SPEAKER_02 0:14

From Mark chapter 2, verse 1 to 12. Mark chapter 2, verse 1. And when he returned to Kapanham, there some days after some days it was reported that he was at home. And many were gathered together, so there was no more room, not even at the door. And he was preaching the word to them. And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him. And when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. Verse 5, and when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, Son, your sins are forgiven. Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus question within themselves, say to them, Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier to say to the paratic, your sins are forgiven, or to say, Rise, take up your bed and walk. But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Say to the paralytic, I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home. And he rose and immediately picked up his bed and went up before them all, so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Good morning. So today we are at part two of our mental health series. And remember, this is a three-part series focusing on the eyes, that is the stigma of mental health, the hands, and that is today, what we can actually do to help. And the third part, which is in two weeks' time, we will talk about the heart, how the Lord meets us and restores us. So two weeks ago, when we met, we confronted the painful reality, the isolating reality of stigma. We step into the raw anguish, you remember Psalm hundred and two, And we establish a foundational truth. And we say it is okay to say that we are not okay. We say that we can be honest with God and each other about our pain, the struggle, the anxiety, and that all of these is not caused by a lack of faith. But it is a sign of our humanity in this earthly fallen world. And that truth is very liberating because it allows us to finally breathe, it allows us to tear down that mask, but it immediately leads to a very practical question. So, what happens when someone we love is not okay? When we see someone suffering, what is our role? Because we are not psychologists, psychiatrists, we are not doctors, we are not social workers. So what can we do? Imagine you have a dear friend, a family member, or your child, they receive this very terrible diagnosis, and you know that the illness is tia la tia la very deliberating. And then you hear of a brilliant healer who just arrived in town, maybe 50 kilometers away. People say he performs miracles. What would you do? You wouldn't just send a WhatsApp text with praying hands emoji, say thinking of you. You wouldn't just say, I'll pray for you, and then continue on your Netflix. But perhaps you will get in your car, you will call a grab, you will carry your friend, your loved one, to the person. You will do everything in your power to get your friend in front of the healer. And in our passage today in Mark chapter 2, we meet a man in exactly that same situation. And we meet four friends who model exactly that kind of very desperate, determined love. So, Father, we pray that you meet with us this morning. We invite your presence in our midst as you continue to tuck at our hearts, that the lens of stigma fall, and now you quicken our hands and feet to action. We pray this morning that you meet with us as we learn of what your love compels us to do. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So we open our Bibles to Mark chapter 2. We are in Capernaum, and very likely this is in the home of Simon Peter. Jesus has returned again, and the news has spread like wildfire through the streets of Capernaum, and we read in verse 3 some man came bringing to Jesus a paralyzed man carried by four of them. So the gospel of Mark moves very, very fast. It's a very characteristic of Mark. He doesn't give us the backstory. We don't know this man's name. We don't know if he was born with this condition, we don't know if life crushed him later. We don't know if he was a father, whether he has a family, a husband, we don't know. But what we know is his reality. The Greek text uses the word paralyticos here, translated as paralyzed. So he was paralyzed. Physically, this meant that his muscles had hardened. This meant that his legs cannot move. He was completely dependent on the mercy of others for his most basic needs. This meant that he needed help for water. When he wants to eat, he cannot just call grab. I know grab, right? So he needed help for food. He needed help for hygiene. He was frozen in a world that was constantly moving. I believe this is one of the more powerful pictures in scripture for what profound mental distress feels like. Because when we think of paralysis, we naturally think of the physical body, our hands, our legs. But those who have walked through the deep valley of clinical depression know that there is a paralysis of the soul that is just as broken. It is the heaviness that defies description. It's not just sadness. Sadness is a fleeting emotion. It will pass you by. But this is different. This is a weight. It is as if gravity has increased tenfold for you. Your mind is always heavy, foggy, disconnected from the vibrant colors of life. So much so that the smallest tasks become very insurmountable. You cannot do it. Getting out of bed feels impossible. Taking a shower becomes very exhausting. You feel trapped behind a glass wall watching the rest of the world laugh, work, play, but you are stuck, frozen in time. Dare not go out. Afraid of the panic attack. Not too long ago, I spoke to a young man, and he described his anxiety to me. He made it to one of the top schools in a very hard-to-enter course itself, but he described his anxiety to me. He says, I want to go out, I want to socialize, I want to be normal, but I just cannot. He developed a fear of taking public transport. I believe this man on the mat in Mark chapter 2 represents everyone who has been pinned down by life. Pinned down by life and unable to get to Jesus on their own strength. They represent the silent sufferer. And the question we want to answer today is what can be done? And these four friends, the actions of these four friends give us a beautiful three-part theology of care that begins not with movement but with stillness. First, it is the ministry of presence. The first and most critical action of these four friends was not the lifting, it's not the carrying, not the walking, not the digging, but the ministry of presence. It is the simple, quiet decision to show up. Because they saw their friend in a state of paralysis. They saw the indignity of his condition. Maybe they smelt the still air of his sick room, and they chose to enter into that space. They chose to come alongside him. They chose to make his problem their problem. And this is the essence of biblical hospitality. In our culture, we think of hospitality as having friends over for a meal, ensuring the house is spotless, serving good food, making sure everyone is laughing, he hee ha ha. But that is entertainment. Biblical hospitality is slightly different. And the late Henry Nowen, who struggled deeply with his own mental health, defined it beautifully. He says hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but to offer freedom, not disturbed by dividing lines. And this is what we call the ministry of presence. I recall a conversation with a resident at the rehab home that really stopped me in my tracks. We were just chatting casually, and I mentioned that, hey, can I come back and visit you again the following week? And maybe we can make this a little more regular. And then he looked at me with genuine amazement. And he asked, You want to spend regular time with me? And that question really broke my heart. Because in a rehab home, there are many caring people. There are counselors who track their goals, there are healthcare assistants who force them, I mean, encourage them to shower, make sure that they are fed, make sure that their medication is taken. But for the resident, he sees all of these as professional relationships. The man was shocked because he couldn't believe anyone would choose, choose to be with him without an agenda, without a clinically defined reason. To him, his illness made him like a project, you see. He forgot what it was like to have a friend, have someone to talk to. And that is why presence is so powerful. When you carve out time for a hurting friend, you are answering the question, you are saying, Yes, I want to be with you. Not because I have to, but because you are you. And this is the love of Christ. It is the love of Christ that first chose us, you see. And here in YCCA, you have that marvelous opportunity, you know. You know that every third Wednesday of the month, there's a team from YCCA English that goes down to Anglican Care Center Ao Kang in IMH itself to minister to the residents there. Sometimes you ask after going. I remember as a parish worker, I I we went down as well, we were rostered too. But I think it can be more than just the pastoral staff itself going down. It can be different ones to come alongside Pastor Daniel and the staff team to go down together to encourage them. Sometimes you don't know what you're doing there, but your presence itself makes a big difference, you know. We must shift our mindset from fixing to being with. And the first part about the ministry of presence is learning to sit in the mud. Singapore is a very solution-oriented place, right? We are engineers, we are problem solvers, we are fixers. So when someone shares a struggle with you, our first instinct is why is he saying not like that so you don't know? Our first instinct is usually to solve it. Have you tried this diet? Uh let me buy this book for you. Read this book. Have you prayed about it? We do this because it makes our pain less uh rather it makes their uh pain because their pain makes us very anxious. So if we can do something about it, it'll make us less anxious, you see. We can feel better. We are very uncomfortable with the unresolved, so we try to resolve things. Yet when we see someone paralyzed by grief or depression, I've learned not to quickly rush to quote scripture or offer solutions, but to learn to sit in the mud. You remember Job's friends? They are often criticized, but they were excellent friends for the first seven days. You remember what they did? For the first seven days, they sat in the dust with Job, seven days and seven nights. They saw that their agony was too great for words, and they said nothing. When they said nothing, they were perfect. It was only when they opened their mouths, when they tried to explain his suffering, that they became miserable comforters. Remember Jesus who wept at the tomb of Lazarus? Jesus paused to weep at the tomb of Lazarus, even though he knew that he was about to raise Lazarus. Maybe then our first task is to validate that pain, and that is the ministry of presence. It means that you and I are willing to sit in the mud with people without the goal of trying to clean them up. Normalize the silence. We often feel the need to fill every pause with words because silence makes us very uncomfortable. We think if we are not talking, we are not helping. But for the hurting person, silence is really not awkward, but it's like a container. It's a safe space where they don't have to perform. When you are with a suffering friend, silence communicates safety. It is almost like saying, I'm not here for your entertainment, I'm here for you. So you don't have to have the right words because your presence itself is the word. And third, in the ministry of presence is to learn to validate the pain. There is a temptation in the church to try and cheer people out with very spiritual cliches. Pray more. Don't be fearful because fear is a sin. When I ran this uh workshop at the recent uh Anglican uh conference, we we were sharing uh, so somebody told someone that others have it worse, you know. Yeah, look at it, others have it worse. You look at the refugees dying, then how are they supposed to feel about themselves? Because those words don't heal, you see, they wound. They add to the crushing weight of guilt, to the existing weight of illness. So the person is not only depressed, but they feel like a bad Christian for being depressed. They add to it that they have now failed God on top of failing in life. Perhaps we can try saying, it sounds like you are carrying an incredibly heavy burden. We can say, I don't know what to say, just be honest, I don't know what to say, but I'm glad you told me. And I am here with you in this. So the first step in carrying a burden is the simple, powerful, yet profoundly Christ-like act of standing, sitting beside the person. And letting your presence speak what words cannot. Letting your presence just say, I'm here with you, you are not alone. I cannot fix this, but I won't leave you alone in it. And that is the ministry of presence. But presence is not the whole story, because once we decide to walk with someone, we will inevitably encounter resistance. And this leads us to the second part of this theology of care, and that is overcoming the barriers. So, in the gospel account, the friends committed to the act of presence, pick up their friend. So each of them grabbed a corner of the mat, they hoist the weight, and they begin the journey to the house where Jesus was teaching. And they were breaming with hope as they brought their friend towards Jesus. But when they arrived, they hit a massive barrier. What was it? We read a few days later, when Jesus entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left, not even outside the door. And he preached the word to them. There was no room left, not even outside the door. So there was a huge, very dense, impenetrable crowd that blocked the way. But you look at the crowd, they are not malicious crowd, you know. They were not bad people, they were not soldiers trying to arrest Jesus, they were not the enemies. Who were they? They were people who also wanted to see Jesus, they were religious seekers, they were excited, but their presence created a wall of flesh. That kept the hurting man away from the healer. This again is a convicting picture of the modern church. We rarely intend to block anybody from meeting Jesus. We don't. The church never sets out to be exclusive. We don't. Yet so very often, we often form spiritual crowds that make it so impossible for the hurting to get through. What are the specific crowds that block us from caring for those with mental distress? I see three distinct barriers that we build. First is the barrier of distraction, the cult of efficiency, the busy, busy, busyness. It is the sheer noise and pace of our lives. And in the text itself, the crowd was so noisy, pressed together, that you imagine a single cry for help would have been drowned out. No one can hear that cry for help. In Singapore itself, our crowd is the cult of efficiency. We are relentlessly busy. Our calendars are packed back to back, our phones are buzzing, our minds are calculating the next task, the next meeting, the next destination. And the best thing is we take pride in it. We pride ourselves on being busy and productivity. We are not bad people, but we are just distracted. And the reality is this: the ministry of presence is by definition inefficient. Very inefficient. It is slow, it takes time, it cannot be measured on a graph, it doesn't fit into any KPI that you can come up with. You cannot optimize compassion. And we don't carry burdens, we fail to carry burdens because we are walking too fast to notice the person on the ground. We have no margin in our life, no space, no room for the interruption of pain. No space for hospitality. There is the barrier of judgment, and that is stigma. You look at verse six, we read. Now some teachers of the law were sitting there thinking to themselves, why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? They said this when Jesus went to the man on the mat and said to him, Son, your sins are forgiven. So here sit the scribes, and in many sermons we make them out to be the villains, uh, the pylang. We paint them as the legalists, but we pause a bit and I invite us to see ourselves in them. Because these men represented order, they represented theology, they represented the way that things should be done. So they are not necessarily evil, but they are protective. They are protective of their boundaries, they are protective of their understanding of God. This perhaps represents the barrier of stigma. It is the quiet voice in us that whispers if they just have enough faith, they wouldn't need that medication. Depression is just a spiritual issue, not a medical one. They just need to repent of that secret sin. Mental health is a punishment from God. We at times act like the scribes because neat theology feels safer than messy humanity. We like to keep things very neat in a box, and it appears that we can understand life that way. But when we view mental health struggles through the lens of judgment rather than compassion, we become a concrete wall. And my prayer is that we can stop spiritualizing biological realities. Third, is the barrier of fear. For most of us, the biggest barrier is not that we are judgmental, it's not even that we are distracted, but we are afraid. It is a crowd of fear. We look at the paralyzed man, we look at the friend in deep depression, the loved one with bipolar, and then we hesitate. Why? Because real suffering is messy, it is terrifying. It's not a 30-minute thing that gets resolved, and then like the movie the credits roll and everybody can clap. But it is chronic. It is repetitive, it is very draining. So we fear that if we get too close to their darkness, it might pull us in. We worry that if we open our door to their pain, how do we close the door again? We think if I start helping, they will become so dependent on me. I will be sucked dry. I don't have the emotional strength to carry all of this. And that fear is valid because compassion fatigue is real. But the problem is this fear stops us before we even begin. It keeps us standing in the crowd. Although we know somebody is trying to get help, but it makes us very passive and paralyze ourselves. So the four friends, when they reach the obstacle, when they face the obstacle, they face a choice. They had arrived, their way was blocked, the crowd was so thick, the religious leaders were so judgmental. Any lesser love would have said, we tried. Maybe not God's will today. Public holiday. Too crowded. Let's try next week. Another day. But the four friends, their love, born of presence, forged in their own shared humanity, was a very determined love. You look at verse 4. Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on. The word for digging through is exorientes. It is a very violent and vigorous word. Literally, if translated literally, it means to gorge out. They gorge out the roof. You must visualize this with me. So we are not talking about a modern-day sunroof. Some of you have cars that open you press one button. What my voice sound low. It's not like that, you know. But first century Palestinian roofs were flat. They were constructed of very heavy wooden beams. So you imagine the roof, they will put wooden beams across first, and then they will put smaller sticks across the wooden beams, and then after that, they will pack it down with half a meter of heavy clay. Heavy clay, half a meter of heavy clay or earth. So much so that the roof is so hardened that people can walk on top of the roof. So this wasn't just politely lifting a towel or pressing a button for the sunroof to open, but this was a demolition. Presence is where love begins, but there must come a moment where love requires sweat. We sit in the mud first, but maybe there will come a time that you need to carry the mat. So they carried the man up the outside stairs to the flat roof, and with their bare hands or with simple tools that they can find around them, they started to dig. And this, I say to us, is roof-breaking love. Roof breaking love. So you imagine the scene. Inside the house, Jesus is teaching, and the air is very still. And then they look up, suddenly dust begins to drift down from the ceiling. And people look up very annoyed. A beam of sunlight cracks through the hole gets wider. And then the noise, the digging is interrupting the sermon. Debris falling on everyone, including Jesus the rabbi. And then four very sweaty faces look down. Slowly, carefully, they lowered their friend on his mat right into the center of the room, right at Jesus' feet. And this is what determined love looks like. It's not neat, it's not quiet, it's not polite, but it is costly, it is creative, and very disruptive. How do we practice roof-breaking love today? What practical support can we give to people who are struggling? I give us four tools for our little back of two kit. First, be proactive. I call it the choke system. When someone is paralyzed by depression, their executive function shuts down. The part of the brain that makes decisions, plans the day, organizes tasks, becomes very tired and exhausted. And the standard church offer, what is the standard church offer? We are practicing silence. What is the standard church offer? Pray. Let's say you do more than prayer, what would we say to the person? We will usually say this: let me know if you need any help. Let me know if you need any help. Because you don't know how to help. But that is actually not so helpful. Because it puts the burden back on the paralyzed person to identify a need, to formulate a plan, and then to ask you for it. Many times, from experience and your experience as well, I think they won't do it. They won't ask. Because they don't have the energy to do that. Ruth breaking love takes the initiative. We need to choke the need. Singaporeans, we know how to choke, right? What does it mean to choke? Tissue paper. You put your tissue packet down, and the idea is this you reserve the seat before you get your food. You secure the space before the need arises. So you choke specific tasks for your friends to elevate their load. So you don't ask open-ended questions, but you make very specific offers. Don't say, can I get you anything? But be very specific. Say, I'm going to NTUC this evening. I'm getting a list of this. I'll just drop it off at your place later. Say, I can drive your kids to tuition this Saturday so you can sleep in. I'm ordering this, grab food for my family. I'm ordering you one more set as well. And this applies to our communication as well. When you text a friend who is struggling, just simply adding a phrase, no need to reply, don't need to reply. Thinking of you, praying for you today, no need to reply. Makes a lot of difference. It removes the pressure for them to perform very societal niceties while letting them know that they are not forgotten. And it's very real. I know somebody who is very afraid to go to church because she said after that people will keep texting her. Because after that she doesn't know how to reply. She gets stressed, you know. And it is real. These things are real. Next, be a bridge, the clinical path. So the friends didn't just dig a hole to drop their friend into a pantry or pharmacy to help himself, but they dug a hole to get him to the healer. So sometimes digging through the roof, roof-breaking love, means helping our friends navigate the healthcare system. Because sometimes we will find that the medical system is a mazer, very confusing, very expensive, very intimidating. And when you are depressed, finding a doctor feels very impossible. And you as a friend can be that clinical bridge to help them dig through the different layers of communication, of administration. So I have here four different parts to say, hey, if you have a friend who needs help, what can you do? Where can you go? So first is step zero, the easiest one, and this is by our government. They have created a mindline.sg because walking into a clinic can feel very terrifyingly scary. So start with mindline.sg. It is anonymous, government supported, and it has a 24-7 AI chatboard. So you can put in the different symptoms, you can put in the different things that you're experiencing, and they can give you the proposed solutions and contact numbers. So this is a very good soft entry to help them name their pain before even stepping out, and you can do it together with them. Step one, I call it the GP or the polyclinic, because many fear there's a certain stigma of mental hospitals, IMH. So they don't like to go to the mental hospitals, but they trust their family doctor. So you can be the bridge to the general practitioner, the normal GP. And more and more GPs practice are trained in mental health conditions as well. And in mindline.sg, there's a whole list of GPs. It is an increasing list. So more and more GPs are able to prescribe medication for mental health, simple mental health conditions. So the first step is to go to a GP as well. You can just say to your friend, uh, how about if I accompany you to the doctor downstairs? It is very not so intimidating, you see, than saying, uh, let me go with you to IMH or let me go with you to see a psychiatrist. But just seeing your GP is a palatable step. The next step for deeper work, that is for trauma, for grief, or for someone who needs professional counselors, we have care corner, failure at clarity, and our good Anglican ones as well. So at our Anglican care center in Ishun, just a few steps away, you have trained counselors that we don't publicize often, but if there is a need in the community, the counselors stand ready to serve. They stand ready to serve and provide that uh subsidized or almost free counseling. And the red line, that is the crisis part, if they mention suicide or harm, particularly they know what they want to do, we break the roof of confidentiality. So this is the red line. We can say, I love you too much to keep this a secret. You can call 995 for the ambulance, take them to any emergency department of any general hospital. So not only IMH, but in any general hospital, they are equipped for that. So they may be angry, they may feel betrayed, but it's better that they be angry and alive. So, in a sense, you are carrying the mat when they have let go. You are saying, oh, this is so exhausting, and so many things to do. I have my own family, I have my own job, I can't be a crisis worker. So this brings us to a next vital tool for what I call sustainable compassion, and that is the 20-minute rule. So many of us avoid reaching out because we fear once you reach out to someone, you end up spending the whole day or a two-hour draining conversation with the person. You see the name on the phone and you don't want to pick up the phone. You freeze. But we can break that fear with a loving boundary. It is okay to say to a struggling friend, I care about you so much, and I want to hear how you are. I can talk for 20 minutes right now, but then I have to go and help my uh family cook. I need to do run these errands for this and that. This is not rejection, but this is sustainability. It protects you, it prevents you from resenting the person you are trying to help. It protects them as well because it gives them a clear container. They know they have your full, undivided, loving attention for 20 minutes rather than your very distracted, anxious attention for two hours. So using the 20-minute rule allows you to push through the barrier of fear and you will find your own boundaries, you'll find your own 20-minute rules as you set those boundaries to make it sustainable for yourself. So you don't need to be a Superman with infinite energy, but you can be a faithful friend with 20 minutes, however you define it, of presence. And finally, to share the cost. To share the cost. The digging is costly. The four friends likely had to pay for the roof repairs, right? You don't Destroy a man's roof and walk away. Even if it was Simon Peter's roof. For us, maybe roof-breaking love means we must be willing to share the actual burdens. Not just send praying hands and good thoughts. Therapy is expensive, medication can be expensive. Getting help is sometimes a privilege that not everyone can afford. So to be a roof-breaking church means also the willingness to share the financial load. Maybe it is the offer to offer the first three sessions or pulling together in a small group that, hey, can we pull together funds for this brother, this sister to cover the first four consultations? Working together. So we have done the heavy lifting, we have dug the hole, lowered the mat, and now the focus shifts. So you put ourselves in the place where Jesus was, and then he sees the mat coming down with the friends. So the scene moves from the hands of the friends to the eyes of the Savior. What was Jesus' response to this very disruptive, costly, concrete love? What was Jesus' response? We read, when Jesus saw, when Jesus saw, their faith. He said to the paralyzed man, Son, your sins are forgiven. Notice the pronoun. Whose faith? Whose faith? They are faith. They are faith. The friend's faith and the man's faith as well. Not just the man's faith, you know. You know, when we talk about faith alone, we always talk about uh individual faith. We talk about you must believe. I'm but here, very clearly in scripture, Jesus saw their faith, their action. He saw the sweat on the brows of the friends, he saw the dirt under their fingernails, he saw their refusal to give up. He saw their chopping of space, their driving to the clinic, the paying for the sessions. He saw all of this and he calls it faith. And this is very stunning theology, you know, that your faith, expressed in action, can bring someone else to the presence of God. So much so that Christ Himself can say to that someone, son, your sins are forgiven. So when Jesus saw the man lowered before him, he did something surprising. So the crowds expected him to say, rise and walk. Because they wanted to see the magic show, the physical spectacle. But Jesus looked past that obvious physical need and he spoke to the man's deepest spiritual need. He said, Son, your sins are forgiven. Jesus wasn't ignoring the physical pain. We know he eventually healed the body as well. But Jesus knows that there are two types of paralysis. There is the paralysis of the physical, the licks, and the deeper paralysis of the soul. The guilt, the shame, the sense of unworthiness, the separation from God. Jesus knew that you can have working licks and still be lost. So he went to the root of it. He addressed the shame that whispers, I am worthless, I am burdened. And he addresses that with the authority of heaven, you are a son, a child of God. You are forgiven. Jesus cared for the whole person, spirit, soul, and body. And I pray that as a church we follow this model. Our practical care, our listening ears, the grab food that you offer, that you deliver to someone, the fact that you accompany someone to the doctor, the willingness to call the crisis hotline, this is the mat. This is the mat in which we lovingly carry our friends. But remember, you are the carrier. Carrier sounds wrong. You are the one carrying, not the healer. You're not the messiah, you are not the doctor, not the psychiatrist, not the savior. You are the friend holding the corner of the mat. Not even the only friend carrying. So one of the friends carrying the mat. And your goal, my goal, is to lower our friends into the presence of Jesus. The only one who can bring that deep soul-level healing that they truly need. And so I urge us here at Ishun that you continue the good work that you're doing at ACC Ishun and ACC Outcung. So I make the appeal again every third Wednesday of the month. If you can join your vicar, your pastor, the church staff to go down, it will be a tremendous blessing to the residents over at the center. And I pray that the Lord will help us to be that kind of friend. So, Father, we pray that you help us. We pray that you meet with us as we continue to have our eyes, the scales of our eyes fall, the stigma of mental health. And today we learn deeper into what it means to be your hands and feet caring for those who are struggling. We pray, Lord, that you continue to meet with us so that your church can continue to offer space for people to encounter you. In Jesus' name, we pray.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Amen.com. Have a blessed day.