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O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.

Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and night wraps itself around me,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
I come to the end—I am still with you.

-Psalm 139:1-18

My name is Rev. Shelby Jeidy, and I serve full time as a Chaplain at University Hospital, as their Trauma Chaplain in the Emergency Department and Trauma and Life Support Center, Burn ICU, general care trauma patients, and our incarcerated population. Prior to that I worked with Global Ministries and the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem in Ramallah, Palestine.

May is Mental Health Awareness month, and National Trauma Awareness month, as well as Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit Awareness month, and Military Appreciation month. That is a lot for one month. And I am certainly not going to be able to address all of that in one go, however, I do think these are all connected.

Mental health impacts and is impacted by traumas—the physical kind. Former and current military members are deeply impacted by physical traumas they experience or witness, which impacts their mental health. Indigenous communities around the world are subject to horrific traumas because of the vestiges of colonialism and ongoing racism, which has and continues to impact their mental health as ethnic groups.

We see how these are all tied up together, so let’s narrow the focus now. I am going to share with you my call story. It isn’t a story I particularly enjoy sharing, however, in light of this month and the topic at hand, I think it could be helpful. And I hope in being vulnerable myself, you will feel more able to be honest and vulnerable with yourselves and those around you.

It starts when I was twelve years old; my grandfather, who I was very close to, died. He had been a Marine who served in Vietnam, and his exposure to Agent Orange and his PTSD both contributed to him dying in his early sixties. I was devastated, and beyond angry, and I stayed angry for years. This also marked the beginning of my passive suicidal ideation, which I struggled with for five years. In becoming an adult, moving away for college, and facing the extreme anxiety of the financial burden of college and adult life I was pushed from a passive thought process into active suicidal ideation.

In January 2014, I was home for winter break, I was going to be headed back to Atlanta for my second semester of the year in just a week, and I hit my breaking point. I had been thinking and planning for many months how I would complete suicide. I had a plan. I had a bottle of pills, it was about 1:00AM, so no one else was awake, and I was sitting on my bed. Then something shifted. I still do not fully understand what I experienced. I was filled with this knowledge and calm, that I had so much more to do in this life. I felt the Holy Spirit, and I knew God was calling me to keep surviving. So, I cried, and I went to sleep, and I woke up the next day.

I still didn’t know what I wanted to do at this point, but I knew it was serving God in some way—so I declared my major (for the third time) as Religion. I started looking at seminaries, knowing I only had one more year of college. The idea of chaplaincy came from a museum patron, who decided to strike up a conversation with me while I was working one day, and the idea stuck. I wanted to serve so I could meet people in their darkest, most difficult moments, like what I had experienced, and love them through it, so they could get to the other side and keep waking up each day.

In my role as a chaplain, I also help people find peace in the dying process, and I get to care for their loved ones. I even get to be there when families choose to have their loved one save other lives through organ donation. I hold up parents and partners physically when their loved one comes into the ED or ICU after a traumatic accident and does not make it, and I am with them. I get to be present to their grief and pain and be a safe place to let that loss be felt. I know, if that loss is not felt, if that grief is not brought forward, if they do not get something resembling closure, their grief can and will compound and become complex and disenfranchised and the trauma they experience at this loss will take over.

I also journey with families when their loved one doesn’t feel that same call to wake up one more day—I sit with them in that extremely unique pain of loss, and their complex feelings of grief and anger and guilt and shame. These families are always the hardest for me, because I know what their person was feeling and thinking, and I couldn’t be that voice for them telling them that tomorrow is worth experiencing. Sometimes I do get that chance though. I get to journey with patients who survived, and I get to be that voice, that presence, that comfort and encouragement. I get to see them recover and find that spark of hope that survival is possible and life holds so many promises. I get the honor of being who I needed. I also get to be there for the medical teams that take care of these patients too. I get to offer them support as they witness these tragedies and traumas.

I learned how to do a lot of this through being in community in Palestine. I know everything has gotten worse since October 2023. I also know that it was horrible before that. Thursday, May 15, marked the 77th Nakba Day. Seventy-seven years Palestinians have lived under the threat of violence, occupation, and ethnic cleansing campaigns—and all that time has deeply wounded them as a people. They are a people who cannot begin to heal their traumas and struggles because the psychological and physical threats never cease.

In living in community with them, and being welcomed into their families, I witnessed how they experience these traumas and violence> I witnessed how it impacts their relationships with one another, their home, and the world, and how they survive and resist through it all. Being family and a neighbor in Palestine is how I truly learned how to be present in difficult moments, how to stay calm in the face of the worst case, how to listen and hear, and how to hold the truly unimaginable with others.

I’ve experienced struggles with my mental health since I was twelve, and it was only in my latter twenties that I started therapy, and only two years ago that I finally spoke to my doctor about medication. There are myriad ways we are impacted by the world around us, and our mental health is just as impacted and important as our physical health. I hope sharing my call story and journey brings awareness to and breaks down stigma around mental health issues, first and foremost.

Everyone struggles. Perhaps not every day, and maybe not to the point of needing medication, but we all face something. It might be grief and loss, feelings of anxiousness, periods of sadness or depression, built-up resentment or anger, or just a difficult day, even deeply traumatizing events, big and small. We do not need to feel shame or guilt at experiencing these things. We are human, which means we are emotional beings at our core. When we run away from or push down those feelings, we are hurting ourselves, we are lying to ourselves, and we are doing ourselves and our loved ones a disservice.

God knows us in all our moments, in all our brokenness, and all our glued-together bits, all our cracks, and even all the smooth, unbroken bits. When we were created, shaped, and lovingly made, God knew all that would be ahead of us, every possibility, and in every moment, God has been, is, and will be with us.

If God can love me when I am crying because the store didn’t have the ice cream I wanted—which is really because I spent hours with a family who lost someone they love, and I am just so overwhelmed and exhausted—I certainly can try. I definitely can love others in those moments. I know, I don’t think less of someone because of how they feel, because of their tears or their anger or distrust. So, I know others won’t, and I know God doesn’t, so I learn to let go of my own self-judgment.

Feelings are natural and good, even the ones that feel bad. When we bottle up the feelings we don’t want to feel, when we think we have to be strong, all we do is build a tower of feelings that is going to come crashing down eventually. When we think we have to hold our burdens alone, we harm ourselves. Each of us deserves the unconditional love that God gives, and we deserve it from ourselves and our communities as well. So, take a deep breath, and remind yourself that it is okay to feel what you feel. This is real and valid. Maybe try to explore why you feel that way.

Where are you feeling this feeling in your body?

For example, my anxiety lives in my stomach and chest and feels like a boa constrictor squeezing or like an adult sitting on my chest. My sadness lives in my throat and face, my throat feels full, like I’ve swallowed something that’s gotten stuck, and my face feels tight. My anger lives in my upper body and my arms. My hands clench, my muscles tighten, and I get stiff to the point of pain.

How can you let that emotion out? How do you let it out, so you don’t harm yourself or someone else?

This is unique to each of us. Some people cry, or journal, get outside or go on a walk, some people create or sing, or go to the gym, some people release cathartic screams, learn kick boxing or stomp their feet, some take a really hot or really cold shower.

Now how do you come back to yourself? How do you come back to the present and reground yourself in your body?

Some of the ways we express our emotions help us do this, deep breathing into the belly and focus on our breath is another option, as is laying on the ground, or using a weighted blanket or sweater, receiving/giving a super tight hug, or pausing for a moment and identifying what you can see, smell, taste, hear, and feel in the environment around you. Most important, giving yourself grace and permission to be and to feel.

How can we show up for others?

When you offer care, ask open-ended questions. It is best practice to not hand anyone crying tissues unless they ask for one. You can sit in the silence with them, hold their hand, or give them privacy. Be there and gently remind them that you are there and you care. Bring them water and a snack, take the responsibility of caring for their bodies off their mind. If you know someone who struggles with suicidal ideation or depression, who seems to have a significant mood shift, especially to happy or carefree—please check in, this can be a warning sign that they have a plan in place to harm themselves. Keep showing up. Keep telling them you love them and listen if they share what they need and do that. We are created to feel, and to be in community. There can be no shame or judgment around mental health struggles, that is when they become life-threatening.

More than anything else I have shared, I hope you take this away: We are never alone. There is someone who cares, and God is always with us, especially in our lowest and most difficult moments. God weeps with us to see us suffering and in pain. God sends us others to help us hold it, and God sends us to help others. God wants us to be all of who we are and can be, and to find joy in this life. God loves us.

Due to the nature of my message this morning, I have included crisis resources:

  • For self-harm crises, text “home” to 741741
  • For suicidal ideation call or text 988, or chat online at 988lifeline.org
  • For LGBTQ suicidal ideation text “start” to 678678, or call 1-866-488-7386, or chat online at chat.trvr.org

I’ve also provided a number of resources that are available to you, some are for children, some are teaching/coping tools for everyone, and some are specifically interactive therapeutic tools like journaling or coloring.

In closing this sermon, I would like to lift a prayer for Palestine as we remember the Nakba, and witness new atrocities daily:

My God, My God, why have you forsaken your people?

This year marks 77 years of wilderness for the Palestinian people.

We wildly search for you in this ongoing genocide in this land called “holy”

Where these holy places are transformed into warzones, concentration camps, moments, places, and spaces of brutalization, starvation, trauma, killing, and oppression.

We search for you, O God, in these moments and places of grief, so deep we do not know where to begin, we pray to know your presence, in the midst of horrors and crimes against humanity.

We pray you hold all those who suffer, that you weep with us, and teach us your peace.

We pray above all for the lives that have been taken, for lives lived in exile, prison, fear, hunger, and mourning.

We pray the Palestinians know comfort in you,

We pray justice will rain down,

We pray wholeness will be achieved,

We pray your liberation for all living under the thumb of violence,

We pray for the world and leaders, for courageous and compassionate response.

We pray these things in the name of Teacher and Leader, born in Palestine to an unwed mother, under the yoke of occupation and oppression, who lived bravely and with love, unto the cross. Amen. Ameen. Ashe.