When it comes to mental health, Pastor Carl Frederick Hill, who is the author of Cast Your Anxiety on God, has been to some dark spaces, but he knows he’s not alone. The United States is experiencing a mental health crisis, with suicide being the eleventh cause of death overall. When you break that down by demographic, men account for over 75% of suicides, with Black men being heavily impacted, and it continues to rise at an alarming rate.
For Hill, it took having a panic attack and a mental breakdown to start him on his current path of bridging faith with mental health awareness, for himself, and in his messaging as a pastor. He wants people, especially Black men, to know they don’t have to suffer in silence.
“My mental health advocacy came as a result of a conflict between my consciousness and the religious landscape,” the Alabama native explains to AURN. “It was a Wednesday night at Church in May 2012. I was teaching Bible study and I had an anxiety attack, but I didn’t know what it was. It just felt like I was about to die.”
Hill subsequently ended up in the hospital for three days. That ironically became the source of more angst because he was conflicted due to his religious views.
“In this moment I’m like, ‘You’re a preacher, something is wrong with your relationship with God if you’re battling with your mental health. God keeps your mind in perfect peace if your mind stays on him’…I was praying my a– off, and I’m like, nothing is changing.”
It wasn’t until December 2017, during another hospitalization, this time for 11 days, due to a mental breakdown and an anxiety attack, when Hill’s advocacy began after a follow-up appointment with his therapist.
“I know I heard from God in my therapist’s office, and so it’s hard for me to believe that If we have this omniscient model of God, and this omnipresent model of God, that means God is not limited or constricted to our confines of worshiping God in places that are comfortable for us,” says Hill. “I can hear from God in my psychiatrist’s office. I can hear from God in the hospital so I can take care of my mental health…if we can go to the doctor and pray that God touches the doctor, we can go to the therapist and pray that God touches the therapist as well. That’s the backdrop of my ministry walk, my mental health advocacy.”
Hill’s book, Cast All Your Anxiety on God, is a 30 day Christian devotional for journeying through anxiety via journaling. It doesn’t replace therapy, but the purpose of the tome is to provide spiritual centering through prompts that encourage people to think about positive aspects of what’s going on in their lives.
It was born from a rough patch in Hill’s life. He had just finalized a divorce last year, and was experiencing grief. He was also in a rough place with his mom, and was reminded of that one day while sitting alone in a restaurant on Mother’s Day ‘23.
“I had a conversation with a pastor friend of mine and the idea of the book came from him,” says Hill. “In that conversation he was like, there is literally a scripture that’s dealing with anxiety contextually, because Paul is in prison. Nobody looks at Paul from the idea of his mental wellness, which he clearly lays out in so many passages. I found those passages and said, ‘How do I feel? What do I need to start my day if I’m battling with my own mental health?’ and that’s how I came up with those 30 days of different scenarios.”
Writing Cast All Your Anxiety on God saved Hill’s life, and hopefully it’s a blessing that will be paid forward to anyone who feels alone in their battles.
“The impact that I would like for my book to have is always in community because anxiety, depression and so many of the different mental health moments cause us to feel isolated, and you’re never by yourself,” says Hill. “Someone feels exactly how you feel. Even in the moments we are considering suicide, there’s someone else that feels the same way. But if we can find a point of connectivity, then we can help glean from one another in trying to make it through it.”
