A Quiet Mind to Suffer With: Mental Illness, Trauma, and the Death of Christ

by John Andrew Bryant

When we know that Suffering cannot deprive us of Christ because all Suffering has been taken into His very body, a body He freely hands over to us as His Word, I believe something incredible can happen over time: Suffering will no longer be able to wield the power of shame, because we are not ashamed of it. Suffering will no longer be able to wield the power of fear, because we are not afraid of it. It will no longer be able to awaken the hardness of our heart or the despair in our soul, because now that Christ has given Himself to us by Suffering, we can trust him with what Suffering has taken. And Suffering can just be Suffering, something Christ bears with us, for us in His own body. A body He now gives freely every time we hear the Word and take the bread and wine.