First, I would like to state that this is not my story but God’s story of what he has done in my life.
I met my husband Brian when we were 18, and we were married when we were just 20. We have now been married 52 years. We have two children and one granddaughter. When we said our vows, “For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health,” I am sure I only heard “better,” “richer,” and “health.”
But the first year we were married, we had some problems. Brian was not sure what he wanted to do with his life, so we went to our pastor. He said, “I think you should go to Bible School. So we loaded up the truck and moved to New Brunswick, Canada, to New Brunswick Bible Institute.
After Bible School, we went back to Ontario. We pastored one very small church, and because Brian was working full-time and the pastor of the church, we only stayed one year. We went to another church. It was while we were there, that Brian had what the doctors called a nervous breakdown.
We ended up living in my parents’ basement. We had relatives that lived in Peterborough, Ontario and after a while, we moved there.
In Peterborough, I was involved with Christian Women’s Club. At one of our meetings, I noticed a woman walking around handing out paper. She came and handed me a piece of paper. It was cardboard construction paper that had been cut out with pinking shears and on top of that she had pasted a piece of paper with these words written on it from Isaiah 43:1-7…
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze.”
The funny part was when I was talking to my friends after the meeting. I asked if anyone knew this woman. No one had ever seen her.
Over the years, we bought a house. Brian and I are both gardeners and we loved our gardens. We sold perennials off the front of our house.
More than 30 years ago, we joined a Canadian Baptist church, and I became a Baptist woman. My Christian faith has increased because of Baptist women. The speakers at retreats and meetings, the resources from Baptist Women Ontario Quebec, the articles in the Live magazine, the sister magazine to the Tidings magazine, the Bible studies, the Baptist Women’s World Day of Prayer, all the resources from Baptist women, have all brought me into a closer relationship with God. Being involved in Baptist women’s ministries has greatly enriched my life. It has given me the opportunity to search out my spiritual gifts and talents and the chance to use them. The gift of administration, leadership, faith, helps, knowledge and teaching. Spiritual gifts I never knew I had and gifts I don’t think would have come to light without my involvement with Baptist women. The one thing I am very pleased to have is my Canadian Baptist Women’s Dominion Life Membership pin.
But we always had problems. Brian had intense and highly variable moods with episodes lasting from a few hours to a few days. He often had chronic feelings of emptiness. He made frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
Many years ago I was at the end of my rope and I went to a pastor and he said, “I think Brian has a mental illness.” He went to a psychiatrist, and he said that Brian had manic depression which is now called bipolar disorder (BPD).
He was told to take medicine and he would get better. Except he didn’t. We went to many doctors over the years. And I was always told that he has bipolar disorder. While a person with depression or bipolar disorder typically endures the same mood for weeks, a person with BPD may experience bouts of anger, depression, and anxiety that may last only hours or at most a day.
Around fifteen years ago, it got really bad. This was the worst time of my life. I went into a deep depression. I didn’t think I would ever get over it. Neither one of us was working, and we lost our house. We were homeless and stayed with a friend for a while.
Brian went to see another psychiatrist. And finally, after all those years, we got a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. It fit. This psychiatrist prescribed the right medicines, and finally Brian was stable. It was like living with a different person.
We heard about an apartment for rent geared to income, and God provided an apartment on the ground floor so we could still have a garden. We still sold perennials.
Over the last few years, we have become advocates. We started our ministry “Search to Find Ministries” with the mandate of focusing on heightening the awareness of mental illness in the lives of believers and how the faith community can learn to minister effectively to those who are suffering from mental illness and their families.
A friend, Linda, was telling me about how well her husband was doing after his surgery for colon cancer. She was totally amazed by her church’s support. People had visited her husband in the hospital with cards, fruit, and flowers. They had looked after her children, cleaned her house, shopped for groceries, and provided more casseroles than she knew what to do with. They also engaged her with public displays of prayer and affection.
I had to compare this to the time many years ago when Brian was hospitalized for six weeks. There were no visitors, no cards, no fruit, no flowers. No one even called me to offer any kind of support. Even our minister only visited Brian twice and the first time was at my insistence after Brian had been in the hospital for two weeks. The only difference between Linda’s husband’s hospital stay and my husband’s was that Brian was in a mental health facility. The pastor told me he just didn’t know what to say or how to visit Brian or myself in this kind of situation. And all he needed to do was visit and offer prayer.
Our church family then did not know how to minister to my family. The members were unacquainted with mental illnesses and withdrew from our suffering. At a time when we needed Christian support the most, we experienced avoidance and separation.
Before COVID, we taught a course called The Sanctuary Course. The purpose of The Sanctuary Course is to raise awareness and start conversations in local churches regarding mental health, which we hope to start offering again in the fall. We speak in churches and do workshops about “The Church’s Response to Mental Illness.”
God knew all the stages of Brian’s and my life even before we were born. Right now we know God is doing a new thing in our lives, and we are excited to see where God is leading us and what His purpose will be in this season.
I want to leave you with the words to a song. It is called “Blessings” by Laura Story.
“We pray for blessings. We pray for peace. Comfort for family, protection while we sleep. We pray for healing, for prosperity. We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering. All the while, You hear each spoken need, yet love us way too much to give us lesser things. Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops? What if Your healing comes through tears? What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You’re near? What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise? We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear. We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near. We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love. As if every promise from Your Word is not enough. All the while, You hear each desperate plea. And long that we’d have faith to believe.”
We have prayed for healing for Brian. I have had a thousand sleepless nights, the greatest disappointments. I have cried in anger. Sometimes I could not feel God near. I have doubted his goodness. I have prayed for his mighty hand to ease our suffering. But “what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise?”
It has taken me a long time to learn to see His blessings in the raindrops, and I am still learning.
Joan Peacock currently serves as the Secretary of Baptist Women of North America.
