Image: A Helping Hand by Len Lantz (CC BY-NC-ND)
Synopsis: Len's Star Rating: 9 out of 10. An excellent book on depression and end-of-life issues from a Christian perspective that decreases stigma and provides rational biblical support to people struggling with depression and those who care for them.
BY LEN LANTZ, MD, author of unJoy / 12.5.2021; No. 53
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Star Rating – 9 out of 10
Rating guide: 1 = horrible, 5 = average and 10 = wow
Author
Arie Elshout
About the author
Arie Elshout (1923-1991) was a Christian pastor who served for a combined 32 years in the Gereformeerde Gemeenten of the Netherlands and later in the Netherlands Reformed Congregations of North America. He influenced the establishment of Bosch en Duin, a Christian psychiatric hospital in the Netherlands.
General description
A Helping Hand is a Christian book on helping others who are suffering from depression or experiencing end-of-life struggles. This book began as a series of articles by the Reverend Arie Elshout published in the 1970s in the weekly periodical De Saambinder of the Gereformeerde Gemeenten Christian denomination in the Netherlands. This book was written in response to the overwhelming number of requests for reprints of his articles. The author wrote A Helping Hand in Dutch (originally published in 1978 as De Helpende Hand) and it was translated and published in English 6 years after his death.
Unique and most important aspects
In A Helping Hand, Arie Elshout shares his personal experiences with severe depression and its impact on his spiritual faith and views on mental illness. There are numerous excellent points that the author makes in this short book, which contains rational biblical reasoning and decreases mental health stigma. Particularly helpful was the author’s perspective on common feelings of shame and the incorrect perception of being a burden that many depressed people experience. This book was written 43 years ago and while somewhat dated, it accurately presents depression a condition that should be viewed with no more stigma than any other medical condition. The author also addresses the needs and roles of those who serve and minister to others at the end stages of life.
Best quotes
“Thus, the reason one person experiences much more suffering than another need not only be expressive of God’s great wrath. It could also be an expression of God’s great love, so that the works of God may be revealed in him.”
“One of our greatest objections to the charismatic fanaticism regarding faith is that it presents matters in such a way that healing neither can nor will occur if one does not believe fully in the power and will of God to help us. Such teaching is legalistic and unholy, for it focuses on the activity of man rather than the grace of God.”
“In order to counsel depressed people or those who suffer from a nervous breakdown, it is advantageous to know that there are feelings of guilt which are not caused by the Holy Spirit but by the insinuations of Satan who capitalizes upon every circumstance to drive us to despair.”
“When my physician observed this thought pattern in me, he asked, ‘Pastor, do you find it depressing to put your glasses on each morning, to wear those glasses the entire day, and probably to be in need of those glasses for the remainder of your life?’ When I responded that this would not bother me, he asked me what the difference was between having prescription glasses and the medication he prescribed for follow-up treatment subsequent to my hospital stay. I had no answer. There is no difference.”
“There are congenital weaknesses in the physical as well as the mental realm. One’s mental health must not be considered equal to or confused with the spiritual health of a child of God. Spiritual health in the religious realm and one’s mental well-being are not identical.”
Who would enjoy this book?
Readers who are interested in a balanced Christian perspective on depression and end-of-life struggles would likely enjoy A Helping Hand.
Who would not enjoy this book?
Readers who only consider depression to be a spiritual disorder are unlikely to enjoy A Helping Hand.
Conclusion
A Helping Hand is an excellent book on depression and end-of-life issues from a Christian perspective that decreases stigma and provides rational biblical support to people struggling with depression and those who care for them.