Ruth Graham: The Importance of Asking for Help

When we need help, when we seek help, you know, God didn’t make us to be islands. We need each other. And there’s some times that what we’re facing is much bigger than we are and we don’t have the resources. And we need to seek help, whether it be a pastor, a pastoral counselor, a psychotherapist, a psychologist. My husband’s a psychologist– or a pastoral counselor, I should say, to be more accurate. 

I really believe that God has given us each other to help each other. And I had been raised with sort of this idea that if you sought a counselor, that you were somehow spiritually deficient. That was never said, but it was sort of implied that all I needed was the Bible. Just go into the woods with the Bible, and it’ll all sort out. 

And I found that when I really hit the skids– when my husband had been unfaithful and I was going through depression– that wasn’t enough. We tend to want to plaster Bible verses on our broken hearts. And the Bible is wonderful. But God has given us other people to help us, and given– raised up doctors and professionals and scientists who make medicine that, when we’re depressed, can help the chemicals in our brain become balanced. So it’s not a spiritual deficiency. 

I think it takes a lot of courage. And whenever I go and speak, I talk about this. And invariably, two or three people will come up and say, “Thank you for saying that, because I have been depressed for years and been afraid to tell anyone.” Why be locked in that prison? You know, there is sunshine outside. There is a cure. There is a help. So we don’t need to be locked into those prisons of our own making, really. And it’s not a shame to admit that we have faults and frailties.