You're Not Finished: Using Stories of Survival to Save Lives

By Brittany Franklin

You're Not Finished: Using Stories of Survival to Save Lives is an 8-day devotional for anyone who needs inspiration and encouragement in the midst of mental distress and/or suicidal ideation. Through stories from the Bible, author and founder of You're Not Finished Brittany Franklin shares how the Word d

• Language: English
• Publisher: You're Not Finished
• Release date: Jun 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088166536

Brittany Franklin

Brittany Franklin is a graduate of Azusa Pacific University and the founder of You're Not Finished®, a podcast, website, and organization that provides mental health support, encouragement, and resources. For more information, visit www.yourenotfinished.com.

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Introduction

Anyone who has ever been in school knows how difficult it is to write an introduction, so bear with me as I try to introduce myself and why it matters that I’m the person that God instructed to write a devotional. Cause He could have chosen anyone else, a more well-known writer maybe, but He chose an introverted, socially awkward, clinically depressed, and anxious… redeemed African-American woman to try to encourage you through His word how God feels about mental health and well-being.

I could have said no, but the cost of my disobedience would have probably been my life.

I was formally diagnosed with major depressive and anxiety disorders following a second suicide attempt in September 2011 at the age of 25, and spent just under two weeks in a mental health hospital. My first attempt was in 2009. Any Christian in my circle of influence or community I was surrounded by believed I didn’t have a reason to be suicidal or that if I was, it was because I wasn’t praying enough or spending enough time with God (which is funny because, at the time, I was heavily involved in ministry).

Before that, I had dropped out of college during my senior year in 2008 because my environment fueled my alcoholism. I wanted to come home to re-dedicate my life to God (gotta love Christianese), focus on the relationship with my then-boyfriend, and start a ministry for young adults at the church I grew up in.

So I did all of that. Engaged in a primarily works-based relationship with God and my peers while remaining a depressed and anxious alcoholic in a less-than-ideal romantic relationship that should have never begun in the first place. Initially, I couldn’t tell anyone why I kept going to the front of the church for altar call every Sunday because I knew that when I did it would become a source of gossip instead of grounds for prayer. When I finally did open up about the depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation I was experiencing it was met with assessments about my relationship with God, as I mentioned earlier.

Family was not really a safe space either, unfortunately. Some who read this may know about the mental health stigma that exists within the Black community all too well. Stigma in communities of color and stigma within the church are still prevalent to this day but were much worse back then. Since I dealt with that double whammy with no known place of solace, I left the church (but not the faith) temporarily in 2009, a few months after my first suicide attempt.

In the aftermath of my