I have a very pesky and aggressive weed that comes back every year in my backyard. It looks like a poor cousin of that wonderful flower, the morning glory. It’s a very sneaky intruder, prolifically putting out runners underground and then popping up to encroach and quickly strangle all that is good and lovely in my garden. While I’ve kept it as bay better some years than others I’ve never totally obliterated it.
That weed is the perfect picture of the way a curse works in a family. It comes back generation after generation, encroaching and strangling everything that is good and lovely. That’s why such things as addictions pop up over and over in family histories. They need to be obliterated.
How can we cause family curses to wither at the root? Jesus knew how. He spoke to a fig tree once that had produced no fruit and said; ”’May no one ever eat fruit from you again!”’ (Mark 11:14) The next day they saw the result. “And as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up.“ Just think, only one day. Pretty powerful words.
When you get at the root the remainder can’t survive. We shouldn’t tolerate curses in our families the way I tolerate that annoying weed in my backyard. It’s possible to stop them if you really mean business the way our Lord did. Jesus said: “Whoever says to this mountain, ‘be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it shall be granted him.'” (Mark 11:23)
Say it like you mean it. Curse the curse!
I consider “mental illness” a Spiritual problem, a “curse” rather than a “medical” problem. And that is why no pill exists to “cure” it; the medications do more harm than good. All the mass shooters, starting with Columbine, were on Psychiatric drugs. These drugs do not get to the Root of the problem … Sin!
I often get attacked for this position. Yet I’ve seen this played out in my own family (& myself). Multiple suicides, addictions, severe anxiety/panic disorder, depression, schizophrenia, hatred/inability to manage anger. My family is so splintered & dysfunctional, as a result. I’ve found peace at the foot of the cross, but it’s a constant spiritual battle. My family rejects faith as the answer.
I would say that that mental illness probably has a mixture of roots. However, the underlying root is “the fall.” We live in a fallen world since the original sin in the garden. All of us are affected by it, and all of nature is affected by it. It’s like we are slightly (or significantly) out of focus. Within that framework, (until Christ returns) God is still at work and the cross is still sufficient.