has been to reduce stigma. Recently I concluded that stigma was perhaps more responsible for depression, hopelessness and suicide than the illness itself. In my young and zealous “voice” back in August 2006, I wrote the following in […]

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Living Room is born

  LIVING ROOM MEMORIES 1 (from A Firm Place to Stand: Finding Meaning in a Life with Bipolar Disorder (2008), by Marja Bergen) Only months after the Good Friday service in 2006, God gave me an idea that wouldn’t lie down. I saw a need to start a faith-based support group for people with mood […]

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Joining with God

  I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:13   I’ve been reviewing an old blog which was active from 2006 to 2014. 2006 was the year Living Room started. Today http://marjabergen.blogspot.com/ can still be viewed – so many years after the fact. It’s amazing for me to read about […]

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Gathering the will

  Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God,  the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and […]

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Meaningless! Meaningless!

  “Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” “ I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 1:2 and 14   What on earth could Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes, have meant when he said this? Were you […]

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Living victoriously

  …to keep me from becoming proud, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to torment me and keep me from becoming proud. Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” […]

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Seize the day

  I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win […]

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The touch of the Master’s hands

  I first heard this story many years ago and it deeply touched me. I hope it will do the same for you. – marja   by Myra Brooks Welch ’Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer Thought it scarcely worth his while To waste much time on the old violin, But held it up […]

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Even those you least expect

I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; Psalm 51:3-4   Unthinkable! An atrocious crime, committed by a man after God’s own heart, no less. David, the great leader of the Old Testament, the author of many […]

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“Come sit with me”

  While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with […]

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