A Broken Vessel

Please click on this link and watch the 11 minute video before reading this blog:
Like a Broken Vessel  

I have been a broken vessel.  I have known what it feels like to be in the pit of depression with little hope or means of climbing out of its dark and crumbling walls.  I have felt the fog of despair and chest crushing anxiety that often go with it, and I have seen people close to me suffer the same.  I do not understand why mental illness strikes some families and not others.  I guess for the same reason diabetes or heart disease does or does not.  Mental illness is a battle with your own brain that sucks solace out of your soul and leaves you feeling numb and in pieces.  You long for a wholeness that you do not think possible to attain.  Some have to find the courage to live with the fact that they may be fighting it for the rest of their lives, but as they fight, they find a strength within themselves that they did not know was there.  They find that they can do hard things--very hard things.

There are those who misunderstand and misdiagnose mental illness as a spiritual disease.  They say things like, "If you would just read your scriptures more, pray more, serve more, etc. etc., life would get better and you would be healed by a power greater than yourself."  Well, I believe in that power with all of my heart, but I also believe that we are all destined to carry some burden(s) in life to school us and mold us into someone better.  I know that God can and does make those burdens lighter to carry, but He does not always take them away.  Mental illness, sinks us to our knees, begging for the anchor of our soul to stabilize us through the deep waters, and in due time we catch glimpses of love's light illuminating a few steps in front of us.  Sometimes that is all we see, but it is enough to give us hope.  

I believe that our brokenness is an opportunity for us to notice how the Savior fills in the cracks in our souls slowly but surely as we seek His help.  That help may come in the form of medication that I believe God inspires men to make.  It may come in the form of therapy, physical exercise, or self-help books.  It surely comes through fasting and prayer--perhaps not immediately, but gradually.

I cannot say that I and others that I am close to will ever be completely healed in this life, but I can say that joyful living is possible through the atonement of Christ.  Though dark clouds of trouble hang o'er us, and threaten our peace to destroy; there is hope smiling brightly before us and we know that deliverance is nigh (We Thank Thee O God for Our Prophet, LDS Hymn).

Like a Broken Vessel: Talk by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland