OCD and Christianity
“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 […]
“What pleases God is the blind hope that I have in his mercy.” –St. Therese of Lisieux Greatest single statement ever made by an OCDer? I vote for this powerful profession of faith by my favorite Catholic saint, Therese of Lisieux. She suffered from severe OCD that began in childhood, and eventually overcame her OCD […]
I have fought the good fight—2Tim 4:7 Are you fighting the good fight? For the OCD sufferer, there are frequent calls to battle. The word “obsession,” after all, comes from the Latin root, obsidere, meaning to besiege, as an army would attack a city. That’s certainly what it feels like when these tormenting thoughts crash […]
“I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” — Jer 29:11
“We should see how deeply God hides his face, and how we must not go by our feeling but only by his word.” — Martin Luther
The twin burdens of OCD sufferers are ruminations of past event and worries about the future. If we don’t watch it, we can live our entire lives without ever enjoying the blessings of the present moment. Since obsessions usually have a future referent, and since OCDers worry excessively anyway, the future is their major source […]
“These things may seem ridiculous to others, even as ridiculous as they were in themselves, but to me they were the most tormenting cogitations.” —John Bunyan This quote was used by the great Christian author John Bunyan to introduce his autobiographical work Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. The book describes his struggle with […]
The crucial time for dealing with OCD is the moment when an obsession strikes. This is the moment of truth. Whether we allow a fearful thought to take hold and stir compulsions, or whether we make progress with the disorder–it all depends on what transpires here. We can give in to the fear, or, with […]