Thorns and Thistles

From the Salvation Army, you're listening to Wonderful Words of Life. Welcome back everybody. We're glad you're here. It is a privilege for me today to introduce you to my friend and our new host, Major Cheryl Gillum. Hey everyone.

Thank you for the welcome. Cheryl, I'm very glad you're here. Cheryl and her husband serve as our Territorial Youth Secretaries for the 15 Southeastern United States and the District of Columbia, and she's going to bring a lot to this episode, but we need to get right into it. So we are starting a new Easter series today, and we'll be joined by Salvation Army officers, Captains Ken and Amy Argot.

Right. And Bernie, aren't Captains Ken and Amy your Corps officers? You go to church with them.

I do. I get to see them every week that I'm home at our home church, and we call that a Corps in the Salvation Army. Ken and Amy come from the Eastern shore of Maryland in the United States. And for some reason, Ken is a big Philadelphia Eagles fan.

That's our football team up that way. But they are wonderful pastors, and he is an incredible preacher and teacher, a seminarian, and we really enjoy their ministry. Last year, we did an 11-week series on mental health and had an incredible response from our listeners. We know this was an important topic for the church to cover, to let people know that our church is a sanctuary for those suffering from a mental health crisis. Absolutely. So for our Easter series, the Argots are going to be revisiting the topic of mental health, but from a different view this time, both Ken and Amy have had some challenges recently with their own mental health, and we're honored and humbled that they are using their testimony to help others in similar situations. And I really am encouraged by their vulnerability.

Yeah, absolutely. We hope that this series is a blessing to you. And if you know someone who may benefit from hearing their testimony, please share this series. You can visit us at Salvation Army Soundcast.org or subscribe to Wonderful Words of Life wherever you get your podcasts. The Salvation Army has launched a new podcast. The Storyteller series is a daily podcast where we read a chapter a day from a book in the Bible, followed by an engaging and entertaining conversation about the chapter with a group of friends.

In the first season of the show, we studied the book of Luke and beginning Easter 2020, we'll be reading the book of Acts. Subscribe to the Storyteller series on your favorite podcast store or visit SalvationArmySoundcast.org. We are Captains Ken and Amy Argott. We are the pastors, core officers of Atlanta Temple Salvation Army.

And we're here to talk to you about sort of our story and mental health as it pertains to that. And we've been married how many years, Amy? I always forget.

Yeah, it will be 30 years in May, May 19th to be exact. Awesome. That is so great. And walking with you through everything has been good.

We have three daughters, all who have left the nest, and one grandson. That's right. And one on the way. Yeah. We just got that news a couple weeks ago.

So Riser Mann will be a big brother in September. Yeah. And so it's exciting stuff.

And I think the journey that we've taken over 30 years, and then even watching our kids go through some of those formative years, really gives us perspective to be able to talk about, I think, what we want to talk about. 2019 was a terrible year for us, wasn't it? It was challenging, yes. You had three surgeries, two surgeries? Two surgeries, yes.

Two surgeries. And at one point, one of them led you to become septic, and you were in the hospital. And I flew up thinking that you were going to die that week.

Yeah. I was actually there in Maryland to take care of my mother recuperating from surgery. And complications set in with myself, yes, and I was hospitalized. And your mom is still going through a difficult time where the child becomes the parent, and that's difficult for you to walk through.

Meanwhile, I had surgery on my shoulder, and the shoulder's doing great, but something was introduced somewhere into my system along the way, and I have some inflammation in my cerebral spinal fluid, which makes sometimes remembering things and even speaking difficult from time to time. So thank you all for your prayers for both of us. So that was a pretty depressing way to start, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was. And I kind of like to see the glass half full, but what we do want to share through our story that we will be sharing with you in the next few weeks, the foundation of everything that we believe in is, first of all, our love for Jesus, and also that there is hope. I love to say that word, hope. The way we grew up, psychiatry and psychology and therapy was sort of boo-hooed, almost to the point where you were prayed for, that you must have some kind of demonic oppression over you, or there's something wrong with you. If you just trust Jesus a little more, your depression would go away. Three years ago, you went through a terrible depression where one Sunday, you just told me, I can't get to church. I remember that specifically. Driving in the car, I know exactly when it hit me, and still to this day, there are times when I'm at that stoplight that I will remember calling you. And yeah, it just like, I couldn't go the next step with what I was experiencing.

And I knew it was a Sunday. I knew that there were expectations on us to make sure that things were going to be taking place at the core, but I just could not. And thank the Lord for a fellow friend, fellow officer that came by my side, and the ministry of presence was real that day. And I will never forget that. They didn't say a whole lot to me, but I took me back home and just allowed my mind to rest for a minute and just stayed by my side. I think for those of us who are experiencing that, actually, the less you say, the better.

Absolutely, yeah. I don't want anybody to tell me, oh, God's got this, or you'll be better tomorrow. Or another thing that is said often is, you know, well, your faith, where's your faith in all of this? And let me say right off the bat that it has nothing to do with lack of faith or that you've got an abundant amount of faith. I sit here today and tell you my faith was very strong that Sunday, that everything came down on me. If it wasn't for my faith, I wouldn't have gotten through what I did, along with the help of medication and therapy.

So those three things together formed a strong cord. And so hear that, that it is not lack of faith. And we were not always in the Salvation Army. At one point, we were in another church, and in 2000, the year 2000, I went through a terrible depression. I was actually fired from my job as pastor because I was seeking mental health treatment and wasn't able to do the things that I knew needed to be done. That firing was actually probably one of the best things that happened to us in our life.

I even remember the time that you were let go from your position at a church when you were on maternity leave, which I don't know is illegal anymore. So yeah, life happens, and life has surely happened to us. And when I think about those things, as bad as they were at the time, were actually windows and doors to new opportunities. It's very amazing to me to think about how all the bad circumstances did turn out for good. In working through all of that is to go back on your history and your journey with Christ, and to know that He took care of us in the past, and He will take care of us in the future. And it reminds me of the scripture in 2 Corinthians that Paul talks about, when he says, to keep me from being conceited, to keep me from thinking that everything's always going to be okay. There was given to me this thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but He said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in strength, no, in weakness. God's power is made strengthened and perfect in our weaknesses. Therefore, I'm going to boast all more gladly about my deficiencies and my weaknesses and my difficulties and my mental health, because Christ's power will rest on me in those weaknesses. That's why Paul says, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecution difficulties, for when I'm weak and that, I am strong. And Paul was whipped, Paul was beaten, Paul was shipwrecked, Paul was thrown in jail, Paul was tormented, and he kept coming back to that, for me to live as Christ, to die is gain, and I'd rather live, I'd rather put up with the torture of what everybody else will do to me.

And even sometimes my own mind will do to me, even though I know if I just died, I would go to be with him. He never looked at death as the solution, but he looked at death as, if it happens, I'm okay in peace with that as well, but I'll keep fighting through every day with Christ, with those around him. And when you look at Paul and the number of people that he thanks at the end of every letter goes back to what you said about the presence of other people around us, that we find strength not only in Christ, but in that community that's accepting of where we are. So next week, we're going to be looking at the prophet Elijah and the prophets themselves dealt with depressions, insecurities, and what we go through today.

So we will see you next week. Thanks Ken and Amy. I agree. Community is an incredibly important part of our just getting by in life in such a busy world that we live in and having people to lean into.

Absolutely. Well, Tim and Cheryl are part of a community now having moved to Atlanta, and we really are looking forward to the days ahead. If you are currently struggling with depression or any mental health crisis, we want to encourage you to reach out to someone. Your local church or the Salvation Army will be glad to help and even come alongside you as you walk through this season. But if you need someone to talk to immediately, please call 1-800-273-8255. That's 1-800-273-TALK. God bless you.

And we'll see you next week. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support, and we would love to hear from you. Email us at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org. Call 1-800-229-9965 or write us at P.O.

Box 29972, Atlanta, Georgia, 30359. When you contact us, we'll send you our gift for this series. It's totally free for listeners like you, one per household while supplies last. You can also subscribe to our show on iTunes or your favorite podcast store and be sure to give us a rating. Just search for Wonderful Words of Life. Follow us on social media for the latest episodes, extended interviews, and more. And if you don't have a church home, we invite you to visit your local Salvation Army worship center. They'll be glad to see you. This is Bernie Dake inviting you to join us next time for the Salvation Army's Wonderful Words of Life.