Mental Health: I Am Restored by Lecrae

Show Notes

Promo: Making Time

You have the same 24 hours in your day as the most accomplished people in the world. So why doesn't it feel that way? Follow along on this special 6 episode series as we take a look at how to make more time. By following biblical principles and taking a look at what you really want, Making Time shares the secret to having all the time you need... with a little help from some friends.

Learn more and download group guides at https://lumivoz.com/making-time/

For questions, comments, or sharing your tips on how to make more time, reach out to [e-mail]

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Grammy-winning hip-hop artist Lecrae suffered a breakdown from the buried impact of unhealed trauma. Hear his story, and join him in the studio for the recording of his biographical song, “Restore Me.”

 

Watch the video of Session One (the podcast airs Session Three)

Get information on the Study Guide 

 

Study Gateway is a streaming video Bible study service that gives instant access to video studies taught by hundreds of the world's most influential Christian authors, teachers and pastors, published HarperChristian Resources. Subscriptions plans are available for personal use, for small groups, and for whole churches. Learn more at StudyGateway.com.

Creators & Guests

Guest

Lecrae

A multi Grammy Award–winning platinum-selling artist, Lecrae has evolved into a New York Times bestselling author, entrepreneur, speaker, thought leader, philanthropist, and co-owner/president of Reach Records. To date, he has sold more than three million copies and has been nominated for five Grammy Awards including a win for Best Gospel Album, 15 Dove Awards, one Billboard Music Award, and has received both a Soul Train Music Award and BET Hip Hop Award nomination. From his 2017 album, All Things Work Together, his single “I’ll Find You” ft. Tori Kelly is now certified platinum by the RIAA (sold over one million copies), and “Blessings” ft. Ty Dolla $ign is now gold (sold over 500k). In addition to his new book, I Am Restored, Lecrae will release a new album, Restoration, and documentary in 2020. Lecrae resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife and three children.

What is Study Gateway First Listens?

Study Gateway's First Listens: Find your next Bible study! Join host Shelley Leith as she curates first sessions of Bible studies on various themes each season, taught by some of the world’s most influential Christian authors, teachers, and pastors. To learn more, visit https://StudyGateway.com.

First Listens Season 2: Episode 7
I Am Restored
By Lecrae

[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY LEITH: Welcome to Study Gateway’s First Listens, here you get first listens of the first sessions on Study Gateway so you can find your next video Bible study.

Hi there! I’m your host, Shelley Leith, and we’re on the final episode of Season 2, where we’ve been focusing in on our mental health. I’ve brought you sessions from Bible studies that deal with different aspects of mental health. We’ve heard from Chris Hodges on depression in Out of the Cave, Karen Ehman on people-pleasing in When Making Others Happy Makes You Miserable, Pete Scazzero on emotional un-healthiness in Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, Rebekah Lyons on anxiety in Rhythms of Renewal, Gary Thomas on toxic people in When to Walk Away, and last week was Jennie Allen on thinking spirals from Get Out of Your Head. These respected pastors and authors have all published their studies with HarperChristian Resources, and we stream their videos on Study Gateway. Once you have the taste of these first sessions, you’ll be saying – I’ve gotta have more of that one! And you’ll be able to choose what you’re going to study next!

Our final episode in this season is from I Am Restored by Lecrae. When we’re talking about a subject like mental health, I can’t exactly say I’ve saved the best for last. It’s more like I’ve saved the most severe, the most raw for last. Lecrae is a grammy winning hip-hop artist who basically suffered a breakdown from the buried impact of unhealed trauma. In this episode, Lecrae is telling the story of that breakdown, and that’s interspersed with scenes where you’ll hear him going into the recording studio, talking with his friend and sound engineer Jacob ‘Biz’ Morris, and recording the song that tells this story, called Restore Me. So let’s tune into Session Three of I Am Restored, called “Discovering Hope.”

[MUSIC PLAYING]
LECRAE: In this politically charged environment, in this racially charged environment, in this faith crisis that I'm having, I am mentally and emotionally stressed out. And it is increasing by the day unbeknownst to me. And it's all leading toward a moment when my emotional and mental health said, I've had it. And that was the beginning of the new me.

[MUSIC PLAYING]
So let me know when I need to go record.
JACOB 'BIZ' MORRIS: You are good to go. We're set up. We just need to get a mic level, but you can do it in there.
LECRAE: So go in there?
JACOB: Yeah, that's great. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. A. A. A. A. Yay. Yay. Yay. Yay. Two. Two. Two. Two. Two. Check. Check. Check. Check.
LECRAE: All right, I'm ready, bro.

[MUSIC PLAYING]
At the height of my career, a lot of amazing things are happening. I've got a top 10 radio single, features with some of the biggest artists in the world. And I'm not really processing the spiritual realities. I'm just going with the flow. There are days where I feel like maybe I should pray or do something. And then there are days where I'm just confused about who God is and where he's at. And so I don't feel like trying.

You know, I remember a particular moment where I'm standing in front of 75,000 people, and they're all singing my songs, and I'm just thinking to myself, what is this all for? And I remember it being so difficult to process and so weighty for my mind to wrestle with that I just decided it's easier to pop some pills and get drunk than to think about what all this means.

And there was a season where I would not explicitly talk about God. I would say things that were positive, but they may not be explicitly Christian. It was a crushing weight of guilt and shame. I felt like a fraud. I felt like, how could I, who was in doubt, and kind of living how I saw fit, tell somebody else what they should do and what they shouldn't do? I couldn't do that with a clear conscience.
I was wrestling with what all of this means, being in the spotlight and having all these people in front of me. All I could think of was that I definitely wanted nothing else to do with the music industry.

(SINGING) I've been trying not to go off the deep end.

The song is called "Restore Me." But it's just me going through the process. You know, when you're talking about I lost everything I had inside a couple of years. It's walking people through this whole journey that I was on. You know, oh, my God, I feel dead inside. I feel like suicide. Gone too far to turn back. And that's how I felt. I've gone too far to turn back now, I'll just forget it.

The conviction of the guilt of just existing and not living purposefully was weighing on my soul. Not being able to talk to my friends and family about my inner turmoil was weighing on my soul. I thought it was something I could just shake off. I didn't know the medical realities around it. I didn't realize that it was the beginning of a bigger problem that was going to show up in my life.

My wife and I made the decision to shut everything down for a couple of months, and we went to Mexico. And I thought it would be healthy for us to have some time together, it would be healthy for my mind, my soul. I wasn't sleeping well. And when you're dealing with acute anxiety, it's hard to get any sleep because your brain is constantly turning and turning and turning.

I checked with "Dr. Google" and found some information about staying up 24 hours can reset your sleep cycle, so I decided before I get to Mexico I was going to stay up for 24 hours. What I didn't know was that lack of sleep and anxiety, especially acute anxiety, are arch enemies.

The morning we're getting in the car heading to the airport, I'm just feeling really out of sorts, not just tired, but jittery, shaky. If I would hear a car horn, I'd jump, like my anxiety was really rising up. I had stiffness going on in my neck, in my back, and had a bad headache.

And then by the time we got to the airport, I experienced what people would call disreality, where it feels as if you're outside of your own body and you are just really like, I don't know what's happening. I hear voices, but they're not talking to me. I hear sounds, but are they in my ears or am I over here or am I right here? It is the scariest experience that I can articulate to you.

And so I'm literally sitting in the airport waiting on the flight and I'm telling my wife, I don't think I can do this. I don't think I can get on this plane. I'm scared. I'm panicked. I don't-- I don't-- I'm scared. There's people around me now. I'm now agoraphobic. I can't deal with people around me, you know. And everything I would see would freak me out and have me thinking the plane might crash or have me thinking that I'm losing my mind, I'm going crazy.

We get to Mexico and the room has an insect problem. And I'm just feeling like it's a spiritual reality, now I'm under attack and everything's going haywire. And then I just had a complete breakdown, a complete panic attack sitting in that hotel room. I looked normal. My wife had never experienced that before, so she to her I look normal, I look fine.

But internally, I wanted to jump out of the window. I wanted God to just take me home. That's how scared and freaked out and just in turmoil I was. And I had been up at least 35 hours by this time. And I'm thinking to myself, I want to end my life right now because I can't take this.

I remember laying in the bed and putting on a sermon and it's talking about Jonah and the whale. And I remember praying and just saying, God, please help me. And I look out the window and I see water from the ocean going up. I realize it's a whale.

I'm in tears because I just-- I can't believe the reality that I'm living in. And I walk outside and I'm just praying, I'm saying, God, help me. And it was in that moment that I felt God saying to me, Lecrae, I'm with you in this moment right now. As painful as it is, as terrifying as it is. I'm with you. And it was as if that whale was evidence of his reality. It was if that sermon was evidence that he's walking with me in the worst time period. In the lowest time period, it was as if he was with me in and through all of that.
We're sitting in the room and we get a knock at the door and they say we have a new room for you with no insect problems. And they said complimentary for everything that's happened, here is a gift basket for you. And in that gift basket was a stuffed whale. And I just broke. I just broke down and cried and that stuffed whale is on my shelf to this very day.

[MUSIC PLAYING]
SHELLEY LEITH: I’m sure you can tell by now that this is not your typical Bible study. Lecrae is basically opening himself up and letting us see into the darkest parts of his soul and his journey. I’m so proud that we have his study on Study Gateway. Just last month, in November of 2022, we gathered all the studies and sermon series we have produced over the years by Black authors and pastors and teachers, and created a collection called Black Voices. You’ll find Black Voices on Study Gateway. Study Gateway is a streaming video service, and we’re the only one that has a subscription plan especially for small groups. For our First Listens listeners, we are offering an exclusive rate on our small group plan. When you use the promo code FIRST at studygateway.com, you’ll get a small group plan for up to 20 people for only $15.99/month, a 20% savings. And, for a complete experience with I Am Restored, take advantage of our publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide designed to be used with the videos. You’ll get key quotes from the video, a guided Bible study on a character in Scripture who dealt with the same kinds of problems that Lacrae experienced, and personal Bible study and reflection exercises to do between sessions to help you apply this to your own life. Get all the details at Studygateway.com.
And now, back to Lacrae.

[MUSIC PLAYING]
When I was in a dark place, I didn't realize people could tell. We were-- we had a session in California. He was like, man, this is a healthy you.
JACOB: Yeah, I was.
LECRAE: I was like, what, like you could see the difference. I don't know, what was the difference?
JACOB: Your attitude towards life probably. There was a twist, like in 2019. Like whenever you came back from the Egypt trip, that was real. You could just tell you're getting better, like you're getting fed. You're on a new sort of path.
LECRAE: That's what's wild is sometimes you don't know your health or un-health is affecting other people.

Oftentimes we're afraid to reveal what we're dealing with, what we're wrestling with, how we failed, because we feel like people are going to reject us. And I thought that. I thought I'd be rejected. That was my greatest fear to be rejected by my friends to, be rejected by my wife. But what I found is that there's freedom in confession and there's suffering in suppression.

And once I was able to just say, here's where my life is, man, they rallied around me. Of course, there's some pain. Of course, it's not just all roses immediately. But some people are not concerned with fixing you. They just want to face you. They just want to see you and walk with you and help you heal.
The awesome thing about my friends during my mental crisis was that they were just there. They didn't have all the right answers. They didn't know how to fix anything. But they were there. If I said, I want to read this book, I think it might help me, they'd read it with me. If I said, I just feel down, they wouldn't say, no, let's not feel down, let's feel awesome. They would just say, well, let's go for a walk, and just walk with me.

My friend Adam was very sympathetic. And he said, man, I'm just sad that you've had to battle all of this alone. I wish you would have let me know so I could walk with you through this. Having someone there with you just to talk with you, just to be with you, just the process with you is the greatest thing ever. And I'm grateful that I have friends to do that. And if anybody has a friend going through mental illness, the best thing they could do is to just be there.

It's sad that we're not leading in these discussions. You know, when you start researching anxiety or depression, it's generally kind of groups outside of Christian thought. And their solutions, though they are backed with science, are not always healthy because there's not an eternal hope and there's not a greater power telling a grander narrative that your anxiety or depression is used in. And so you're just left with this sense of hopelessness that you just have to now figure out a way to cope and manage it.
In order to heal, you've got to have hope. And in order to have hope, you've got to put yourself in the position to hear from God consistently because he is our hope. And so if you're running from God, you're not going to hear from him. In Jeremiah 29:11, we know God says, "I know the plans that I have for you, plans for a future and a hope."

But he gave those plans to a group of people who were in pain. So that promise came along with pain. There's a reality that they had to face that they were going to be in captivity for 70 years. It didn't mean God wasn't going to use that. It just meant that they had to hope in that promise that was coming. And if they were not spending time with God or God's people or focused on the reality of this divine, good, and loving God, they would forget that there's a promise on the end of this pain.

And so for us to make it through the pain, we've got to hold on to the promise. But in order to hold onto the promise, you've got to spend time with the promise keeper.

[MUSIC PLAYING - LECRAE, "RESTORE ME"]
(SINGING)
I lost everything I had inside a couple years
Lost my faith, I lost my mind, I lost a lot of tears
I spoke up about these problems that I saw outside
People turned they back on me
You woulda swore I died
Molested, abused, abandoned
Arrested, accused and stranded
I grew up with all this trauma
It's nothing, forget it happened
Ten years later it show up
Life is starting to blow up
Faith is starting to crumble
These critics starting to mumble
Oh my God, I feel dead inside
Feel like suicide
Gone too far to turn back
He said, "Boy, you tellin' lies"
It's deep inside these trenches of the Devil's lair
They say, "How you get up out?"
I just said, "A prayer"
Use all this pain, use all this hurt to grow me
If that's what it takes to know what I'm worth
Restore me, yeah, yeah
Use all this pain, use all this hurt to grow me, yeah
If that's what it takes to know what I'm worth
Restore me
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Alex Medina / Le Crae Devaughn Moore / Lasanna Harris / Raymond Castro / Taylor Drevan Hill / David James Miller
Restore Me lyrics © Notting Hill Music (uk) Ltd., Hillshop Music Publishing, Gocrae Music, Young Beloved, Alex Medina Publishing

Let me listen to it from the top. I mean, let me hear back. The time in Mexico was time for me to sit still, to sit still to be reoriented, and to just focus on who God was and who he wanted me to be.

I remember just hearing about Samson and thinking like if God can use this man in his final hours after all the chaos that he did, why can't God use me? And it was just helpful and healthy for me to sit still, to look out on the ocean, to reimagine what life could look like.

It just gave me time to not chase after selfish ambition, to not have to be on, to be perfect, to be right, to make the good song, to make the appearance. I just got to be. I got to be God's child. So after all of the chaos that I'd experienced, this sabbatical was the opportunity for me to start rebuilding. I had to let everything go. I had to embrace a new reality, but I was not aware of how much it will cost me.

[MUSIC PLAYING]
Well, Lacrea left us with a cliffhanger! If you want to hear the rest of the story, you’ll have to subscribe to Study Gateway and watch I Am Restored, by Lacrae. You can get the lyrics to “Restore Me” in the transcript of this episode. I Am Restored is published by HarperChristian Resources and streaming on Study Gateway. Here at Study Gateway you can find your favorite authors, pastors and Bible teachers, all in one place. We’re the only streaming video subscription service that offers a small group-sized plan, AND has user-based pricing for churches, no matter what the size. And don’t forget, you can use the promo code FIRST to get a 20% savings on a small group plan. What does 20% mean to your pocketbook? It means you’re going to save $4/month, so instead of $19.99/month, you’ll pay only 15.99/month for your entire small group of up to 20 people, which works out to only 80 cents per person per month!

With Study Gateway, you also get a direct link to our store, where you get publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide for I Am Restored; You’ll get key quotes from the video, a guided Bible study on a character in Scripture who dealt with the same kinds of problems that Lacrae experienced, and personal Bible study and reflection exercises to do between sessions to help you apply this to your own life. Is I Am Restored going to be your next study? Get started right now by going to studygateway.com, click start free trial, choose the monthly small group plan, and use the promo code FIRST.

Well that wraps up Season 2 of First Listens! Come back next week for the start of Season 3, where we’re going to hear from studies on your favorite Bible passages. We’ll cover passages like Jeremiah 29:11, the promises of God, the Fruit of the Spirit, the Armor of God, and more. Make sure you rate and review this podcast so other people can find this show too. See you next time on Study Gateway’s First Listens.
[MUSIC PLAYING]