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Consider the OCDer who wouldn’t commit a sin for the world. Every day, she spends hours and hours attempting to make sure that she doesn’t. An unbidden thought enters her mind: She is “gay.” In her mind’s eye, she sees herself touching another woman. Terrified, at that moment she thinks that the most important thing […]

Suppose you have a thought that is heart-stopping blasphemous, maybe an image of yourself stabbing a loved one, an urge to desecrate a picture of Jesus, or an idea that you are a sexual pedophile. Shocks of anxiety surge through your whole body. You try to shove it out of your mind, but you can’t. […]

“Learn to say  ‘Away with you devil, you compel me to care for myself, when God everywhere says -I care for you; depend upon me.” –Martin Luther Martin Luther gave this advice to a member of his congregation who suffered from what we would now call OCD. Luther knew firsthand about the agony of tormenting […]

Matthew 10:16: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” All those who suffer from OCD have the feeling at times that they are sheep among wolves. Obsessions circle around and come from every angle, attacking relentlessly. People with more severe cases of […]

One of the great mysteries of our faith is the division of responsibility between God and man for all that happens. We know that God controls everything, from the movement of the tiniest atom to the occurrence of all “chance” events.  Nothing that happens is outside of his will. Yet, through our actions we also […]

Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. (Eph 6:16 NIV) Ephesians 6 describes the spiritual battle, and how it should be fought. The metaphors chosen by Paul seem to be especially appropriate for the battle that is called OCD–the flaming arrows being the […]

LET JESUS DO WHAT HE WANTS All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me   Matt 28:18 A thought-out, committed, and unswerving belief in God’s providence is absolutely necessary for the Christian who suffers from OCD. This bible-based and universally accepted part of our creed is, strangely, often deemphasized nowadays. The OCDer, […]

“A Daring Confidence in the Mercy of God” These are the words used by Celine, sister of the Catholic saint Therese of Lisieux, to describe Therese’s spirituality. I deal with the life of Therese in my book on OCD and Christianity. She had a severe case of OCD, and overcame it through developing an unusual […]

A young mother came to me thinking that she ought to be put in a psychiatry ward and locked up. She suffered from a gut-wrenching: that she would initiate a sexual relationship with her two month old son. We worked for a little while on this, and I explained to her the nature of OCD […]

Story of the sinful woman who bathed Jesus with her tears. This is one of the most moving stories in the New Testament. A sinful woman suddenly comes to Jesus while he is a guest at a dinner party, and proceeds to wash his feet with her tears. Jesus forgives her sins, and tells her […]