Sometimes life hurts. Sometimes there seems to be no escape from trouble and distress.

It is impossible to read the words above without thinking of the trouble and distress in my own life.

I have spent much of my life as a mental health theorist and practitioner, as well as program directory for two acute and chronic level mental health hospitals. It is not widely accepted in mental health science, but I have learned that non-biological/non-organic mental disease, finds its root, its kernel etiology, in an accumulated construct of Anxiety/Angst, which in turn, is the consequence and product of a lifetime of stressors.

It is pretty clear that life throws us curve balls. Many of life’s stressors are impossible to avoid. Still, often, we are the cause of our own stress. We, ourselves, owing to unhealthy decisions, are the stressor. Apart from substance abuse, or other organic causes, we are not born with Anxiety/Angst. It comes from life, from living, from experience, whether we generate it ourselves, or it comes from external stimuli.

Speaking for myself with certainty, and for others vicariously, I have witnessed, as in "seen" for myself the power of the WORD, in the healing of Anxiety/Angst. By this I do mean what you think. While reading passages in the Bible or other encouraging books, this is not what I mean by WORD. My whole life was radically changed by the WORD. In my work as a counselor, I have seen the lives of others radically, miraculously, healed by it. The Power of the WORD is absolute, and once invited, utilized and unleashed, it is irresistible.

By "WORD," I am referring to the Person of Jesus Christ. Everything in the Bible that reveals the intentions, will, teachings and purpose of God, finds its Source in Jesus of Nazareth, our Lord, our Master; the One who in the final analysis, is the One with whom we have to do.

As an individual engages the real Person of Jesus, destructive angst, whether acute or chronic, whether produced by a single event, (e.g., PTSD), or a lifetime of anxious suffering, engagement with the Person of Jesus heals.

It is He who heals. It is He who wipes away Anxiety/Angst. It is He who forgives. It is He who saves. It is He who gives life. The more intimately one engages Jesus, the more release from this life-killing phenomenon one feels.

"Come to me, all of you that are burdened and are laden with heaviness, and I will give you rest. Connect yourself with me, and learn of me; for I am meek and humble in heart: and you will find rest for your soul." -- Jesus, Matthew 11:28-29

-- PDM

Home