My wife has a mental illness. The anxiety disorder and depression that she deals with have been a battle for most of her life, and part of our relationship dynamic for the 14 years I’ve known her. Over that time, I’ve had to learn what mental illness can look like, how it plays out in her life, and how to care for her.
For the first few years, I thought I was doing fine. I was looking after her when she needed help while working full time, enjoying a healthy social life, and being seemingly unaffected. But as the years continued and our circumstances changed, more and more I began to struggle with carrying the burden of looking after her. My foundation of faith was strong, and my faith in God never wavered. But what I was lacking was the understanding of how to deal with such an all-consuming challenge for such a long time, and to face that in God’s strength and not my own.
“If I feel adequately prepared for a task, I won’t rely on the power of Christ to help me. When I don’t feel weak, when I don’t know that I really am weak, I don’t seek the power of Christ.” These words rocked me when I read them. The Discovery Series title The Strength of Weakness had been put in my hands, and so much began to make sense. While I’d been doing everything I could to care for my wife during her battles with anxiety and depression, I’d been doing it from a place of pride in my ability to cope. When I finally began to admit that I couldn’t cope, and that I needed God’s help to manage what felt like an overwhelming burden, that burden started to feel just that little bit lighter.
This isn’t a happy-ending story where my wife is now cured, and no longer has to deal with mental illness. But it is a testament to what can happen when we begin to realise and admit our weakness and ask for God’s power and help. Our daily lives still resemble a rollercoaster rather than a gentle stroll, but we now see the way God is working through the people around us: the meals that are delivered without prompting, the friends who announce that they’re taking our kids for the afternoon to give us a break, and people who are on a similar path and want to journey alongside us.
Caring for someone can involve sacrifice, and can push you beyond what you thought you could cope with. But in recognising that we don’t have to do it alone, the journey can become easier.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
In what area of your life do you need to accept your weakness, and ask for Christ’s strength?
When we’re feeling weak in our own lives, we often don’t realise that there is more to being weak than we realise. In The Strength of Weakness, author Dan Schaeffer challenges us with the idea that the way to true strength in the Christian life may be down a path we don’t expect. Read The Strength of Weakness.
For more helpful resources, visit Mental Health Resources.
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