Delight in Disorder Ministries
Tony Roberts, Chief Shepherd
Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
(Psalms 37:4)
Revealing Voices podcast celebrates their seven year anniversary!
Season 8 is underway with new episodes, Haikasts, and “Healing Stories” – testimonies of the people, places, and things which contribute to a sober, sane, serene life, and the foundation of faith that makes it all possible.
Desert Dispatches – Devotional Emails Launching in March!
Join our mailing list to receive these spiritual reflections. These brief meditations on life in recovery amid dual diagnosis are designed to lift your spirit no matter where you are in your journey. See this page to join the list!
Wretched man that I am.
I am woefully depressed and once again, like the Apostle Paul, the thing I most need to do I don’t do and the very thing I most need to avoid, I do. Take sleep. Please! I toss and turn through the evening then get up soon after midnight. I try to listen to music 
and write 
but rarely does it help calm me. What a wretched man 
I am! Who will rescue me? Need I answer? Jesus is the answer but he rarely offers an easy solution. Or maybe they are easy but I make them complicated trying to show off? I wonder if Paul ever stayed up all night eating junk food and sorting out his woes. I am sure he did — tied at literal stakes and chains 
instead of a food addicts craving. And Paul was doing time for fewer divine crimes than [...]
Hope for Troubled Minds: To Dearest Dad, most lovingly from Helen
Dearest Dad, It has been twenty years since you took your own life. I have only just begun to openly talk about your life and death. Why? Maybe it was because we didn’t celebrate your life with family and friends in early February, 2001. Maybe it was because I didn’t fully understand the extend of your mental illness. Maybe it was because you and Mom moved to Florida in 1972 and there wasn’t much visitation between the families. Thanks for being my father. I am blessed to call you “Dad” and want to tell the world about our life together. I remember living in our small house when I was very young. I was unaware that most six-years didn’t go to bed while the sun was still shining brightly. Mother would fix supper for Nancy and me. She would not eat with us but ate with you when you came [...]
Hope for Troubled Minds: KyLee and her mother’s love.
When I was 17 years old, I delay enlisted into the Air Force. I had known at a very young age that I wanted a life devoted to the service of others. I was the oldest of four and already knew what sacrifice was or at least I thought I did. I enjoyed my time in the Air Force and short stint in law enforcement, but chose a different path because I felt I was too optimistic and in law enforcement you were always waiting for someone to make a mistake. Instead, I chose to go to college and work as a paralegal. Divorced young, I learned sacrifice as a parent. I was a single parent for 16 years. Sometimes I worked two jobs and went to college full time. I had aspirations of going to law school and making a real impact in the world. Then, two months shy [...]
Finding Hope Through Chelsea: Hope for Troubled Minds
Some time ago I was blessed to come to know a young woman with a deep faith and a beautiful smile. We shared a common diagnosis in a support group and did our best to encourage one another. She was wise beyond her years and her compassion has lasted beyond her time on earth. Her legacy lives on through family and friends and those they encounter. This letter is from Tricia, her mom. Dear Chelsea, Gosh where do I begin? You were our “oops” baby, LOL! After 7 years of having a family of four, we thought our family was complete. God had a different plan though because, little did we know, it was far from complete. You came into our lives 5 weeks early, which scared us to death, but everything turned out fine, you were just in a hurry to meet your new family. You brought love and [...]
Hope for Troubled Minds: Ripples, Waves, and Heroic Measures
Diane has been a pioneer in sharing her story publicly to a wide variety of audiences including health professionals, students, city councils, church members peers and law enforcement since 2013. "In Sickness and in Mental Health" was one of a handful of biographies on bipolar disorder and is now on the top 100 Bipolar Books on BookAuthority.com. This is her letter to her husband and life partner Greg. Lover, our life together has been like no other and we went through fires before we even met. We have had many challenges, yet so many victories and blessings along the way. I thought that I finally had a grasp on our mental health conditions back in 2013 since it took me seven years of observing our recovery road to write our story In Sickness and in Mental Health: Living with and Loving Someone with Mental Illness. Since then, there [...]
Brain Balm Vol. 1, Issue 2: Psychotropics – A Healing Prescription
I was first diagnosed with a mental health condition in 1990, the heyday of what were becoming known as "second generation antidepressants." Alternatives to lifetimes of misery in locked wards of psych hospitals gave psychiatrics a whole new tool to treat those desperately depressed. Even "family doctors" were getting into the act as drug representatives passed out samples like happy pill candy of the dubbed "Prozac generation." But my depression in 1990 was not garden variety and these pills I took sent me into a medication-induced psychosis, keeping me up in a manic frenzy for six days and six nights concocting mission schemes and conducting ministry initiatives (as documented in my memoir When Despair Meets Delight). Ultimately, I would break with conscious reality and become a danger to myself and others. Were the drugs the cause of the psychosis or, because they were not properly prescribed, did they just light [...]