The Counsel of the Lord

This third counselor I encountered was different, much more confident, to say the least, in her role as my therapist.  She challenged me often, after I had asked for that in our first session, and refused to let me think of her as “just another counselor”.  She always maintained that we had a truly organic relationship, that it wasn’t contrived or constructed.

I went to the Passion conference in Atlanta this year, an amazing three days of worship and speakers for college-age students.  While I was there the Lord showed me some amazing things and really reassured me in the path I was on.  I remember that week I went to see my counselor and shared one revelation in particular.  I told her that I had been so excited to get that word but that I was at a loss as to who in my life I could share it with. She replied with a big smile, “You can share it with me!”  I saw in that moment a big part of the value of counseling.

Our last two sessions I talked a lot about how I was frustrated with counseling and that the relationship obviously didn’t mean much because it wasn’t like we would ever really get to talk again.  I said what kind of relationship is it that I just come in here and pour out myself and get to know nothing of her.  She said she was a little bit hurt that I would say the relationship didn’t mean anything, because she had poured a lot of herself into it and she did care about me, and hadn’t I grown a lot in those six or seven weeks.

I came home this summer knowing I wanted to go it without seeking out a formal counseling relationship.  Over the past few weeks especially, I’ve experienced the stress of change and have begun to fall back on the familiar pattern of letting my thoughts and emotions rattle around in my head.  Then God provides someone close to me, usually over a meal, who is ready to listen to the thoughts and emotions I was beginning to think I could share with nobody.  So often, to deal with the things that are plaguing us we need only to be able to lay them out on the table and get a view that’s a bit more objective.  Take out the fear, guilt, apprehension, or any other mitigating emotion and you can get a clear perspective on what’s happening in your life. 

I think this is the relationship God desires with us.  He wants us to run to him with our heart and let Him help us sort it out.  He knows it’s hard to sit in the living room and talk to a really big God who is all but invisible in our earthly world, so he places friends and family in our life who can help us sort it out.  Sometimes, when we believe the devil’s lie that those friends and family don’t exist, He even provides counselors.  He really only wants us to know that we’re not alone.  He wants us to know that we don’t have to carry the burden of life all alone – it’s not how we were created to be!

One of the devil’s most devastating lies is that we are alone.  That there is nobody who cares, nobody who wants to listen.  When I sat in Ashley’s office in that second-to-last counseling session and told her that it was obvious to me that our relationship wasn’t real I could tell I was hurting her and I even felt like the words I was speaking weren’t really true.  Still they were lies I wanted to believe because it made the end of that relationship easier. 

Being real and vulnerable before friends, family, and God may not be easy.  There are a lot of times when keeping it all bottled up may seem really attractive.  But the short-term benefit leads us to a place where we really do believe that God has given us nobody who understands, nobody who can empathize.  And that’s a lie.  It’s a lie that cuts us off from the people around us and cuts us off from God.