Medicine for my Heart
“I have also been through this age” is something Gen Z gets to hear all the time from old-timers. But are they living in the same environment as the previous generations once did? We have seen an unprecedented transformation of circumstances in the past few years with a major impact on youngsters. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental illness accounts for 13% of the global burden of disease in the 10-19-year-olds.
Mental illness has always been and still is a societal taboo, making teens reluctant to talk about it or ask for help. However, this is slowly changing, and it definitely has to change completely. Many people don’t understand the gravity and pain of being mentally unwell unless they go through it themselves. Currently, the world has begun realizing that mental health is as important as physical health. If it’s not taken care of in the teen years, it can translate into poor physical and mental health in adulthood.
March 2 is World Teen Mental Wellness Day, shining the spotlight on the mental health issues affecting teenagers, and their families that struggle to offer help or even understand their loved ones’ challenges. As per WHO reports, half of all mental health issues start by the time a child reaches the age of 14. Unfortunately, most of the cases are neither diagnosed nor treated at that time.
The Bible says, “A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones”. So does research, which shows that if a person is not emotionally healthy, it weakens the immune system. The Biblical worldview takes this issue one step deeper, and points towards how a spiritual disconnect with Creator because of sin is the root cause of many emotional issues. Of course, this is not to say that all matters of mental health can be spiritualized. But it simply reminds us that we are integrated beings, for whom physical, mental and spiritual well-being are intricately connected and interdependent. The good news is that the Creator himself promises to help us figure these intricacies out if we would walk in fellowship with him. He has pretty amazing ways of doing this, maybe directly or by using the people around us to guide us toward the appropriate help and support we may need. He assures us that he can even heal the deepest wounds of the past. So today, as we talk mental health, would you like to connect with him, or even help others around you do this? DM us if you want to talk.
