Really?

By:  Lianne Johnson, LPC

I have had the privilege to read and listen to Diane Langberg, Ph.D., on many occasions and have always enjoyed her words.  Diane has been a Psychologist for over 35 years working with trauma survivors and clergy.  Personally, I think she is amazing.

During one of the times I heard her speak she said, "we learn about relationships IN relationships."  This struck me.  Not because of its simplicity, but because of its truth.  If this statement is true, then why are so many of us looking for a book, seminar, or conference to teach us how to have relationships?  Even more so, why do we tend to remove ourselves from relationships when they become hard or tiring?

What if, even in the midst of the unknowns, hardships, and tiring times, we chose to remain?  I suppose if Diane is correct in saying that, "we learn about relationships IN relationships" then as we remain we will learn, grow, and possibly even enjoy.

Gardening and Grief

By: Katy Martin, LPC

I was robbed.

When someone takes something from you, it is a horrible feeling, no? It's a feeling of violation. Someone came too close to you and took something valuable, without taking your feelings or needs into consideration. Or without considering the time and energy you spent to take care of whatever was taken.

For me, it was tomatoes. I walked out to water my garden on Tuesday morning and my tomatoes were GONE. My garden has produced two pea pods and one jalapeno pepper, so my hopes and dreams were hinging on these green, but growing, six whole tomatoes. And now they are gone. A furry creature has taken the fruit of my labor.

So where does grief come in?

In my disappointment about the missing tomatoes, I began to think about a loss of greater impact: loss felt when a loved one dies. (Really, I did.) The loss of a loved one absolutely does not compare in magnitude to my six tomatoes but I think it compares in that we often feel robbed when we lose someone close to us. And this feeling of being robbed is something we don't acknowledge or talk about. We acknowledge the sadness, anger, and so many other feelings of loss. But feeling robbed of this person's presence isn't often something we can anticipate.

We are robbed of our future with this person. We are robbed of that person's role in our life: mother, grandfather, sibling, etc. We are robbed of someone knowing us. We are robbed of what should have been with that person. It's remembered with birthdays, holidays, and life changes. Who was there is now gone, and who they were in our lives has changed to memories. Our own roles change, as well.

And it's easy to feel violated. Angry. Frustrated. And this is often directed towards the person, the circumstances, or towards God. It can result in complicated grief. Grief becomes complicated grief when symptoms of sadness, depression, and hopelessness extend for over a six month period or become more intense or even debilitating over time.

Can you relate? God is not a stranger to these feelings of loss. As He gave His Son on the cross, He experienced the death of a loved one, His child. God experiences loss every day when we choose to not turn towards Him. We can turn to Him. We can share our feelings and memories with those around us. We can turn our sadness into honoring the one we lost. We can pursue counseling to sort out the hurt left behind.

You may feel left behind, robbed, but you are not alone.

My garden may have been robbed, and may appear barren, but a perfect, green, ripe cucumber emerged a few days later. In the midst of sadness and grief, life is still happening even though it may not be what we wanted or what we thought it would look like. Don't give up hope. We can find comfort in Lamentations 3:22-24: “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him."

Every Sorrow

By: Courtney Hollingsworth, PLPC

We work hard to evade pain and suffering. In many ways, we keep from being honest. We fool ourselves, our family, our friends, we even try to fool God. When sorrow, the uninvited visitor, knocks upon our door, we pretend not to hear it. We minimize, diminish, distance, rationalize. How often do you say or think, "It could be worse," or "It's not that bad?" But eventually, all the effort we put into pretending away our suffering begins to fail us; the knocking turns into pounding and the door of our denial comes crashing down.

As pain and healing were married at the cross, Jesus cried out in lament. When we refuse to lament in the midst of our pain, we ignore the cross. We ignore the pain inherent in it and the healing conferred by it. Dan Allender says that a life lived “in the mire of denial is not life at all. If the Lord Jesus came to give life, and life abundant, then a life of pretense involves a clear denial of the gospel, no matter how moral, virtuous, or appealing that life may seem.”

Despite our heart's inclination to hide and deny, it is a gift that God not only already knows about our disappointment, fear, sadness, and thirst, but that he is big enough for us to approach him with it.  And he desires that we do so.  He calls us to offer everything to him.  Every joy and every sorrow.  We can attempt to avoid our suffering, but we will thereby forsake the intimacy with God, and with others, afforded in it.

We work so hard to isolate all of our painful and angry emotions in the dark corners of our hearts. In doing so, we isolate ourselves. No one invited in. No warmth. No light. Restorative living requires us to visit these places of darkness in honesty, to ask others to accompany us there, and to cry out over what we find there. Where do you need to look with honest eyes and cry out for your own suffering? Where in your life and story do you need to remember that your God is big enough for your pain?

Burn Notice and the 130 MPH Perspective

by Jonathan Hart, LPC
My wife and I were watching a recent episode of Burn Notice (#502: "Bloodlines", if you're interested), where the character of Fiona tries to keep a philandering scientist out of trouble.

**While I am trying not to give too much away, there may be spoilers in the next sentence.**
The two of them ended up in a fast car on the highway, with Fiona driving 130 mph with her eyes closed, while the panicking scientist shouted at her when she needed to turn.

I have, in my reckless youth, driven almost that fast, and I can tell you with all sincerity, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. When you're driving 25 or 30 miles an hour, you can look around and enjoy the surroundings a bit. At 130 miles an hour, you must keep your eyes glued intently on the road in front of you, or you will die.  You don't really even have time to check the next lane before you have to move into it because what is coming at you is coming hard and fast. (Did I mention it yet? Do NOT try this at home!)

I am realizing that in a lot of ways, the difficulties and challenges that arise in life are a lot like traveling at excessive speed on the highway.  Trouble is not an enjoyable thing.  It can be draining and often fearful to look at the road that life has you taking, and it seems like trouble loves to stomp on the gas.  The feeling and fear of losing control, spinning, and flipping end-over-end is *not* exhilarating when it comes in the form of a crashing relationship or the brick wall of a crushing diagnosis.

When our lives are relatively trouble-free, we can look around and enjoy the scenery.  We can get distracted by things that are relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things. How green (or brown) the lawn is, what critters are eating the veggies in the garden, that Tommy got a "C" in algebra, who said what and what did they mean by it, all become larger issues and demand more attention than they really deserve.

But trouble demands more of our resources in order to cope.  When the doctor says, "Cancer", the lawn doesn't seem to matter as much anymore.  The word "Divorce" tends to reduce the importance of how many tomatoes we are going to have this year.  We need more of our energy to pay attention to the things that matter.  Communication, study, emotional and mental effort are put toward dealing with the crisis, and the less important things fall by the wayside in a blur.  Trouble has a way of re-setting our priorities, and this can be a good thing.

Another effect of trouble is to force us to realize that, no matter what we have come to believe, we are not in control of our lives. Oh, we can choose our socks and our favorite potato chips and a few other things, but circumstances change regardless of our precautions.  Losing a job or a home or a loved one to disease is not something we generally have a say in.  Our scientist friend in the story above was not driving, he was along for the ride, and the ride was terrifying.  He could shout directions all he wanted, but he was utterly dependent on the skills of the driver.

The wonderful part is that for the believer in Jesus, losing control (or recognizing that control was not ours to begin with) can actually be *comforting*. We can find comfort when we learn that Trouble is not driving, God is.  Paul writes in Philippians that he has learned that the secret to contentment lies in dependence on Jesus:   ^"I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Philippians 4:12-13 (ESV)  


No matter what it feels like, God is not a reckless driver who closes his eyes and waits for us to shout directions. He is, and has been, in charge of our lives and direction from the beginning, and (to push the illustration to its breaking point) he is the best driver there is.

Nothing makes the grinding trouble of this life less terrifying for us, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise: most often, you are perfectly normal when you are afraid of the unknown future.  Jesus tells us not to worry about tomorrow precisely because he knew we would be worried about it.  Knowing that God is driving and that he knows what he is doing gives us a place to go in our fear, a place to be afraid and most importantly, a place to find comfort.

Lest this entire post come off sounding fluffy and trite, please know that dealing with crises in life is not simple, straightforward or easy.  There is no one "answer" or belief that will "fix" the problem or make the hurt and fear go away for good.  This is one piece of what can often be a complex puzzle.  When life accelerates and you feel it in the seat of your pants, find a friend or a counselor who can come along side you, who can help you make sense of your fear, and who can walk with you into the arms of Jesus.  The fear will come and go.  When it comes, keep on taking it to Jesus.  He knows what to do with it.

Moving From Fear To Freedom

By:  Lianne Johnson, LPC

Recently I had the opportunity to speak at Riverside Church’s women’s retreat.  I entitled the retreat, Falling In Love With Our Savior:  Moving from Fear to Freedom.  Over the course of our time together we talked about many things.  In particular, we discussed how our fears rob us of our ability to Fall In Love With Our Savior. 

Do you know what you fear?  It seemed to me, while at the retreat hearing from many of the women, and quite frankly knowing these things to be true in my own life, that all too often we do not even realize we are living out of fear.  It’s like our fears become a part of our identity, and when we operate out of them we don’t even realize it anymore. 

What I am learning is as we live in our fears, and relate to others from our fears, these fears begin to rob us of our ability to hear truth, believe truth, and live from truth.  Therefore, robbing us of our ability to experience what it would be like to Fall In Love With Our Savior. 

What if you chose to begin naming the fears in your life?  What if you chose to no longer allow your fears to rule your heart and mind?  I am not saying that we no longer have fears.  To expect anything different in this lifetime would be folly.  However, I am saying that, as we fear we confidently take these fears to our Savior and place them up against what scripture says.  What if instead of allowing your fears to form your identity, you choose to strive to have truth define your identity?

Desiring to be set free from our fears begins with believing, and living as though you believe, who God has named you to be is indeed true!

You are a son or daughter of the King.  You are His beloved.  You are cherished.  You are safe.  You are accepted and loved as you are.  You are pursued.    He desires you just as you are.