All posts by Darkmyroad

Prayer

A Prayer for Time

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Heavenly Father,

All of life is in your hands, and you order all things in a wonderful way so that your divine work may be done when and where you please it.  Give me the time that you would have so that I may accomplish what you would have me do, to your glory and to the welfare of my neighbor.  Forgive me for the time that I squander, and help me to realize that all of life is a gift from you.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

-DMR

[FWIW, I started this post in August.  That gives you some idea of how time flies…]

Prayer

A Prayer for Time

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Heavenly Father,

All of life is in your hands, and you order all things in a wonderful way so that your divine work may be done when and where you please it.  Give me the time that you would have so that I may accomplish what you would have me do, to your glory and to the welfare of my neighbor.  Forgive me for the time that I squander, and help me to realize that all of life is a gift from you.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

-DMR

[FWIW, I started this post in August.  That gives you some idea of how time flies…]

Prayer

A Prayer for Time

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Heavenly Father,

All of life is in your hands, and you order all things in a wonderful way so that your divine work may be done when and where you please it.  Give me the time that you would have so that I may accomplish what you would have me do, to your glory and to the welfare of my neighbor.  Forgive me for the time that I squander, and help me to realize that all of life is a gift from you.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.

-DMR

[FWIW, I started this post in August.  That gives you some idea of how time flies…]

depression, holiday

Why be sad?

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Rev. Greg Alms over at Incarnatus Est has a thought provoking post on the English carol, On Christmas Night:  It’s Here

Why should men on earth be so sad?

One paragraph in particular is worth repeating:

God gives us Christmas and like feasts of the church year not only to learn the doctrines and the messages but to sing, to feel and know the joy that comes with losing oneself in the lifting up of one’s voice.

The carol itself is of course true.  Our sadness, be it seasonal, mourning over sin and loss, or clinical, is a result of sin ultimately.  The problem for those of us who suffer from clinical depression is that our Lord’s birth does not instantly remove the blight up our heart and mind.  Our Lord’s birth will remove all sickness, sorrow and disease.  We are at the beginning of that great and mighty work of HIs.  But we have not seen its conclusion at the Last Day.  So until then, we wait.  We wait as prisoners who know they will be set free.  We wait and hope.

May our Lord’s return come quickly, and deliver us from this vale of tears.

-DMR

mental illness

20,000 and counting

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Today we reached 20,000 hits over the past 11 months.  In the global scale of the massive blogs that are out there with thousands of hits a day, that’s not very much.  But for this pastor, it is a testament that maybe our church body will start to wake up to the real suffering of her pastors (and others), and begin to examine how we view the ministry in the light of mental illness.

There have been a few blogs that have started up since this one’s inception that I am also very thankful for.  I’m not going to try and list them.  You can find them on the blogroll on the side of the site.  But it is a great hting to realize that none of us are ever alone in our trials.

Thanks for your thoughts, prayers, conversations, and support.  I hope that this site continues to serve as a beacon of hope to the suffering and hurting.

-DMR

mental illness

20,000 and counting

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Today we reached 20,000 hits over the past 11 months.  In the global scale of the massive blogs that are out there with thousands of hits a day, that’s not very much.  But for this pastor, it is a testament that maybe our church body will start to wake up to the real suffering of her pastors (and others), and begin to examine how we view the ministry in the light of mental illness.

There have been a few blogs that have started up since this one’s inception that I am also very thankful for.  I’m not going to try and list them.  You can find them on the blogroll on the side of the site.  But it is a great hting to realize that none of us are ever alone in our trials.

Thanks for your thoughts, prayers, conversations, and support.  I hope that this site continues to serve as a beacon of hope to the suffering and hurting.

-DMR

ministry

Always on my mind….

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Been real busy lately.  I know I have a few emails to reply to and other things.  This is kind of a nutso time of year for pastors.  But know that you are all in my thoughts and prayers, as we long for the coming of our Savior.  I’ve got a few things to talk about, but they will have to wait for a bit right now.

-DMR

depression, suicide

The Commemoration of +John Gerlach

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Below you will find a link to the funeral sermon for Rev. John Gerlach, our brother in Christ who died this past week. Pastor Flo does a wonderful job proclaiming the Gospel, putting our hope where it belongs (on Jesus), and on recognizing the grief that is ours at John’s death. Thank you, Pastor Flo, for speaking His Word to us.

-DMR

The Commemoration of +John Gerlach

(Via Cyberstones)

ministry

The Clergy and Mental Illness via Cyberstones

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Rev. David Petersen on his blog, Cyberstones, has a nice post about clergy and mental illness. Check it out here:

The Clergy and Mental Illness

He makes some good points that are well worth considering. However, I do disagree with him on a couple things. Please read the following:

2. The Office of the Holy Ministry is so stressful it causes clinical depression, etc.

The other fallacy [the one I’ve listed above] is usually picked up by those who are suffering, whether the actual sick person or by his family and parishoners. They are looking for someone or something to blame. It is mostly false. The Office of the Holy Ministry is no more stressful than any other vocation or job in this fallen world. It does not cause mental illness. But being mentally ill and trying to deal with suffering people is difficult and the feelings of being a hypocrite are immense. So it certainly feels at times to those who are ill as if the Office is the root of their problem.

Obviously Rev. Petersen has a good point. It is easy for those who are sick or for the family of those who are sick to blame the Holy Ministry for depression or some other mental illness. We like to have something or someone to blame. In this sense Rev. Petersen is right.

In this sense he is wrong. The Office of the Holy Ministry is more stressful than other vocations. Not always, and not universally, but there is no question that the pressures put on a man who serves as a pastor is far greater than what one will find in many, even most other vocations (other than father and mother). We deal with the eternal. Heaven and hell. Life and death. We are forced to try and answer some of the toughest questions human beings ever face: why did my mother die? Why did my wife abandon me? How do I know my son will go to heaven? The questions which we seek to answer are deep and abiding, and cannot simply be shed with your winter coat in the closet when you come home.

There is a great deal of evidence that generally speaking, individual serving in service fields (doctors, nurses, social workers, etc) have a much higher incident of clinical depression. The same is true for clergy. I don’t have the exact statistics in front of my right now, but I know that roughly 10% of the general population in America struggle with clinical depression, and that the number is closer to 30% for clergy. That’s a pretty big difference.

Now I don’t say this to provide a scape goat. I say it because one of the key elements in healing is understanding why you are sick. What are the causes. Heredity, situation, family life, lifestyle in general, and good old chemical makeup all play a factor.

I’m not saying this to hold up pastors as the great saints who sacrifice more than anyone else. That is nonsense and I don’t believe it. There has to be an honest understanding on the part of the pastor of how the Office affects him physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. That mindfulness of who we are and how things shape us is a part of what can make a great pastor. It’s also what can contribute to the utter downfall of a pastor who things he has everything under control.

Thanks for your thoughts, Rev. Petersen. I appreciate what you have to say.

-DMR

depression, holiday

Christmas Affective Disorder (CAD)

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Pastors get Christmas Affective Disorder. I’m surprised it’s not in some medical journal somewhere. Here are the symptoms as I have come to experience them:

1. A fear and even dread of the month of December. It looks. It is coming, sure as St. Nick. With this season comes about six more services, plus everything else that goes into the most stressful month of the year for most Americans.

2. A desire to avoid people. Now I think most pastors who suffer from depression go through periods where they simply want to stay away from people. Probably a result in part of compassion fatigue. But December is worse. For myself, I’d say 60% of the “counseling” I do as a pastor occurs in December and January. It’s crazy. I am afraid to talk to people, yet at the same time I know that they need me now more than any other time of the year. What to do?

3. Sermon meltdown. I’m sure that I recycle more sermons this month than any other month as well. How many more ways can you say Jesus is born for you? When you are stressed, under the gun for time, emotionally strung out, and running on fumes, it is very hard to prepare those memorable sermons. On top of that, there is a very real expectation that the sermons this time of year will be GREAT! The texts are rich and varied. There are more visitors than usual. The need is high. The bar is simply higher. It’s a perfect setup for a meltdown.

4. An elusive sense of Christmas cheer. I want to be cheerful and happy and seasonal. I really, really do. But it is hard. I feel guilty for not being happy and chipper. Which makes me even less happy and chipper. I look at all of the blogs of pastors who are rejoicing so much in Advent and the upcoming Christmastide, and I say to myself, “Why can I be more like them?” I LOVE ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS! Why can’t I get with the program and just be jolly?

So what to do? Here are a few things I try to remember:

A) Jesus comes whether I am Jolly or not. That is the real and true beauty of the season. Our Lord’s Advent is not based on my love, joy, peace, sermons, abilitytointeractwithotherpeople, or whatever else the ailment of the day might be.

B) In the same way, the Word of God is effective, regardless of my personal disposition at the time.

C) Moods change. Just because one day is bad doesn’t mean the next one will be. It may be better. It may be wonderful. That’s the beauty of each new day.

What are your thoughts?

-DMR