FRIENDS OF REDEEMER | Guest Speaker Lauren Strecker

Well, good morning.

Well, as Ben said, my name is Lauren Strecker.

I'm the young adult and creative director here at Redeemer.

It is a huge passion of mine to work with young adults.

I love being with them in the stage of life because it's kind of a difficult one.

They're tackling really big questions in their faith, in their lives, making big decisions, and I love walking alongside them.

I'm also very, very passionate about my creative aspect of my job.

Any of the graphics you see up here in the lobby, I create those, the video announcements I help produce.

So if you have thank you.

So if you have any feedback, please do not tell me.

I will cry.

Jokes aside, I also am very passionate about my family.

I'm an auntie.

I have many of my nieces and nephews here today.

Um, and I'm a mom to an 11-month-old named Eden.

She is very social.

She loves to say hi.

So if you ever see us walking around, please come say hi.

She will have the time of her life.

And then my husband is Nathan, he is the youth director here.

Another thing that I am so passionate about, and I love to tell people, is that I am a mental health advocate.

And if you don't know what that is, a mental health advocate is someone who spreads awareness and advocates for those with mental health needs.

So it's like educating others on mental health and the importance of knowing about it.

It's advocating for them, it's promoting available resources for those who need them.

And this can be a professional like a therapist, a psychiatrist, the tons of kinds of psychiatrists there are out there, or it can be your everyday person like me.

And I am an advocate because I have mental health needs.

I have chronic mental health conditions that are diagnosed.

And today, when I talk about mental health, though, I'm not talking about just people who have a diagnosis.

I mean everyone.

I once heard someone say that if you have a brain, you have mental health.

Just as simple as that.

And we all have mental health needs, just like we all have physical health needs.

Some are chronic, some are more intense or less intense than others, and some are just situational based on the season.

But for me, it has been a very long, long journey.

I'm gonna give a little bit of backstory.

Excuse me.

In 2018, I moved to Marshall, Minnesota to go to college.

I went to Southwest State.

And about a year into living there, so about 2019, I started to really struggle.

I was depressed, I was anxious, I was physically getting sick all the time.

I was having these insane migraines where I couldn't even get out of bed.

I was so lonely.

I lived with my parents before this, and we were the kind of people who would spend time together, watch the Mass Singer every week, and I didn't have that anymore.

And I was having these panic attacks like I had never experienced before.

And I didn't tell anyone.

I was really carrying a lot of the weight of that on my own, and it was so difficult.

And while I was carrying that weight secretly, a tragedy hit my family, and my nephew David passed away as a stillborn.

I absolutely crumbled at this point in my life.

I couldn't handle the grief of my nephew passing and watching my family try to navigate this, as well as my own struggling mental well-being at the same time.

And in October of 2019, I attempted to take my own life.

Obviously, I survived, and I ended up being police escorted to the ER, and I spent 48 hours in a mental health unit.

And I remember, and this is one of the greatest acts of love I've ever had in my life, is I called my mom while I was in the mental health unit.

That's when she found out, actually, and she dropped everything and drove the five hours down to where I was to help me get everything, get back on my feet, and then I ended up moving back home.

I over the next two years, I just kind of progressively began to struggle more and more.

Um I started to actually hallucinate at this point.

I would scream in my room and panic, and I would say to my mom and dad all the time, I feel like I'm gonna die, I feel like I'm gonna die, and I just had no idea what was going on.

Eventually I did find Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus, and I kind of started to get better.

Um I started to see a therapist a little bit at this time, kind of started to work through my problems a little bit, and things were kind of looking up.

I was like, okay, maybe things will get better from here.

We're kind of talking through what's happening to me, we're figuring it out.

But then in 2021, the diagnosis came.

And I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, PTSD, and bipolar to disorder.

Now I'm not gonna go into what bipolar disorder is.

It would be a very, very long conversation, but what I am going to say about it is bipolar disorder tends to have a lot of stigma attached to it.

And stigma is like a collection of negative attitudes, thoughts, or beliefs and stereotypes in society that cause a group of people to kind of be unfairly judged or looked down upon.

And oftentimes people with bipolar disorder are seen as unstable, dangerous, unable to maintain relationships, money, families.

And I was told all this when I was diagnosed.

And it hurt.

I didn't want to continue to be this broken, weak, crazy girl.

I was just starting to improve.

I met Nathan at this time and we started dating, and I didn't want to lose this relationship, the job I had, and I crumbled again.

I started to believe the stigma, and I started to let that be who I was.

My identity.

I started to let my mental health define who I was.

Now maybe you're sitting here today, and that kind of hits close to home.

Maybe you have a close friend or a relative, maybe it's even you.

You don't know how to tell what is you and your mental health symptoms anymore.

You've caved to the identity of your diagnosis.

Luckily, the Bible is filled with various people who struggled with their mental well-being and their identity, and we're going to be reading about one now.

So if you want to open your Bibles, if you have them, whether that's on your phone or a physical one, I won't judge.

You can open your Bibles to Genesis 32.

And while you're opening your Bibles, I'm gonna give you a little backstory.

So we're gonna be talking today about a man named Jacob.

His grandfather was Abraham, his father Isaac.

Now, when Jacob was born, he was a twin, and his brother Esau came out first.

And while he was coming out, Jacob was holding his heel, which is how he got his name, Jacob, which means heel grabber.

And when I was looking at the original Hebrew of what heel grabber meant, this can mean someone deceitful, wily, trickster, a liar.

And Jacob, unfortunately in his life, lived up to that name.

He tricked his brother Esau twice, first out of his birthright, and second out of the blessing from his father, which was a huge deal because Esau technically, as a even though they're twins, he was the firstborn, so that was his right to have.

And his brother, rightfully, was very, very mad and angry.

So much so that Jacob's mother feared for his life and sent him to live with his uncle far away.

And Jacob did that.

He didn't face the consequences of his actions.

He just ran from his problems and started an entire new life.

And while he's there with his uncle, after some various somewhat adventures and mishap, he gains wives, he gets kids, livestock, his uncle tricks him a few times with the wives.

It's a crazy story.

His life kind of improves.

And as it's improving, he's like, okay, life's improving.

But then God instructs him to return home and to his relatives.

And that means returning home to Esau.

And Jacob begins his return home, but he's afraid.

So we're going to read Genesis 32, 9 through 12.

And then Jacob prayed, O God of my grandfather Abraham, and God of my father Isaac.

Oh Lord, you told me, return to your own land and to your relatives, and you promised me, I will treat you kindly.

I am not worthy of all the unfailing love and faithfulness you have shown me, your servant.

When I left home and crossed the Jordan River, I owned nothing except a walking stick.

Now my household fills two large camps.

O Lord, please rescue me from the hand of my brother Esau.

I am afraid that he's coming to attack me along with my wives and children.

But you promised me, I will surely treat you kindly, and I will multiply your descendants until they become as numerous as the sands along the seashore, too many to count.

So from this, we can see Jacob is struggling with his mental well-being, right?

He's feeling this fear, this anxiety from the family tension, the family drama.

He has to go face the man that he stole a birthright and a blessing from.

And in this passage, you can see he's mentally wrestling back and forth with God.

He's like, God, I know you said you're gonna treat me kindly, but I am afraid of Esau attacking me and my family.

But I know you said I'm gonna be prosperous.

And he's wrestling back and forth because right before this, he sends a servant ahead of him to go tell Esau that he's coming.

And when the servant returns, he says, Hey, your brother's on his way, but also an army of 400 men.

Like, that's that's terrifying.

So we can see Jacob wrestling back and forth.

He knows God's promise, but he's starting to go back into his original identity of liar, deceitful.

He's doing all these tricky things to kind of help protect his family if Esau attacks.

He's splitting the camps.

And while he's doing all this, he ends up sending all of them across the river, and it's just him by himself.

And he goes to God again.

And we're gonna read in Genesis 32, 24 through 29, which says, This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break.

When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob's hip and wrenched it out of its socket.

Then the man said, Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.

But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me.

What is your name?

The man asked.

He replied, Jacob.

Your name will no longer be Jacob, the man told him.

From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God, with man, and have won.

Please tell me your name, Jacob said.

Why do you want to know my name?

The man replied.

Then he blessed Jacob there.

So again, Jacob wrestles, but this time in a very literal sense.

He's wrestling with this man, and the man wrenches his hip out of his socket.

But let's take a step back for a second.

Who was the man?

Was it Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit?

Theologians debate about who exactly in the Trinity this was, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter because what matters is he had the authority to change Jacob's identity and bring him into something greater.

And what that is, is God changes his identity from Jacob, liar, to Israel, wrestled with God and blesses him.

Sometimes in our lives, we define ourselves by things that aren't who we are.

Jacob was defined as a liar, deceiver, heel grabber.

That was literally his name.

He was born into it.

But God defined who he was, making him Israel, the man who wrestled with God.

He blessed him and he made him prosperous.

And we can do this with our mental health.

We can let our mental health define us.

But being defined by our mental health, our situations, our pain, our struggle, is harmful to our true identity.

Continuing my story, after my diagnosis, I was convinced this is just who I was.

I was this crazy, terrible person and nothing more than these manic highs and depressive lows.

This is just who I am now.

I stopped engaging in friendships, I refused medication, I stopped going to therapy, and I stopped investing in my spiritual life.

Because why would God want someone like me?

I'm bipolar.

I played into the depressive episodes.

If I was depressed, I was a sad, lonely girl.

No one could stand or manage to be around.

No one loved me or wanted me.

And I just stopped seeking healing completely.

And we see this in Jacob's story too.

He didn't seek healing.

He just ran.

He ran from his brother, from his mistakes.

He was living the identity of Jacob, liar.

And I was living the identity of Lauren, bipolar.

Even after improving, Jacob tried to ease his way back into his brother using tricks, concaving back to the original identity as this trickster.

And even after I improved, I still crumbled into this false identity just by naming what was happening to me.

It wasn't until God stepped in and showed Jacob who he was that he was able to step into his true identity.

And it took some wrestling.

So maybe in your lives or someone you love, you've let your mental health, your circumstances, your pain, define you and keep you from the promise God has for you in your life.

Maybe it's keeping you from God calling you to do the things that help you manage your mental health, like heal, medicate, therapy, even shower or basic self-care.

I know it is so, so hard when you're depressed just to even do that.

Or you use it as an excuse not to live the life God has in store for you.

You keep going back to those old habits, the alcohol, the drugs, the website you shouldn't be on.

Or you go back to that person that enables that behavior.

Or you're just at the point where you completely cannot see beyond it.

And this is just who you are entirely.

You say things like, I am depressed, I am anxious, I am bipolar.

Well, there's good news and there's hope, and it's that our mental health does not define us.

Jesus defines us.

So what do we do with this then?

How do we break the chains of our diagnosis and our symptoms holding on to our identity?

And the way we break those chains is we have to actually know what our true identity is.

You have to know who you are in Christ.

Christ who was crucified on the cross for our sins, conquered the grave, and rose again after three days.

He died so you can have a true identity in him.

So you can be free from your sin and reunited from God.

So you can be free from an identity that is not held by the bonds of your mental health, struggling, pain, or circumstances.

And the first thing that he says about that true identity of yours is that you are wonderfully made, and you are made with a purpose.

Psalm 139, 13 through 16 says, You made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb.

Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex.

Your workmanship is marvelous how well I know it.

You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.

You saw me before I was born.

Every day of my life was recorded in your book.

Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.

Oftentimes our mental health or the things we're going through can lie and tell us we have no purpose, or that our purpose is to continue to struggle like we have been, that we're made wrong, incorrect.

But Christ says otherwise, it says it so plainly here that you are wonderfully made.

When I did a deep dive into the original Hebrew of the word wonderfully, it was, it came up to the words distinct, distinguished, to be wonderful.

You were made to be wonderful, and not only that, you were knitted together in the womb.

I have two sister-in-laws who knit, and I watch their podcast, and oftentimes you watch them and it's so intricate and delicate.

It takes time, intentionality, and God did that with you, individually, you.

And he also made you with a purpose.

All your days are marked in his book, every single one.

He saw you before you were even born.

And he has a plan for your life beyond your struggles.

Jacob was not just a tool to be a liar.

Jacob became an entire nation.

He became Israel, God's chosen people.

Another way that Christ says your identity is different from what you think it is, is he says that you are more than a conqueror.

Romans 8, 35 through 37 says, can anything ever separate us from Christ's love?

Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity or are persecuted or hungry or destitute or in danger or threatened with death?

As the scriptures say, for your sake we are killed every day.

We are being slaughtered like sheep.

No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us.

Or in other translations, it says, You are more than a conqueror.

Did you catch that?

You are more than a conqueror.

You're not just a conqueror, you are beyond a conqueror through Christ's love.

And because of that, you can stop saying things like, I am depressed, I am anxious.

Instead, you can say, I struggle with anxiety, depression for me bipolar.

But we can conquer it.

We're gonna be more than conquers through Christ's love for us.

Your mental health, your symptoms, your circumstances, your pain is not who you are.

It's just something you're working through.

And Christ is there every step of the way.

The last thing Christ says about your identity is that your mind is renewed.

Romans 12, 2 says, don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.

Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

In Christ, we are brand new people.

And with that, God transforms our thoughts and renews them.

And with this, too, we know God's will for us, one that is pleasing and perfect and good.

I'm not saying it's easy.

I'm not.

But it is pleasing and perfect and good.

And his will for us is not our mental health defining us, not our circumstances, our pain.

It's something that is pleasing, perfect, and good.

That just makes me so excited.

That's why I said it so many times.

To wrap up my story, though, a couple summers ago, I had a friend call out on me that I was letting my bipolar diagnosis control my identity, and it was really hard to hear.

And I remember I cried so hard after she told me, but it was needed.

And then over the summer, I sought out Jesus immensely, and he showed me who he was, and in that I saw who I was.

I did my own wrestling with God.

I had so many nights crying on the living room floor.

My husband would come home from youth group and I'd just be laying on the floor sobbing, listening to sad music, or I'd be crying in my car, yelling at God, and thank God we have a God who lets us approach him when we're messy, right?

I'm so grateful for that.

I was diving more into scripture.

I was meditating on it.

I blog about it.

It's a way I help the Holy Spirit kind of guide me in what it's trying to show me.

I was deep in prayer and worship.

And in that, I started to call myself by how he defined me and not my diagnosis.

And part of the reason I chose Jacob's story is because in this process, God gave me a new name as well, personal between us.

And he called me Alona, which when we looked it up, me and my husband, it meant oak tree, and it's known for being strong, resilient, and wise.

And I cling to that because every time I'm struggling with my identity of knowing who I am in Christ, I just feel God whispering that to me and just saying, Alona, you know who you are.

I found that there is power in my words, and power even more in his words, and I changed my I am statement from my diagnosis to I am a child of God, I am wonderfully made, and I'm made with a purpose.

And earlier in my story, I said I was diagnosed with bipolar two, but actually about a year ago my diagnosis changed.

And it changed to me struggling with major depressive disorder, an obsessive compulsive disorder, OCD.

And to me, this is to me personally, you don't have to think this.

It is hilarious and ironic because I spent so much time ruminating it over being who I was, letting it damage and control my life, and it wasn't even a correct diagnosis.

It wasn't even a problem I was struggling with.

And we all do this, not even just with our mental health.

We all diagnose ourselves and label ourselves with different terms that overtake our identity, whether they're negative, like hopeless, addict, adulterer, failure, dropout, lazy, not enough.

And even positive ones can overtake our identity, like mom or dad, by your job title, being an athlete or a student, husband or wife, we can all take these labels and make them our complete identity, and they can pull us away from the plan and the life God has in store for us.

One that is so much more than the identity we trap ourselves in.

And these can harm us, even the good ones, because when those things leave, like the kids move out, you lose your job or retire, you graduate high school and you stop playing that sport, who are you then?

What grounds the core of who you are in your identity?

You sink into an identity crisis.

You look for meaningless or even potentially harmful things or habits that make you feel whole.

And I say this because I've been there so much.

I've been there in my mental health journey, I've been there in becoming a mom the last year, in becoming a wife.

I have seen this over and over again personally in my own life and in others and in scripture, that is it is only putting our identity in Jesus' hands that we find true joy, true completeness, and we find true purpose in our lives.

We need to center and ground our identity in Jesus.

We need to remember we are wonderfully made and made with a purpose, that our minds are renewed and that we are more than conquerors over anything through Christ's love.

Because our mental health, the labels we give ourselves and base our identities on, do not define us.

Jesus defines us.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, I just want to thank you for bringing us all here today.

I thank you for the message that you gave that our identity is rooted in you, not in the things of this world, but of heaven above of you, and we're so grateful for that.

Thank you for making us wonderfully and with a purpose.

Thank you for renewing our minds, and thank you for letting us be more than conquerors through your love.

In your name, Amen.