A medical confession.... A soul confession... a pilgrim's plea for help.In about an hour, Gwen and I are going for an appointment with a psychiatrist that we have come to know; trust; and open our own hearts to. It's one of the ways we've found to get perspective; feedback and evaluate our own work with others in the care of the soul work we do. Why are we doing this? Sometimes, the work we do gets dark; confusing and makes us throw up our hands and say, "What do we know about all of this anyway? We're not medical doctors. We're not shrinks. We're just two people who want to love people into health, real life and spiritual transformation."One of the other reasons we are doing this is to compare notes. I simply need to process with someone who is in the know about such things that I am not. This will not be the first time we are choosing to do this. We've done it when we've been so perplexed; so dumbfounded; so confused and so weary ourselves from simply trying to help. It's really about our care; our souls seeking solace; our doubts being addressed; our lies being de-bunked that we come to believe about ourselves when we hit a wall.So, in about an hour, we'll be going to the shrink! I'm kind of looking forward to it more than I can really express here.I have come to the conclusion that the Christian church is in the dark about mental illness. We sweep under the carpet the bruises, nicks and wounds that have simply messed up our lives. We are afraid to talk about depression; mood swings, manic living and confusing thoughts that bombard us in the night or even when we try to be quiet and get silent before God--before one another. We push people to the Bible but sometimes not into the light. In the dark, these wounds fester and grow like dragons seeking to flame us out of the life we most want to live. Most of us know so little and we excuse behavior and actions by folks around us by a number of different reasons when actually, the reason why some of us act so weird and bizarre is that we could just be a little bit sick in the head as well as sick in the heart. I simply do not want to be in that number. I want to know more. I want the truth to set me free, don't you? Problem is, some of us simply cannot find the truth for ourselves because we have believed the lies for too long.It actually feels good to have established a relationship with our "shrink" to help us work better; know more and understand our own boundaries in offering soul care. To be honest, some of us are pretty wounded. We have neglected our wounds for so long that for some of us, the disease and "dis-ease" has gone systemic and infected every relationship around us. We are robbed of joy. We are falling into a victim status thinking that "there's nothing I can really do to get myself out of this mess.' We are settling for a life that is so much less than the 'abundant life' promised to us by Jesus.The last time I went for an appointment like this, we walked out with our heads feeling clear; our hearts feeling humbled to be called into the sacred work of soul care and our cadence a bit restored from having the wind knocked out of us.