TODAYS LESSON IS ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS

There are many forms of mental illness.Acute Stress Disorder,Autism,Bipolar Disorder,Catatonic Disorders,Major Depressive Disorder,Narcessistic Personality,Retts Disorder,Sadomasochism,Schizophrenia,Tourette Syndrome are just a few.It is most likely in your life time you will have met someone with mental illness.With medication and treatment a lot of people with mental disorder can live a fairly happy and productive life.In the BIBLE it refered to people who were mentally unstable or unwell as LUNATICS.(in Mathew 17:14-22  it starts off with LORD HAVE MERCY ON MY SON,FOR HE IS A LUNATIC AND IS VERY ILL,FOR HE OFTEN FAILS....,  also in Mark 5:15 the BIBLE mentions PEOPLE WERE POSSESSED WITH DEMONS it was another way of saying mentally unwell.Some people who are homeless are mentally ill.Due to their lack of financial resources they can not afford the medicine or therapy needed.The NAMI(National Alliance on Mental Illness is the worlds largest non profit organization trying to help those with mental illness.The reason I have written on this topic is because over the years we have met some people who have some form of mental illness.1 time when we delivered clothes to a mom with a teen daughter we noticed the young girl never raised her head when she talked.Her mother mentioned she suffered from periods of severe depression with thoughts of suicide.Another time a man had emailed us asking for clothes but when we went to deliver them he demanded we step back to our car so he could open the door and get the clothes on the steps that we left.We noticed he had cameras on his house to watch the neighborhood and 2 guard dogs.The neighbors said he had a problem with being Paranoid after the Vietnam War.The mentally ill have been with us since the beginning of time.We must learn how to live with them.We must educate ourselves to understand them.We must also pray for them and their families.NAMI has a website if you would like to learn more.