Mental Health Awareness Month

Dear Pali Pres,

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, an important time to celebrate the progress made to raise awareness around mental health and to encourage folks to seek help. It is also a time to acknowledge that people living with mental illness continue to face stigma and, often, discrimination.

As people of faith, we are called to follow in the ways of Jesus, whose life and ministry were rooted in compassion and the healing of people—physical healing, but also emotional, spiritual, and mental healing. May we hold in our prayers all those struggling with mental illness as they/we seek support and treatment. The following is a portion of a beautiful prayer written by Rev. Susan Gregg-Schroeder, founder of Mental Health Ministries. May we join together in prayer as we recognize Jesus’ ongoing healing work among us.

Divine One, you love each one of us just as we are and you walk with us on our individual journeys through life.

Give us courage to face our challenges and open us today to the many ways you are already working in our midst. Inspire us as we seek to overcome fear, acquire knowledge, and advocate for compassionate and enlightened treatment and services. Enable us to find ways to be inclusive of persons living with mental illness in our everyday lives. Be with doctors, therapists, researchers, social workers, and all those in the helping professions as they seek to overcome ignorance and injustice with care and compassion.

Sometimes, Divine Spirit, we feel discouraged and hopeless in the face of so many challenges. Help us to see ourselves as you see us…persons of value and worth… persons of creativity and potential. May we come to understand the interconnectedness of mind, body and spirit in bringing about health and wholeness. And may we go forward into our communities with a renewed sense of vision, hope and possibility for the future. Amen.

Yours in Christ,

Pastor Matt