Delight in Disorder

Mental Health Ministry: The Mission Field in Your Backyard

by Catherine Boyle, Director of Mental Health Ministry, Key Ministry. (see bio below) A few weeks ago, I came across some old notes I saved from April 2015 for a still-unwritten book. In those notes was a website link to Key Ministry. For six months leading up to those April notes, I had been sensing God calling me back to ministry, specifically ministry to and with people with some form of mental illness. At the time, I was working in a secular corporate job, earning money to prepare for our kids’ college years. But before that, for more than a decade when my kids were young, I wrote and spoke about my experience with eating disorder and how God’s love helped me heal. I even worked as a full-time volunteer for three and a half years for a ministry startup, a transitional home for women working to overcome their own [...]

Mental Health Ministry: The Mission Field in Your Backyardtonyroberts2019-12-01T19:20:03-05:00

A Season’s Sabbatical

Scripture (Philippians 3): 12 Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13 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, 14 I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Reflection: I have been walking in darkness as I write From Despair to Delight. I haven't taken hold of delight yet, but I press on, strengthened by the prayers and encouraging words of all God's children. God is with me each step of the way and in God's own time, I will finish the race set before me, for the glory of [...]

A Season’s Sabbaticaltonyroberts2019-11-06T20:15:36-05:00

Writing From Despair to Delight

I'm feeling empty inside. Just empty. I have no reason to feel this way. My loving wife is working at her desk beside me. If I said the word, she would turn to me and smile, hold my hand, give me a hug. My faithful companion Briley is lounging in the room next to us. If I got up, she would come bounding to my feet with a look of sheer affection in her eyes, panting in adoration. I have shelter, my favorite travel mug filled with coffee, a top-notch computer. John Prine is singing over my Bose speakers. Life is good. So why do I feel so lousy? No reason, really. None but that the chemicals in my brain are attacking my mind and body, convincing them that I have done irreparable damage to people in my relationships, that my work is worthless, that I am a lazy slug, [...]

Writing From Despair to Delighttonyroberts2019-11-04T21:19:45-05:00

Thank God for Pills and Prayer by Paul Monson

Every day I like to say, “Thank God for drugs!” I don’t mean the kind that make you high or get you stoned. I’m referring to the medical kind that make you well. You see, I suffer from Parkinson’s Disease and I take drugs every day. They help control my shaking, enable me to speak and to swallow, and type the words you now read. Without them, I couldn’t function well enough to hold down a job. I’d be collecting disability. With them, I continue to work in full time ministry. This isn’t theory or conjecture for me. I know from personal experience how medications directly impact my quality of life, so I thank God for them. This is also why I see the need for the mentally ill to take medication. If a medication helps control a bipolar person’s severe mood swings or keeps a schizophrenic in touch [...]

Thank God for Pills and Prayer by Paul Monsontonyroberts2019-10-30T17:41:18-05:00

Psychotropics and Pregnancy: The Costs and Benefits

Some time ago I met a woman who was deeply distraught. She had been diagnosed with major depression and sometime ago was prescribed anti-depressants. They worked very well and she came to enjoy a period of relative stability. Then she and her husband decided to start a family. Leery of the impact of psychotropics on her developing child, she spoke with her psychiatrist who agreed to wean her off her meds. At first she felt good as she launched into the journey toward motherhood. Then months past. A year. Two years. No baby. And the demon of depression returned with a vengeance. She found it difficult to work, to enjoy time with her husband, even to concentrate on simple household tasks. She had made room in her heart for a child and now it was filled with sorrow. What can she do? I asked this to some friends and one [...]

Psychotropics and Pregnancy: The Costs and Benefitstonyroberts2019-10-20T19:46:14-05:00

Where My Money Goes: A Heart Exam

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6.21) “But money spent while manic doesn't fit into the Internal Revenue Service concept of medical expense or business loss. So after mania, when most depressed, you're given excellent reason to be even more so.” ~Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. I did a financial review today. I do these frequently. Mostly when I'm manic. Instead of spending extravagantly, God has blessed me with an obsession to track my expenses down to the penny. This time I discovered that I pay $0.99/month for an iTune subscription I wasn't aware of. It may take several months, but I'll track it down so I can spend that $12/year on something more gratifying. Like a 12-piece Chik Fil A nugget meal. Many folks with bipolar have exorbitant episodes of spending when they are [...]

Where My Money Goes: A Heart Examtonyroberts2019-10-16T23:33:44-05:00

From Despair to Delight: Inspiration

In his seminal book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, Stephen King tells this story -- A friend came to visit James Joyce one day and found the great man sprawled across his writing desk in a posture of utter despair. "James, what’s wrong?" the friend asked. "Is it the work?" Joyce indicated assent without even raising his head to look at his friend. Of course it was the work; isn’t it always? "How many words did you get today?" the friend pursued. Joyce (still in despair, still sprawled facedown on his desk): "Seven." "Seven? But James… that’s good, at least for you." "Yes," Joyce said, finally looking up. "I suppose it is… but I don’t know what order they go in!" In March of 2014, I published Delight in Disorder, a devotional memoir about my life as a pastor with bipolar disorder. It was nearly 5 years [...]

From Despair to Delight: Inspirationtonyroberts2019-10-13T20:20:51-05:00

What’s So Funny About Mental Illness?

This week I posted a meme that has been going around in various places. It goes like this: “Being popular on Facebook is like eating at the cool table in the cafeteria at a mental hospital.” I posted it because I identified with the humor. Two of my goals in life have been to be popular on Facebook and sit at the cool table when I’m in the mental hospital. One of the things that keeps me relatively sane is my ability to laugh at myself and I find particular pleasure in making people laugh with me. Certainly, I have a serious mental illness; that's a part of who I am. Not taking myself too seriously diminishes the power of my disordered ego. Thus, more often than not, the things I find funny are self-deprecating jabs. But self-deprecating humor may be misused in non-intimate settings such as social media. In [...]

What’s So Funny About Mental Illness?tonyroberts2019-10-09T16:54:11-05:00

My Life Partnership: In Sickness and in Health

Susan is currently in California doing one of the things that makes her heart glad - being a grandma. I'm holding down the home front, playing with Briley, and sharing stories. Here is one I first published on February 24, 2019. Over Labor Day weekend in 2018, I met the woman who would soon become my wife. Susan is all I could ever ask for in a life partner. She is intelligent. She has a beautiful smile. She has a great sense of humor. And, most importantly, she loves me and shares my faith. She accepts my identity as one who has bipolar disorder and affirms my mental health ministry. She is a definitive example of “ezer,” a help-meet who enhances my life, not a slave subservient to me or a master who emasculates me. I am truly blessed. Susan and I have experienced this past year as if it [...]

My Life Partnership: In Sickness and in Healthtonyroberts2019-10-06T18:50:34-05:00

TITLE REVEAL for my upcoming Mental Health Ministry book.

From Despair to Delight: Stories that Cultivate Compassion for Those with Mental Illness I agonized about a title of my upcoming book for over two weeks, then settled on it over a couple of beers. The creative process sometimes looks like that. I've now written just about 1/3 of the book and I've outlined where it seems to be going. This title reflects both the content and the flow. From Despair - The book begins with a scene in the psych hospital where I receive my diagnosis. My prognosis was stark; the outlook was bleak. In that moment, I felt God was not a loving Father but a malicious dictator, emasculating me on a divine whim. (from chapter one) The odds are stacked against those of us with serious mental illness. Disability. Divorce. Death. The statistics are alarming, but stories offer hope. to Delight - Stories that convey a [...]

TITLE REVEAL for my upcoming Mental Health Ministry book.tonyroberts2019-10-02T21:13:08-05:00

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