Darkness Is My Only Companion

A brave and compassionate look at mental illness that offers theological understanding and personal insights from author's experiences.

Where is God in the suffering of a mentally ill person? What happens to the soul when the mind is ill? How are Christians to respond in the face of mental illness? In Darkness Is My Only Companion, Kathryn Greene-McCreight confronts these difficult questions raised by her own mental illness--bi-polar disorder. With brutal honesty, she tackles often avoided topics such as suicide, mental hospitals, and electroconvulsive therapy. Greene-McCreight offers the reader everything from poignant and raw glimpses into the mind of a mentally ill person to practical and forthright advice for their friends, family, and clergy. Her voice is a comfort to those who suffer from mental illness and an invaluable resource for those who love and support them.

‘I’m looking for the words and writing for those who can’t imagine the words.’ Mark Meynell articulates a heart pain that most of us simply couldn’t express. He connects strongly and immediately with fellow cave dwellers. We relive significant moments from boarding school, Uganda, Berlin and London. We visit the Psalms, Job and The Pilgrim's Progress. If you're after neat conclusions and a fair-weather faith, this is not for you. This book serves up gritty reality and raw honesty, but also the heartfelt hope that the author's brokenness 'can somehow contribute to another person's integration' and 'inspire their clinging while beset by darkness or fog or blizzards'. Contents 1 The mask 2 The volcano 3 The cave 4 The weight 5 The invisibility cloak 6 The closing 7 The way 8 The fellow-traveller 9 The gift Appendix 1 Managing the symptoms Appendix 2 Unexpected friends in the cave Appendix 3 Some words from inside the cave

It’s a bitterly cold February in 1961, and Sandy Greenberg lies in a hospital bed in Detroit, newly blind. A junior at Columbia University from a Jewish family that struggled to stay above the poverty line, Sandy had just started to see the world open up to him. Now, instead of his plans for a bright future—Harvard Law and politics—Sandy faces a new reality, one defined by a cane or companion dog, menial work, and a cautious path through life. But that’s not how this story ends. In the depth of his new darkness, Sandy faces a choice—play it “safe” by staying in his native Buffalo or return to Columbia to pursue his dreams. With the loving devotion of his girlfriend (and now wife) Sue and the selflessness of best friends Art Garfunkel and Jerry Speyer, Sandy endures unimaginable adversity while forging a life of exceptional achievement. From his time in the White House working for President Lyndon B. Johnson to his graduate studies at Harvard and Oxford under luminaries such as Archibald Cox, Sir Arthur Goodhart, and Samuel Huntington, and through the guidance of his invaluable mentor David Rockefeller, Sandy fills his life and the lives of those around him with a radiant light of philanthropy, entrepreneurship, art, and innovation.

This wise and widely-acclaimed book is written for those "who have advanced far enough in love to God to enter the Night of Faith and feel the need of explanation, guidance and reassurance." Drawing upon Scripture, classic spiritual authors-especially St. John of the Cross-and her own deep personal experience, author Barbara Dent examines the deep puifications we undergo as God cleanses us of sinful inclinations and tansforms us in love. Using poetry and prose, image and parable, she guides us through the sufferings, temptations, upheavals and workings of grace at the deepest levels of our being, as we journey through the darkness of faith to new life in Christ. "This book is concerned with what I learned experientially and fom reading the works of various fellow travellers, especially John of the Cross, during the two periods when the grain of wheat fell into the ground and died. Then my only friend was darkness-the darkness of faith that would not give up affirming what it believed-yet in that darkness wonders of grace happened." Barbara Dent, My Only Friend is Darkness Barbara Dent is a retired English teacher in New Zealand and the mother of three. A Secular Carmelite, she has published numerous aticles and books throughout the English-speaking world, and now spends much of the time in "prayer and study, writing, and giving spiritual and psychological guidance to those who turn to me for it."

The church's relationship with depression has been fraught: for centuries, depression was assumed to be evidence of personal sin or even demonic influence. The depressed have often been ostracized or institutionalized. In recent years the conversation has begun to change, and the stigma has lessened—but as anyone who suffers from depression knows, we still have a long way to go. In Companions in the Darkness, Diana Gruver looks back into church history and finds depression in the lives of some of our most beloved saints, including Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, Mother Teresa, and Martin Luther King Jr. Without trying to diagnose these figures from a distance, Gruver tells their stories in fresh ways, taking from each a particular lesson that can encourage or guide those who suffer today. Drawing on her own experience with depression, Gruver offers a wealth of practical wisdom both for those in the darkness and those who care for them. Not only can these saints teach us valuable lessons about the experience of depression, they can also be a source of hope and empathy for us today. They can be our companions in the darkness.

Darkness lies closer than you think.... Liana Clymer is running away—from her divorce, from her past, from herself. Leaving behind everything she knows, she finds herself ensconced in a fuchsia-colored cottage in the swampy hinterlands of the Florida panhandle. Far from the grown sons who don’t return her calls, her only companion her dog, Liana decides to put her best foot forward and get to know whoever lives in the blue house across the street, the only neighbors within sight of her new home. But minutes after a teenage boy, Justin, answers the door and wins her over with his shy kindness, his face appears on the TV screen and is immediately recognizable as that of the child who was taken from his parents two years ago. Worse, Justin’s abductor has no intention of letting Liana go. A powerful will to live—and to save Justin too—seizes hold of Liana. She will fight tooth and nail to survive. But does she have what it takes to thwart a wily, depraved psychopath for whom abuse is a way of life...and killing is routine?

Souls in the Hands of a Tender God follows the path of healing and the way of companionship to build communities of caring that welcome and include our most fragile and troubled neighbors. With gentleness and grace, solid knowledge and wisdom, Rennebohm lays down the foundations of healing communities in which all may have a home, safely rest, and be well.