Serving Christ and Connecting Catholics in Western North Carolina
Why do we suffer? How does God allow it? Where is God when we hurt? These are typical questions of theodicy: the attempt to account for God’s goodness in the midst of evil.
The first time I was in an in-patient locked psychiatric unit, I was overwhelmed by the amount of suffering I saw in the people there.
While conversations about mental health are fairly common, the experience and suffering of serious mental illness – of psychosis, detachment from reality and life-threatening impulsivity – were completely new for me. My heart was filled with compassion and pity for the men and women on the unit for whom every single day was a fight to stay alive.