Shadows of Faith
Resources for Spiritual and Mental Recovery
Welcome!
Ours is a quest for spiritual wholeness.
Pursuing the search for new meaning, and the recovery of hope,
we seek healing through those new beginnings only God can provide.
"There are those times when joy seems to have vacated the premises, when remorse is more the order of the day and disappointment is the feeling with which we are most familiar.
"But joy doesn't ride the tide of emotions; it isn't the payoff that comes because things are going well. It is, instead, that current that flows beneath the disturbances which assures us that despair has, finally, been replaced with hope.
"Hope is just a cheap two-penny word until our lives are clinging to what it can no longer see for survival. Joy cushions the hurt and quiets the wounded soul when despair would ravage us and leave us for dead.
"Joy is unpretentious. It doesn't wave a flag like happiness, it doesn't giggle like giddiness, it doesn't dance around like gladness or sing a song like cheerfulness. Rather, it comes alongside us and nods its reassurance that all will be well."
-- Pastor Toby Fletcher
From
A Place of New Beginnings
Healing through the restoration of faith and hope
The church of Jesus Christ can become just the right community where someone suffering in their minds and emotions can find belonging and restoration.
The church, however, is not a replacement but a partner to other forms of therapy and medical intervention.
We may provide those sources of healing that are often absent from clinical settings: hospitality, welcome and belonging, sacrificial love, companions in pain, and a prayerful response to another's need. All of which are essential ingredients to the healing of the mind through the restoration
of hope.
The Tamara Trilogy
Three novels by Clay Berry
A story of promise in the midst of pain.
Beginning in Through a Shattered Looking-glass, Tamara Baxter's experiences with mental suffering and her quest for a new beginning invite us to consider how prayer, community and the restoration of hope become essential elements of healing.
The story continues in
Those Frightening Things
You Should Let Win
and
A Place of New Beginnings.
The story offers encouragement to those who suffer in their minds and emotions, or struggle alongside those who do.
If that is your struggle, then consider Tamara’s story. See if her pilgrimage from suffering to hope sheds any light on the challenges you may be facing.
Creating Compassionate Community
We were created for community.
Our souls crave it.
Even those who love to be alone need other souls in their lives.
Every person needs to belong somewhere and to someone. We do not function well without that. Our souls may become dark and despondent when deprived of this essential source of hope.
The church of Jesus Christ can become that source of essential community where healing is realized through the restoration of relationships and the rebuilding of hope. Yet we often struggle against unseen barriers like stigma, denial, fear, and lack of awareness.
Let's reconfigure our hope through the restoration of community.
Prolepsis
How do we restore hope when it has been displaced by despair? How do we heal from the wounds in our minds, emotions, and faith unless we recover a sense of promise and meaning for our lives?
How can we become part of that effort when the prospect of hope feels like it has drifted beyond our reach?
One way forward is hidden in an ancient Greek word: prolepsis.
What is that? Well, come and see.
Suicide Prevention
Equipping ourselves (and our congregations) to help prevent suicide is an essential step toward securing new life for those who may have lost hope altogether.
Thank you for dropping in!
A number of years ago, a member of our family faced considerable emotional trauma from bi-polar disorder. That experience would reshape our family, ultimately for the better, and re-forge my ministry. Over the years I have sought insight and wisdom into how the Christian faith, through the ministries of the church, could be a source of restoration and hope.
That pilgrimage is far from over!
The resources contained here are some of the fruit born of those experiences.
As you consider this site, I pray your own quest for healing and hope takes a new step in a good direction.
The Peace of the Lord be with you!
- Rev. Dr. Clay Berry
