What readers are saying about my newest book, Blessed Union…
“Thank you for sharing this wonderful book. I love imagining all the important conversations in can start in churches and among couples.” –Elizabeth
“Thank you, Sarah! I hope this is the first of many conversations that wind up strengthening marriage and our commitment to support the marriages in our lives.” –Meg
“This is a brave and encouraging work that will help others on their journeys!!” –Anita
Where to buy my books: My Store • Barnes & Noble • Books-A-Million • Bookshop • Amazon • Chalice Press
Love is Born Again
The red, green, and white holiday stocking hanging by the Christmas tree has two more days left: the twenty-third and the twenty-fourth. Each morning (when I remember) I place a star in a little pocket behind each number, starting at one and going all the way to twenty-four. Today is day twenty-two. This simple ritual…
Rosalynn’s Power
Her power was not only her southern charm and beauty. Her power was not only her faithful honoring of marriage vows and devoted life as a wife. Her power was not only her nurturing mothering and generous love of family. Her power was not only her compassionate heart and keen listening skills. Her power was…
Pray, Play, Pause
We don’t talk enough in the church about this, but the most important charge I can give to you as a pastor is to put your own spiritual life first. Make tending to your spirit your highest priority in ministry. As strange as it may sound, for pastors to make time to tend our souls…
Sabbatical Joy Part II: Rhythms of Joy
In the first part of this series of reflections about our congregation’s sabbatical theme “Joy to the World,” we reflected on “heaven and nature sing.” Joy is an original gift from our Creator. If the sound of wind dancing through the branches of the palm trees is a sound of joy, what, then, is the…
Sabbatical Joy Part I: Heaven and Nature Sing
Yesterday my husband Jonathan and I celebrated our seventeenth wedding anniversary. We are grateful to still be together. Ever since we met one of the things we most enjoy is going on adventures. We met 20 years ago in Minneapolis and in our first two years together we explored Lake Superior, made a road trip…
Sick Pastors
Calling in sick on a Sunday morning isn’t for the faint of heart, especially when the sickness is mental. It takes courage for preachers to admit to themselves and to others that they are not up to the task of sharing the good news. It takes grace for a church to accept that their pastor…
Blessed is the Church
One aspect about myself as a pastor that I cannot change is being human. Though I think about God and share teachings about God, I am not a god. In my two decades as a professional clergy person, I’ve observed that we clergy don’t give ourselves enough grace when it comes to being human, the…
Blessed Yes
Joy is seeing your good friend say “yes” to the dress and know how much hope echoes in each of the of yeses that led to the dress. Wedding dress shopping is an American rite of passage for many women and inspired a hit television reality show, “Say Yes to the Dress.” Another common rite…
Blessed are the Chaplains
You know the saying that cracks are places where the light comes in? But what happens when we are in the crack of pain, fear, and confusion and there’s no light shining in? This past August, as I sat with the news about a possible ovarian cancer diagnosis, I was lost for a moment in…
Blessed Love
Date night with my husband of 16 years this time was extra special. Live music in the park near our home, so close we decided to walk. A beautiful, balmy summer night. I held in my heart a new appreciation of life since hearing the possibility of an ovarian cancer diagnosis up ahead. That night…
Blessed Life
The week after my speech at the Indiana State House in support of reproductive rights at the end of July, I landed in the emergency room with symptoms of severe abdominal pain. The ER doctor referred me to my gynecologist, who then referred me to a specialist for advanced imaging, who then referred me to…
Blessed Body
Listen when your body is telling you something. Pain is a language. It’s your body’s way of communicating. This is the wisdom my doctor gave me back in July, when I called her two days after my speech in support of reproductive rights at the Indiana State House. She said to go to the emergency…
Blessed is She
I may have screamed. I was definitely shouting. But when you are a preacher and you’re wearing a clergy collar leading a crowd in chanting, perhaps what I was really doing was preaching. Can a woman preach without a pulpit? My pulpit was a stage centered on the ground floor of the Indiana State House…
From Chalice Press: Why We’re Publishing “Blessed Youth” and “Blessed Youth Survival Guide”
This was originally posted on Chalice Press, here. Nearly 20 percent of high school students seriously considered attempting suicide last year. Almost 10 percent acted on those thoughts and attempted suicide. These statistics, reported in April by the Center for Disease Control, became part of the life experience of Rev. Dr. Sarah Griffith Lund when her 16-year-old niece…
The Stigma of Suicide
Stigma silences. Stigma shames. Stigma controls. Stigma creates barriers. Stigma isolates. Stigma alienates. Stigma spreads fear. Perhaps nothing in the field of mental health is more stigmatized and misunderstood than suicide. Part of the problem is the stigma itself. Why is it so hard to talk about suicide? As a suicide loss survivor and as…
Blessed Youth
“Sometimes I cry when I am laughing so hard and my sides hurt,” I smile as I talk to my six year old niece. “Yes, tears just start falling out of my eyes!” “It’s the same water that’s in your nose,” she says matter-of-factly. “And sometimes I cry when I am feeling sad or lonely.…
The Beatitudes of the Pastor
1. Blessed is the pastor who embraces simplicity and sharing her lifestyle because her witness gives birth to the realm of heaven. 2. Blessed is the pastor who does not fear to water her face with tears, so that in them can be mirrored the sorrows of the people, the fatigue of the ministries, and…
Mental Health and Spirituality
Mental health encompasses all of who we are in mind, body, and spirit. Yet, too often we talk about mental health as if our brains are detached from our bodies and our souls. This limited understanding led me to wonder what a mental health informed spirituality would look like. Put another way, what can mental…
Mental Health Blessings
Every day this month, in honor of Mental Health Awareness Month, I’ve posted a simple string of words onto my Facebook page with the hashtag Mental Health, “People with ____ are loved by God #MentalHealth.” The response has been overwhelming, with people loving, liking, caring, and sharing with friends. It turns out that many of…
No Words
Sometimes there are no words to describe when the pit of your stomach falls out and your breath catches in your throat. There are no words to describe when you mask all the time except that one time when you couldn’t breathe. The time when in the doctor’s office the mask had to come off…
Tender and Taboo
Talking on the phone with a friend, I closed my eyes to listen. In their story about love, grief, mental illness, and marriage, I heard the sound of hope walking away, like barefoot footsteps waking down the hallway to the bedroom. The problem is that echoes of hope are not enough. The problem is that…
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Where to buy my books: My Store • Barnes & Noble • Books-A-Million • Bookshop • Amazon • Chalice Press
Order Now: Blessed Union: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness and Marriage
Mental illness impacts at least a quarter of all blessed unions. In this new book by the author of Blessed are the Crazy, Sarah Griffith Lund opens up about depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in her own marriage and shares stories of other couples who have been impacted by mental illnesses such as addiction, anxiety, autism spectrum disorder, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, postpartum depression, schizophrenia, suicidality, and more.
Using traditional marriage vows as a framework for the book, Blessed Union explores the challenges of loving in the midst of mental health challenges, why it happens, what we can do about it, and how our faith is connected to mental illness. This book reminds us that we are not alone and invites us to break the silence around marriage and mental illness.
Book includes a guided journal section, with a dozen blank pages and prompts for deeper reflection.
Rev. Dr. Sarah Griffith Lund 