In this live event recording, the counselors answer questions submitted by our podcast audience, including how to move forward from emotional trauma experiences, how to navigate emotional complexity in intense seasons of grief, and how to engage our emotional curiosity to benefit ourselves and others.
In this live event recording, the counselors answer questions submitted by our podcast audience, including how to move forward from emotional trauma experiences, how to navigate emotional complexity in intense seasons of grief, and how to engage our emotional curiosity to benefit ourselves and others.
Thank you for joining us for Season 1 of More To It!
Presented by The Austin Stone Institute and Austin Stone Counseling
Podcast Production Team
Producer & Host: Lindsay Funkhouser
Content Experts: Shanda Anderson, LPC-S; Brittany Beltran, LPC; Andrew Dealy, LPC
Technical Producer: Aaron Campbell
Podcast Art: Stephen Mancha
Podcast Music: Matt Graham
Lindsay: This is the live Q&A event for the Reframing Emotions podcast. Thank you so much for coming to join us today.
I'm Lindsay Funkhouser. I'm going to be your host tonight. I work for The Austin Stone Institute team. Super excited to have our counselors here again with us live in person.
We recorded all these episodes that you listened to in a very small dark studio. So it's really nice to all be out here together with you and just share this, instead of all of us just stuck in a small dark studio. So, really excited we get to do this live. I'm going to have our counselors introduce themselves, then we're going to get into it. So Shanda, you want to kick us off?
Shanda: Yeah, good evening. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to come and hang out with us tonight. It's a delight to be here with you.
My name is Shanda Anderson. I am the Clinical Director at The Austin Stone [Counseling Center]. I get to supervise a lot of LPC associates, and it is my joy and delight to be a part of equipping the church through the Equipped to Counsel class that we offer, every September to May.
And I am just thrilled to get to have a job that allows me to bring the clinical skills, that I'm licensed through the state of Texas. But my heart is discipleship and my heart is bringing the Word of God to the lives of people and helping people grow in the grace of knowledge of who God is. And so getting to do that, every day, is just a humbling reality, and [I’m] thankful for the opportunity to do it.
Brittany: Hi, my name is Brittany Beltran. I am the Counseling Center’s office manager. So I help just make sure things are running behind the scenes, that our counselors and our clients have everything they need. And then I'm also a licensed professional counselor (LPC), so I see clients as well. And I'm really glad that y'all are all here.
Andrew: Andrew Dealey, Executive Director of The Austin Stone Counseling Center, Director of SoulCare for The Austin Stone Community Church, and then licensed professional counselor as well, although I don't usually act like it. And so, just thrilled to have y’all here tonight, to be a part of this with us. It's been a journey. This is a bigger black room than where we started. So we're heading up.
Lindsay: Very true. Andrew, I'm actually going to kick it back over to you, because in our first episode where we were trying to set up our framework for understanding emotions, you mentioned, it's helpful to look at emotions as road signs. Can you walk us through a little bit more about [that]? What are some of those pitfalls we might fall into, and how can those road signs help us navigate life?
Andrew: Yeah. So I think, first episode, which feels like years ago, like years of our life ago, we did that episode. When we're thinking about emotions, there's really three R’s that we calibrate around.
There's the “r” of being ruled by emotions. So we let emotions just direct and tell us what to do. Like the emotions are the decisive factor on how we decide to respond to situations, how we decide to just interact with people in life.
The other “r” on the other side of the pendulum here is to reject. Where we treat emotions as useless, not helpful, maybe even weakness. And so we just kind of shut down our emotions and ignore them.
The hope is that we'd receive them, we'd receive emotions as helpful information. This is where the road sign analogy comes in. That even with the spectrum of emotions that are there, and as we receive them as helpful information, to help us understand how we're responding to our current circumstances.
There's variation within those emotions. There's some emotions that are like speed limit signs, that are kind of warning emotions that say, “Hey, here's as fast as you really should go.” And if you cross that threshold, it's a little bit dangerous to go beyond that.
There's emotions that are more like “here's the distance to the next exit.” If you want to get off here, it's a great idea to get off here.
And then there are more emotions which you talked about, flight or fight, and all that stuff that are more like merge signs. It's like the construction zone, where you have no option. Like your brain has decided you will go in this lane, and you will respond in this way.
And so in many ways we want to receive our emotions as information in those moments. We want to learn from them, because we bear the image of a God who's emotional. He was the first feeler. We bear His image. Those emotions are significant. They're not meant to be rejected. And they're not meant to rule what we do.
Lindsay: That's really helpful. Thank you. We have another kind of overall processing question that I think might be helpful to set the stage. And that is, in your experience, what is the most common hurdle to one's own emotional and spiritual development? Is there something that consistently might trip us up as we're trying to navigate emotions?
Shanda: I'll kick us off in the conversation and be super general and broad. A catchall category of self is our own selves. I think in the humble, honest recognition that I am my own worst problem, that dealing with my own heart in some form of shame or pride or insecurity or some self-deception or spiritual blindness, that I am in need of the Holy Spirit to help enlighten the eyes of my heart, strengthen me in the inner being. That the Spirit is dwelling within me to help me navigate the broken world, according to the truth of God, that is offering us a path of freedom, a path of identity that is secure and rooted and grounded and established. That I would be able to operate with the glory of God as the central most important aspect in my life. That's our aim every time.
And there's a million different ways that that can manifest. And obviously there's the sin within, there's the challenge within me. And then there's the challenge outside of me. There's the sin of others in the broken world that we’re navigating. And so the hurdles are endless, but the opportunity, I think, for hope and being able to walk in the grace that God has given us in Jesus Christ, is what we're looking for.
Andrew: The ability to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel in all circumstances. Yes. I mean, the three R's I think play into that question as well. But the word I'd add in there is curiosity. I think there's a lack of curiosity in the way that we respond to our emotions.
And again, we tend to fall into the two R's. With the lack of curiosity, we can be ruled by them because we don't kind of interrogate or question our emotions. We just let them run the show. Or with the lack of curiosity, again, we just treat our emotions as unhelpful or disconnected from our reality. With a proper heart of humble curiosity, as these things happen, as we feel different emotions, again, trusting God is sovereign. He knows He's enabled us to feel these things. With a humble curiosity, we can explore, “Okay, why am I feeling this in the here and now?”
I think the greatest saboteur to that reality would be shame, where shame creeps in. And instead of being curious about, “Hey, I feel angry right now.” And my first thought is, “Well, God doesn't want me to be angry. How embarrassing. I must be lacking in faith.” That'll shut down the process.
But if instead, in that moment, “I feel angry right now.” And our next thought is, “Okay, Lord, You're active in this. You know there's something in this for me to understand, to receive if we can lean into curiosity.”
And I think we can grow quite a bit in terms of understanding those dynamics. And even in our relationship with the Lord, our relationship with the Lord then becomes more diversified in our emotional experience. That we don't only interact with God when we're happy. We interact with God when we're sad and when we feel shameful and when we feel angry, because He already knows. And He wants to interact with us in those times. And so I think healthy curiosity can help us stay on a track that's helpful.
Lindsay: I love that concept of emotional curiosity. I was introduced to that during this podcast, by these three, and that's been something that's really stuck with me as I try to not run away from the emotions that feel uncomfortable or scare me and not lean in too much.
Brittany made an excellent point in our, I think, our last episode about not becoming too introspective, and getting lost in our own heads. And I think balancing that as we navigate [emotions] is really helpful. So thanks for that new term.
One more kind of framework question before we move into the nitty gritty, a real softball here. Are emotions sin? We've gotten this question a lot over the course of the podcast.
Andrew: Okay. In the Greek sin means to miss the mark. So if we're running with that definition, can our emotions miss the mark of what's happening? In a sense, yes. I would personally still hold to, I, I would not put them in a moral category. Because again, the emotion is merely a sign of the narrative that's beneath it.
If the sin is happening, the sin is usually happening at the narrative level. Meaning, the story that we're telling ourselves about our situation, that's presenting a particular emotion. The emotion of anxiety is not really the sin. The emotion of anxiety is really the sign or the flag that's saying, “No, you're wrestling right now with the situation that feels beyond your control.” And more likely than not, you've left God out of the equation.
That's where we would wrestle with the sin in there. If we bow to the anxiety then, if we let anxiety rule us, that would be the other side of moving into sin where we're like, “Okay, anxiety is going to then control my behavior.”
If I feel out of control, or I feel like I can't handle this situation even though the Lord might say, “No, you are able to step forward in faith,” and I let anxiety cut me off from that, then we'd be stepping into sin. But generally my, my push is for again, emotions to be treated, not as sin, but as road signs, as symptoms, as information.
Because if we stop at the emotion as sin—so I just need to stop feeling anxiety. We're not getting to the proper level of where the work needs to be done, like where we're just like, “Oh, I should stop being angry, so I'm just going to focus on not being angry.” That tends not to work because we're not addressing the underlying [narrative] current. That's feeding that fire of anger. The anger is the smoke. But there's a fire of a narrative beneath that that we need to work through.
Shanda: And to build on that, one of the ways that I often talk about being curious about these emotional realities are felt experiences that kind of fall in the category of temptation, right? You feel a temptation which can be an emotion.
In the verse, in your anger do not sin (Ephesians 4:26), it's like it is somehow possible to have this temptation and have an emotional experience and let it not give way to sin. Because emotion can move you toward sinful behavior, sinful action. But where that begins is an opportunity to engage with the Lord and to kind of stop, and, if we're able to, by God's grace, pause and ask, “What is God doing here? Or what might God be teaching me here? What can I filter this emotion that I'm experiencing through [so] that I can honor the Lord in the midst of whatever disruption or dysregulation or challenging experience that I'm facing in that moment?”
But there is a way to walk with God in an honoring and righteous way while we're feeling the broken realities of the disruption and the emotion that comes with that of walking in a broken world. So seeing it, I think, in that perspective is helpful.
Lindsay: I think that's one of the main narratives that a lot of us come up against, that we learned maybe early in life, that either all emotion was sin or emotion was never sin. And I think it can be hard to navigate your faith alongside trying to learn about emotions. So [I] really appreciate that clarity.
I want to move now into some questions about navigating the difficulty of emotions and that complexity that you just set up for us. What are some ways to remain emotionally and spiritually healthy while encountering hardship in life, especially when those hardships are compounded? For instance, going through a divorce while also experiencing the death of a loved one.
Shanda: I'm happy to start us off again, but I feel like I'm talking a lot. So I mean, we're talking about compounding life experience, where there are times where it feels like there's an avalanche of circumstance that is complicating our ability to kind of steady our souls and find a path forward with the Lord that's going to give us the grace to process in a helpful way. So, I mean, if there are layers of grief, I think one of the things that Andrew mentioned in the podcast—that grief is productive. One of the lies the enemy would try to tell us [is] that it's unproductive or it's not helpful to lament or to just cry out to God, “Help me in this.”
It feels like too much, or to be honest in the wrestling with God: I don't like what is happening here with death and divorce. There's brokenness. God hates these things. And yet the world is beset with these weaknesses that we have to navigate. And so I think, just in that childlike faith, seeing God as a good father and asking for the faith to believe His goodness in the midst of where the brokenness is thrashing the soul.
That's a lot to manage. And just, to not minimize it and push it aside, but to face it slowly and steadily with an honest and a contrite heart that is just willing to say, “God, where are You? What are You doing? Help me, teach me to walk by faith in this moment. Teach me to remember who You are that is defining who I am.”
When everything around me is, like, taking me under, it feels like I'm disoriented. My experience of being asked to walk through certain hardships, that's where we need the people of God around us. To believe on my behalf what I can't believe sometimes, in those moments where I'm so disoriented and so overwhelmed by the difficulties and, and the suffering of life.
This is where the Christian life alone is offering a theology of suffering. That there's something happening, that I am somehow being conformed into the image of Christ when He is working all things together for good. He does not call divorce and death good, but somehow, in a supernatural grace, He can conform and bring us into the likeness of Christ through those experiences. Which does not make those easy. But I get to wrestle with a God who is at work in the midst of suffering, which helps us grieve and lament with hope.
Brittany: I think for me, it's helpful to consider, it's going to feel very up and down, oftentimes for a while. Or it'll feel like a lot of waves coming. And to give myself an understanding of, like, that's a normal experience. That some days it's not going to feel as intense. Or I'll want to shut down, or I'll need physical space to actually do that, because our bodies can't stay in this heightened state forever.
And so I think understanding that it, it is going to feel differently as you're having stacked events. Like some days you might not feel the intensity of it. Other days, it might knock you out. And so just giving yourself the room and the grace to understand that you're, maybe there's not necessarily a right or wrong way to, to do that.
It's not like, “Okay, on Tuesday, I can feel this way, and Wednesday, I can feel this way, but Thursday I've gotta feel like this because now it's done and I need to move on.” So I think for me, it's helpful to kind of think through like, “Okay, when we have compounding events happening, your body's going to feel that. It’s going to be a lot of different emotions up and down for a while.”
Or for some people, they might go into crisis mode. And that may mean maybe not feeling a ton of things, or more like strategy and stabilization, trying to get things lined up, and then it comes at the end. So kind of understanding how you typically respond in those situations is going to be really helpful when it's compounding events.
Andrew: I think then, maybe this is just me, like I hear the implication in the question, “How do I stay emotionally and spiritually healthy with compounded suffering?” And I feel like the gut implication is, if I'm emotionally healthy, I'll just be okay. But it's kind of undergirding that of, like, well, what does it look like to be emotionally healthy when your world is disintegrating?
You're probably not fine. You're probably going to cry. You're probably going to be scared. You're probably going to be angry. Like the whole rainbow of emotions are going to happen. And again, I think, I love, that we have a Savior who modeled that. Like He modeled in His life this, the whole spectrum of emotion in responding to things, even though He for sure knew the ending, like for sure knew what was going to happen. And so we have this model for us.
So what does it look like to stay emotionally healthy? It's feel the feels. Don't let them rule you. Don't reject them. But feel them, and let those lead you to a recognition of, “Okay, I am a vulnerable human being. This world, if God is not sovereign, it's really scary. And yet, because I know who God is, I know who Jesus is, I know what He has done. I know that He sovereignly reigns. I know He is a good father. I know that what He brings my way, although painful, it produces things that can't be produced any other way.”
Then the suffering we face and the difficulty we face—[it] all has trajectory and purpose. And yet none of that will make it not feel yucky. Or I, I'd say, it shouldn't. There's a sense in which we'll still feel that nauseous, like this is not right. That we will, you know, feel with what Jesus felt when He saw Lazarus at the tomb. This incongruence of, this is not how it's supposed to be, even though I know the good that's coming.
And so again, I love what Brittany said. It, it can look quite different for everybody. It doesn't have to look the same. And the timing and the pacing of it can be quite different. But it's not being ruled by it, not rejecting it, but sitting in that receiving of, “Okay, Lord, even here You are present; even here, You're at work.” And so I can be there in it.
Lindsay: We got a few questions that use this language, like compounded difficulty, emotional turmoil. So if you're that person that identifies in that place and feels like that's your life, how can you ask your community to help you? How do you find those people around you to help speak that truth to you when you don't believe it, to help you know it's okay? Or [to] remind you it's okay, to not feel perfect on Thursday after struggling for a few days? How do you actually ask for help if you feel that you're in that situation?
Brittany: I'll just speak for what I would normally do. So normally my temptation in this situation is to stop asking, is, so like, I see everybody else going through a lot, too. And so I'm like, “Well, I've already asked once. I can't really ask again.”
I think one of the concepts that we talked about in the podcast is that our weaknesses and our vulnerabilities are a gift as well. And so learning to kind of lean in and engage, and to continue to share and know that that's an opportunity for everyone to get to receive more of Christ. And that's helped me understand, like, it's okay for me to continue to walk in that weakness with others and to invite them in, rather than self-isolate.
So for me, it's more like a self-imposed isolation. And so getting to humble myself and understand that like, “Hey, my community is a part of this with me.” And it's partially, my, my role right now is to be a burden-sharer and [to] continue to also invite, then, other people to share a burden with me.
And so I think, fighting that temptation to pull back is going to take a little bit of effort on the part of the person who is struggling. And then for the community, it's like, okay, if you know someone is going through kind of a significant season of where it's just one hit after the next. [It] is like taking the lead part of being able, being willing to take the risk of asking again, of, like, “Hey, I know we haven't talked about this in a while. I just wanted to check in and see how you're doing.”
And so I think there's just like a lot of initiation on both sides. And then, if you're like me, maybe take the risk and ask again.
Andrew: I think understanding that any suffering we face in this life has never been designed for us to carry in isolation. There’s no suffering you're going to experience in your life that God has not designed to also be carried by [your] community. And so your weakness and your hardship in these seasons where you're going to feel like a burden to others—that's actually how the body of Christ grows
That if you try and hold it to yourself and try and work it out by yourself, you are robbing the body of Christ from some of the painful burden-sharing they need to actually develop and grow in Christlikeness. And so, if we have a perspective to our suffering of, although the suffering feels unendingly, singularly personal, but God works in the whole body of Christ, then we can be open to my suffering is meant to be shared, for the sake of the glory of God that the church might grow together into maturity. My suffering is not just for me. It never will be just for me. It’s for the body of Christ. In all cases in life, there are times that we are burden-bearers and burden-sharers. Constantly. We're going to be strong for others. They're going to be strong for us. And that's how the body grows together into maturity.
So if we have that paradigm in a sense, and if our community knows that paradigm, then, Lord willing, hopefully our community jumps in quickly and recognizes, “Oh, this is an opportunity for me to help shoulder up with you [with] this burden that really only Christ can carry.” Which also means I don't have to try and fix it. I don't have to try and fix you. Only Christ can do that. My job is to shoulder up with you and feel some of the weightiness with you so that you know you're not alone, so that we can grow together and mature in Christlikeness.
Lindsay: Shanda, did you have a thought?
Shanda: I just think it's a beautiful expression of what God intended when we practice weeping with those who weep, rejoicing with those who rejoice. And my prayer in our Christian community is that that would become normative. I think we all, you know, want to come into a communal place and have it be lighthearted and fun and everybody's happy. But when people are walking in, and there's dissonance there, and somebody's weary and struggling and sad, and it took every ounce of courage they had just to show up that night—and it's not to say that we can't still celebrate the good things—but those are meant to be, like, co-realities in the family of God. Really at all times, [because] like, it's true, always, in some regard. And if we're in community, somebody's suffering, somebody's weeping, and somebody's rejoicing. And by God's grace, there's things to celebrate.
And so I think being honest and telling the truth about where we're struggling or where we're doubting, where we're confused, where we're overwhelmed. And, and that we would bring that to our community, recognizing the human limitations that can't fix it and recognizing our spiritual questions that are always asking “why.”
And we don't always get answers. There's more mysteries there. And just to sit with one another. To be in it together is a beautiful opportunity that is, I think, when we get the God of all comfort, who comforts us in our, in all [our] affliction. That we get to practice that with each other. And might the family of God be known for that, be known as a safe place to come wounded, to be known as where, when I'm having a hard day, I want to go to my community, because I, I trust that they're going to receive me as I am.
And we don't want the masquerade. We don't want the faulty expressions or the dissonant pretend, like everything's okay when it's not. Jesus isn't asking us to do that. And so I hope that we can become a people of God that live that out more freely and fully.
Lindsay: Yeah. And I have a feeling some of you may be sitting out there thinking, “That sounds awesome. That is not my community, my group, my neighborhood, my missional community. We don't look like that.”
And I've been in that place. Where I've heard something like that and thought, Man, that sounds awesome. That's not my experience. So I just want to encourage you all that [that] can change today. Just because you've operated sort of independently or not had that picture of community that Shanda's describing—it doesn't mean that that can't be a conversation you start to have now and move in that direction. And that's one of the reasons we created this podcast is to help all of us take those next steps forward. So I just wanted to encourage any of you who might be feeling like I know I have in the past. That kind of community is definitely possible.
And this is a bit of a related question to what we've been talking about. So someone here says, “I recently got told some really hard news, and people keep asking how I'm doing. And to be honest, I don't know how to answer. I don't know how I feel. Maybe I'm just numb.”
What is a healthy way to move forward when you just keep getting asked the same question about the same thing over and over, to the degree where you don't know what you feel anymore?
Andrew: Tell them to stop it. Just stop it. Good golly. On the best of days in our suffering, um, maybe we can cultivate in our heart an understanding that there's kind of secondary trauma happening in that moment. People don't know. Like we've all been there, right? Somebody experiences something severe, [something] tragic.
We have no clue what to say. And so sometimes the most unhelpful things pour out of our mouth, because it's like word vomit. We just know we should say something. And what comes out is not the most attractive or helpful thing.
But for the receiver of that, I think there's solace in knowing people care. Even though their approach is, could use some help. They're trying to show care. They're trying to engage. But [it] is often the case at the beginning, they don't know how. This is their reps and practice and the same thing.
Lindsay, you're just hitting on with community, that community's built through practice. And practice requires failure. Which means it's going to go wrong sometimes, and it's going to go right.
Sometimes this is a season. As those responses, maybe, are not helpful. That they're getting to grow. That feels unhelpful in some ways as the sufferer, because you're like now, I bear the burden of also helping them respond in ways that are helpful. And let's be honest, most of us in those situations aren't going to respond that way.
But I just want to put that as maybe an ideal, Lord willing. As we suffer, and people give us unhelpful responses, that our heart can click into, “Oh, your heart is to try and engage in care; the way you're going about it is unhelpful. But I want to get, I want to be charitable. That your pursuit of me is love.”
Like, it's loving and kind. The irony, just to make sure we all understand what's happening in that dynamic, a person who's suffering already feels depleted is being asked to give more. They're being asked to answer another question. So incidentally, as you're trying to connect with them, you're saddling them with another burden to answer another question that feels impossible, likely as impossible as fixing the suffering that they're going through.
And so that's why I can feel in that moment for the individual. I, I don't know what I feel. And now I feel something more like, I feel even more, uh, burdened in this moment. And so generally I think maybe a helpful response in those moments is just, “I don't know. Would you just keep praying? ‘Cause I, I don't know how to respond. I don't know what I feel. I don't know what the Lord's doing, but I know I need the Lord's help.”
And maybe even ask the person to pray. Then if you feel open enough to it, you might not feel comfortable with that, but I think it can be a beautiful moment to be like, and let's practice that help right now. Like I want to ask you, right now. Would you engage, go before the Lord for me because I, I want to walk through this faithfully. But it's, it's hard.
Shanda: Well, I think those who are suffering and moving toward community—it's just already such a brave statement of faith, a courageous opportunity to be known in those moments, which is often hooked into some history of hurt or rejection or abandonment.
And so just holding some of the complexity of not knowing the fullness of it, but recognizing that they've already put a lot of energy forth to show up.
And so even just being like, “I'm glad you're here,” you know? And, if the question is asked, I think just learning to be honest, and being comfortable with tears. I think we can get better at that as a community, which is not being afraid to cry or not being afraid for people to bring their tears into that space.
And the goal is not to make that go away. The goal is just to be present in that and to be a place where tears are welcome and, you know, we can pray [through] our tears. There's faith expressed even in the sorrow and the sadness. And just to be able to say, “I'm having a hard time, and I don't really want to talk about it. Like, I barely made it here. I just need to sit down, you know, some permission just to be human and to be free.”
And for that to be received, and for [the] community to not feel like you need to fix it. But just accept it, embrace it. Embrace the tension. Let the complexity exist in our fellowship. Jesus came for it all, and He's got enough where we have deficit. He has abundance. And we all get to just rest in Him for that. So I, I think, yeah, the learning process is, permission to be human. And to celebrate that somebody did a brave thing to show up.
Lindsay: For those who might not be overly comfortable with tears, or the ministry of presence, or might find themselves naturally showing love through fixing a problem, and so really struggling to sit in that complexity—what's a way to start getting more comfortable with those things? Is it just the practice that might lead to failure that Andrew talked about? Or is there something we can do or pray or work on in regard to that?
Brittany: I think it is the practice that we're talking about. But it's also how to practice if you are that person who is uncomfortable with that. Starting to understand what about it makes you uncomfortable. Like, why am I feeling like I need to fix it? Why am I feeling like I need to do something right now?
And learning to start to tolerate the discomfort of maybe not even being able to fix it, and not knowing what to do. That’s oftentimes a stimulus of like, “I'm uncomfortable, and I don't like that. And so I'm going to try to do something.” And I think that can happen, pretty quickly.
And so starting to understand for yourself, “Hey, where does that impulse come from for me, that I am so uncomfortable here? Or that my temptation is to move in toward fix-it mode?” And then, even in that process, as you're starting to understand what is going on for you, starting to understand what that might be like for the other person. Of, like, okay, “I wonder how this person's responding and receiving me trying to move them in this direction really quickly?”
And trying to tune into someone's non-verbals, ‘cause that's where you'll start to see like, “Oh, maybe they're shutting down. Maybe they're, like, pulling back from me a little bit.” And so, I think, understanding your own story of what's going on for you, and then starting to shift your eyes to be like, “Okay, did that actually go over the way I hoped it would? My hope in that is, I want to help.”
We can honor that. That impulse to, like, want to help is there. But also trying to understand how to help that person, starting to be curious about what, what might actually be caring and loving for them, how would they best receive that in the moment? And so I think understanding your story and understanding what's going on for the other person, how they're going to receive it.
Andrew: Yeah. I was reading some interesting research yesterday that talked about, in terms of building empathy, there's some indicators, as weird as this is going to sound, but fiction novels, like getting into in-depth character development, there's some interesting research about [it]. As people spend time reading fiction and getting into the character's shoes, that it tends to build empathy, that it tends to develop some of those muscles. Again, certain movies, stuff like that as well. As you get into a character's shoes, it can help cultivate those emotional responses, or kind of free [you] up if you're emotionally constipated. It can free up some of those emotions to be felt.
There [was] a season in my life when I was trying to develop these muscles, ‘cause I, I tend toward the emotional retentive or the emotionally constipated. We're just going to roll with those analogies at this point. That's more my build, crisis, uh, oriented logically, Like, let's get through stuff. Let's not feel. That’s my history, family of origin. We'll do a whole ‘nother podcast on that.
And so I've had to exercise or actively pursue empathy on an emotional field. And so for a season, what I did—I'm putting this on the podcast, this is great—was listened to the Les Mis soundtrack every day I went into work. And would just like, bawl my way to work, in hopes of cultivating this, “Hey, I need to be able to engage with my emotions.”
Like I need to feel these things, and I need a little assistance. And so Hugh Jackman got me there. It was great. And so that's a method I found that works. Now there's research that I found that backs it up, so I feel even better about it. But that's one way to start to cultivate empathy is, if you find yourself one of those people, who's like, you have very low tolerance for emotionality. I think there's growth in Christlikeness to seek to actively develop that. Because He was an emotional dude, and we want to be like Him in that. And so this is one lane I found helpful.
Lindsay: I never knew I would need to hear the term “emotional constipation,” but man, it's a helpful tool to have in the toolbox. Let's move on to...
We have a lot of questions about childhood trauma and past difficult emotional experiences. So just giving you a minute to get in that head space. Someone says here, “How can we trust God with our emotions when childhood trauma has affected us?”
So there was trust broken in the past. There was great wrong done. How do you start to believe that God is for you, that He's trustworthy, that He loves you as you deal with your emotions?
Shanda: I'll kick us off here. There's a lot we could say about this, so know that this is going to be an inadequate response to the full breadth of that question. Because there's so many nuances, so many details that are very specific.
And as we stay general, it's not going to feel personal, because we can't nuance it enough for every situation. But I think my, my first impulse in that is just compassion and patience. For the path of healing [is] to recognize the, the pain and the brokenness. That is incredible; it informs a lot. It shapes a lot. It influences, but it's not determinative.
I think that's a piece that is, as counselors, we hold. As we hear tragic stories that make us cry with our clients and make us grieve, some of the life circumstances they have had to face. But there is great hope knowing that though there's impact, it is not defin[ing] who that individual is. But working through the impact, working through the ways that somebody may have learned to survive and stay safe in a relationship, that we call it, that at one point it was a life preserver that kept them afloat. And at some point it becomes very restrictive. And it's no longer working when they are not in a place of unsafety or where those difficulties remain in play. But the skills that they've developed in that context aren't translating. They're not transferring into a healthy relationship.
So they're operating out of those old defense mechanisms or those old instincts where they learn to stay safe. Or where they learn to, hooking onto our last question, where you either learn that emotions are highly escalated or catastrophized, then emotions go really big. So when somebody starts crying, you go back to childhood, and you're like, “This is going to go bad, because that's my experience.”
When emotions start, it is a whole tidal wave of overwhelm, and it ends in a bad place. Or if you have a history where everything is suppressed and avoided, and there's apathetic dismissal of emotions. Then it can be that's how you've learned how to survive within a relationship. And so there's a path of unlearning things that requires some time.
And I think that's where the help of community and the grace of God and just permission to grieve and lament. But also begin to try—which takes vulnerability, which is scary, which I think we talked about in the podcast—that change, though it is beautiful and good, it can be terrifying for somebody to try living in vulnerability when that has never been something that they were allowed to do. And those insecurities and those self-protective and preservational activities become really hard to let go of.
And so I think it's patience and compassion. But hopefully, by God's grace, a context that's safe. To stumble our way forward, ‘cause we're not going to do it perfectly all the time. But to begin to try moving into that path of opening ourselves up to be known in safety and in health. It can be a long road, but it is one that Jesus is at work in. And hopefully there are people reflecting God's glory to you rightly, where in the past, maybe, whoever those caregivers were, or the family of origin, or people who may have hurt you were not reflecting the glory of God to you—where we grieve that.
But then we don't let that, hopefully, stay the more powerful influence in your life. That interferes and hinders you being able to move forward in health, in new relationships. So I think we just carefully and tenderly and specifically with each person try to encourage them to take that step of faith and begin the path of trust with God and with people. Because that's the freedom that Christ has offered, but there's often very real pain that causes us to be very hesitant to do that.
Brittany: Shanda, you mentioned it just takes time. So trust takes time to build, especially if it either hasn't really existed or it's been fractured, or fractured repetitively. And so on the path toward building trust, there's a lot of patience. There's a lot of like, “Hey, learning to understand, okay, that doesn't change that God is trustworthy.”
But our, my experience of God being trustworthy is new, and I'm trying to understand it. And on that pathway of [getting] there, there's a lot of different emotions and things that come up. It's like, okay, what is difficult about trusting God or people? There's these woundings that have happened. There's this grief. There's sorrow. There's shame or powerlessness or all of these different experiences along the way of rebuilding and restoring trust. And as we start to engage those a little bit with others and with the Lord, that trust starts to build and repair, where we can start to take more and more things over time.
But I think the temptation for believers—“Well, I should trust God.” And so we start putting all of these “shoulds” in front of us that actually prevent us from receiving the grace of God. He knows it's hard, and He knows our pain, and He's familiar with our weakness and He's not hesitant to move toward us in that, because His trustworthiness doesn't change.
And so just the patience and the endurance and hopefully walking alongside other people who get to partner with that and be little ambassadors of Christ to you, of a restoring [of] what it’s like to try to share something, and what it’s like to try to be vulnerable in a new way and in a new environment. And it's really difficult. And really—it can be a really painful path, but hopefully, a hopeful one.
Andrew: So I'm going to repeat what y'all said, ‘cause it's just so awesome. The patience piece, I think, is such a key component for somebody who's suffered childhood trauma. You're learning to re-experience your emotions.
Let's say you respond to your emotions by fully suppressing them. ‘Cause you grew up in a way that you were told that emotions are not safe. They're not welcome in the home. So you're emotionally stunted, or your emotions are turned all the way up to 11 all the time. And so small events to other people just shoot you through the roof. Be patient, because God's not disappointed with the process. Sanctification and growth is a slow process.
There's something beautiful in that design. We don't like it. We'd prefer the instant change. But the Lord has organized our growth and our change. That it is slow. And so, if we can hold to God's not trying to rush us. He's not running ahead. He's not trying to push you down the road. He's slowly walking with you in the process of relearning how to feel in these different situations.
For community, I mean, one of the more practical, basic things I think we can do as a community is, when you're interacting with somebody and you see an emotional response that seems way miscalibrated to what's happening, that's the time to curiously explore what else is going on. Don't fall into the ditch or the hole of thinking that they're just crazy. That they're just out of their mind, that they're just emotionally immature. Sit in the, “No, there's probably more story here.”
Their emotional reaction is telling me there's more going on here that I understand, if I'm going to compassionately care for them, I need to be curious and lean in, and go, “Hey, your response, it's, it's way higher than I thought it would be. Which means, I think I'm missing something. Like, what's happening right now? What are you hearing being said? Or how are you experiencing this?”
So that we can lean in with them in that moment. As opposed to just writing them off as, well, they're just emotionally fragile. So just be careful around them. That's not going to help them grow. That's not going to help them feel cared for.
Lindsay: You kind of answered this a little bit at the end there, Andrew, but are there some specific questions that are helpful to ask when you see someone having a disproportionate emotional response? What is a helpful way to approach that versus a non-helpful way?
Andrew: I think one of the fun words is, “I'm noticing.” Shanda uses it way more than I do, so she's better than I am at this. But—“I'm just noticing that you're having a strong reaction to this. Can you tell me more about what's going on? I'd love to understand. Because my emotional response feels different. So maybe I'm missing something. Maybe you're seeing it more clearly.”
All of those types of responses give charity to the other person. My posture and humility is, I'm going to go ahead and assume I'm the one that's wrong. I'm going to assume that I'm the one that's missing information. So now how do I pursue, in a kind and charitable way, getting more information? “So I notice you, you seem to feel really angry about this, and that's confusing for me. Can you tell me more about what's happening?” That's how I generally do it.
Lindsay: I like that, giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming humility yourself versus making statements about them. That does seem more helpful, for sure.
Shanda: Well, and I, I think there's just, again, that humility piece of learning to kind of have an instinct that at least considers that at the core of it, there's pain. There's some hurt there. And you don't have to be a counselor. You don't have to come in and fix it. You don't need to go, like, “Hey, what's your childhood wound?”
I would not encourage that. But just, I think, in that moment, just to not feel like you need to react. Because one of the harder things to do is, when emotional dysregulation is happening in front of you, like your nervous system begins to react. And, and the harder thing is to stay grounded and calm, and just recognize that, oh, man, there's a wound that just got a tender point, that just got pressure pricked. Something got touched. A little thread that has something probably not about this present moment. Something in the past may be bubbling up here.
And to just like, stay present and stay calm and not react and get angry and engage in the unhelpful dysregulation. But to just stay present. Like, even internally pray for that person. Breathe, and just be like, okay, give them time, you know. It might give them a little bit of space. It might be like, “Hey, I'm here if you need anything. Can I get you some water? I'm going to give you a minute, but I'm here. Happy to help in any way that I can.”
As opposed to then drawing a narrative, again, that there's something wrong. Or taking it personally is another thing that we tend to do when the emotion comes. It's like I've done something wrong, and now I'm going to react defensively. Just stay curious about, man, I think there's a lot more complicated dynamics going on here than I have the ability to know. And so I'm just, I'm not going to take anything personally right now.
And just try to be a helpful friend. That's staying present with this person as best that I can. We all have to learn how to do that, but I would say that that's a good goal to ask [of] the Lord, to help us when we're caring for people who have a pretty wounded past.
Brittany: So we're talking about, like, an ideal situation where we're not also reactive in the moment. But there are going to be times where we react just as big to someone else's experience. And so when those happen, it's okay to notice, like, we are in a position where we're now bumping into each other.
We're both escalated. We might want to be aware of that. So not just noticing others, but noticing what's going on inside of you. And then starting to either try to calm down or even noticing the limitations. That [it] might be time for us to take a break. We might need to come back to this and try to understand in another moment when we're not both elevated and escalated to where we are just, maybe further compounding whatever narrative or pain is going on.
And so there are going to be times where we graciously get to enter in, and the other person's prepared to receive that. And there are going to be times where it doesn't go as well as we would hope. And it's okay to come back and review those. And it's okay that we kind of need to give grace to one another sometimes when it doesn't go the way we hoped. Or we ask the question like, “Hey, I'm noticing this,” and the person doesn't come back down. They're still up there. That's okay, too. And so learning to kind of repair afterward, and come back and review. ‘Cause sometimes it's not going to go as well as we'd like, and that's part of the practice and the learning [to love] one another and continue to be curious and apply grace where it's needed.
Lindsay: Yeah. That's really helpful. As we're talking about the importance of community, I know it can be tempting to find the person that's most empathetic in your group and sort of want to latch onto them—the person that feels the safest.
But it seems like codependence is a real potential pitfall in that situation. So how do you encourage people to go and process what's healthy in their community and find support there, but to not just sort of latch onto one person to where they become our, our savior and our support and our comfort instead of Jesus and a healthier well-rounded community? How do you navigate leaning in, but not becoming that person that they then rely on for everything?
Shanda: Again, I think a lot of nuance [is] in that. We can talk about ideals, or we can talk about more practical realities. Ideally, the wounded person would be able to know the people, though reflections of God, are not able to provide what their soul is craving, which is security or safety, or just that stability that they haven't known.
So, uh, we want to grow into that. But as the community that they're hopefully walking into, a plurality of care is the best-case scenario. And to recognize that wounded people do that. They're scared, and it's a big deal to trust anybody. And if they throw trust in one direction, you know, to bring other people in [in] a gentle and kind way, and try to expand that network of the glory reflectors to this individual who can patiently bear up under, because no one person is meant to do that. But to not be surprised when some of that attachment gets a little bit misplaced or overemphasized. Bring in, uh, more people. And then, just to gently, not just abandon and reject and feel overwhelmed by that, ‘cause it can be overwhelming to feel needed in an unhealthy way, or to feel like somebody is attached to you unhealthily.
There's some, like, honest health and feeling a little uncomfortable in that. But to not be overwhelmed and scared by that. But just to enlist other people so that that doesn't put you in an overwhelming situation. And to not take that as, “Oh, this is my assignment.” You don't want to make people your project, and you don't want to just pour your life into somebody in that, even as a disciple-maker in the church community. We're all supposed to show up and bring the gifts and the care and the reflection of God that we have to an individual.
So hopefully that helps. Because that can become very overwhelming very fast, if it's just one isolated person with a very wounded person who doesn't know how to give space for that relationship.
Andrew: If we remember our suffering, our difficulty, our brokenness, our suffering is not meant just for us to be carried. We're given our stories. Our hardships are meant to be shared in community, which leads to corporate growth.
I think there's a process in which this can work. You have Jesus and the woman at the well, where they have a very frank conversation. Jesus points out her sin. She doesn't run from Him, which is still fascinating—that Jesus [is] able to do this in such a way that the woman felt cared for and kept engaging with Him. And then what was the end product of that interaction? She goes back to the people who know her story, and she tells them everything about Jesus.
You have the demoniac in Mark 5. This man who was possessed by demons, running around, cutting himself with stones, townspeople couldn't chain him up. Jesus shows [up]. Sets him free. This is one of the only times you're going to find in the Gospels where a person asks to follow Jesus, and Jesus says no. So the demoniac. Now free [he] says, “Jesus, I want to go with You.” Jesus actually looks at him and says, “No, go back. Go back to the town that knew you at your worst. Tell 'em everything that I've done for you.”
So there's a sense in which, the beginning, there is a time where it's just one-on-one. Where the story is so heavy and weighty, and you haven't shared with [anyone], and this is what counseling can become. Like, we're the safe space where you come and disclose, maybe for the very first time, something you've never told anybody else. But our movement is going to be, “This story is for the benefit of the body of Christ.”
And you will find that's a part of the healing process. That's part of healing through this is... It's not just yours. It's part of the corporate moving into what Christ has done in all the stories. And there could be great freedom in that, and it can lead to healthy community. And so I think there can be a season where it's just one-on-one. Where it's like, “Hey, we're cultivating this relationship. We're walking through the details of the story.” But there's a casting vision for the story [that] doesn't terminate with you. It wasn't given just to you, for you. God has much bigger plans for that [story] to display His glory in your weakness, that you also might experience His strength as you share your story.
And so I think that's what we hope for.
Brittany: Yeah. I think [what] we're hitting on is, like, the pacing of introducing other people can be slow. It's okay that it's slow. It doesn't have to be like, “Oh, this person told me their story. I'm going to, I need to immediately bring someone else into this situation.” That can be really overwhelming to the person who just shared something that maybe they did share it for the first time.
Maybe this is the first person in the world they've ever shared this with. And that was, [that] took everything they had to do that. To bring someone in too fast can be overwhelming. And so I think there's a way to, we, as we're doing it—pacing and thoughtful and understanding this person's story—is like, “Okay, how can I help include them in the process of sharing that with someone else?”
So I'm not forcing it. I'm not trying to manipulate it to happen. And then I'm also letting them lead out and allowing them to take risks in helping give them further voice in the situation. And so pacing and, like, thinking about how to include them in that process of who to bring in next. And how do we continue to expand the circle of care, and take another healthy risk, and see that, like, “Hey, there are other people that care about you that want to be a part of this, that can also reflect the image of God” that will benefit from this as well. So I think just adding on to what they said.
Lindsay: That's great. We'll take it all. So say that you did go through something hard, you did open up with your community, and you shared with them. And then they're helping you, but then they sort of check out. Maybe they just decide it's too hard. Maybe they physically move away. But in some capacity, they've just left you in what you feel like is the middle of suffering.
How do you move forward from that? How do you, should you pursue reconciling those relationships? Should you confront them with, “Hey, I was trying to share with you, and you just sort of bailed on me.”
Is it wisdom to just move on? How do you then get comfortable with sharing again, when you feel like you've been burned? What are some, again, really easy things for you to answer? Shanda—not nuanced at all. How do you reconcile when there's been hurt, and then how do you get comfortable with trusting again?
Andrew: If we can hold to humility and this posture of, I mean, we're all broken human beings. We all got stuff that's going on. We all know we don't know what to do in so many different kinds of situations. And we can pull God back into those equations, meaning we can pull God back into it.
I feel like my community's not reaching out enough, or they've forgotten about me, or I feel burned by them, and we take it to the Lord and wrestle with Him about it first before we make a decision. I think pursuing that community is how that community will grow. In Christian life, again, sanctification is this process of a rollercoaster of ups and downs and learning slowly to walk in a way that's honoring to the Lord.
No community is going to get it exactly right all the time. No community is also ever going to learn if no one's willing to endure when failure happens and help the community see this would have been more helpful. But to be able to do that with humility, we've got to have [a] recognition in ourselves. And in front of our face, this constant, “Hey, where have I failed to do the same thing?”
Which I don't think is too hard to find. Like where have we had people in our life that we’re like, “Nope, they're just too much for me” and I just decided to back away from them? If we can hold that in our heart, then I think we can approach the community with an ample amount of grace to go, “Hey, I don't know why it feels more distant here, but I could really use more connection. I could use more of you reaching out. I could use more what Hebrews 3 would call us to, this daily exhortation, this not neglecting to gather together. I need more of that. Would you actually reach out more? And help the community learn what it looks like?”
Some of the community might just assume everything's better now. Like if it went radio silent for a couple weeks, like, think about our attention span, and how fast we move on to the next thing. If they haven't heard from you, they might literally be assuming, “Oh, I guess they're great. Everything's wonderful.”
And we'll just keep moving on. So you might have to help them see and understand if it's ongoing pain. You might need to let 'em know if you want them to continue to engage in that way. Ideally they would just keep reaching out. But since I know humans, it doesn't happen all the time.
Shanda: It has so many layers because our pain happens, you know, not in a vacuum. We're not insulated. It's not convenient on anybody. Sometimes there's multiple things going on sometimes. Or sometimes people get scared, or they get selfish, or they just drop the ball. And that's going to happen.
I wish we lived in a perfect world. We don't. And in the meantime, Andrew's hitting on just the grace and the patience. And also to be honest. Be like, “Oh, that hurt. That stinks. I'm sad by that.”
Those missed opportunities aren't meant to be just brushed under the rug, is no big deal. But also hopefully not determining the path forward, and now the indicator and the litmus test of now, everybody, I'm going to hold to this past experience or this one disappointment. [And] that becomes more influential in the way that I process in community. Hopefully that is part of the story, but not the most deterministic reality in it.
And then yeah, if we can just all love each other well. It's just so hard. It's sad when we miss opportunities to love one another. And I think God grieves that with us. And that's where a, a broader swath of communal opportunities is really helpful, for when other people have things going on that interfere with their ability to show up as much as we wish that they could.
But then hopefully to not stop trying and not stop being willing to do the vulnerability that's going to lead you to experiencing God's grace through other people. Because, by the kindness of the Lord, I hope there is a moment where somebody does show up, and you feel the love of God in the way that you hope to, and we all just give grace and keep going.
Brittany: I think about this question, I think about what that feels like, of, “Oh, I'm hurting, and now I suddenly feel alone.” And all the different narratives that can kick up, of, like, “Oh, I am too much. Or I am too much of a burden. Or I'm not wanted here.” Or like, just all of these different stories that experience can try to tell us about ourselves or about these other people.
And—Andrew hit on this—how do we take that to the Lord and help receive that care and that tenderness? Hopefully we get to the place where we're, like, going back and then engaging with that community or engaging with new community. But it does take some time and effort on our part to receive that restoration from the Lord. “Lord, this, this hurts me a lot, and I'm, I'm really struggling with wanting to engage again.”
It feels painful to try to engage again. And allowing the Lord to kind of bring that comfort in. That helps us take back in humility of, like, and in grace, to our community, like, “Hey, when this happened, I, it really hurt. Or I am feeling disconnected. I'm feeling a little lost here, and I could use more support and health.”
I think in that process, too, is you can figure out what it is that would be helpful. People do really well with clear direction. Like a lot of people want to help. They just don't know how. And so if we can help people understand, like, “Hey, it would be really helpful if you called me once a week, or if we just got an opportunity to pray together or talk about this.”
And so, as you're working that out with the Lord and trying to figure out what it is you're asking of somebody, having some clearer direction can also be helpful in that conversation. And it may take you a little bit of time to get to the place where you feel able to do that, and take that step again. But that those experiences don't have to be deterministic for us as individuals or for our community. We're not just stuck in this pattern of like, “Okay, well, I can't ever come back, and you guys can't ever come toward me.”
It's this very patient seeking to understand one another over time. And hopefully as we all grow together, those spaces in between get less and less.
Lindsay: We had a, a handful of questions around the idea of, “Okay, we've gone to our community. We've shared something. Maybe we're going through something difficult.”
Let's just say a divorce. Something that's messy and painful. And our community isn't sure if they can provide the level of care needed, or they feel overwhelmed. When is it helpful to bring a counselor into the situation or someone with a little bit more expertise in training, and what does that look like?
You guys kind of addressed this in, I think, our last episode. But are there some guidelines? Are there some ways that you come in and help the community care for someone? Can you just tell us a little bit about when we might want to seek out a counselor?
Andrew: I mean, whenever. We're always available for, like, consultation at The Austin Stone and within the Soul Care department. We're regularly consulting on different situations.
Our hope is that people will understand the 2 Corinthians 1:3–4 reality that we're talking about. This Scripture is given to us: the God of comfort who comforts us in our affliction, so we might be able to comfort those in any affliction with the comfort He has given us. This idea that the body of Christ, any child of God who has received the comfort of God, has what is most necessary in every situation, which is to offer that same comfort. That God's comfort is able to meet you in the darkest and worst of situations.
But we're always here, for consults, to try and process stuff, to handle the messiness, the sticky, I mean, divorce stuff. Of course, there's going to be complicating factors across the board. If there are kids involved. Good Lord. Yes. There are going to be complicating factors involved, and it could be wise to have a third party or somebody outside of the group come in, with perhaps less interaction and less bias with those involved, to maybe be able to provide some clear perspective on it.
But in general, a lot of the situations and suffering we're going to face is just messy. We don't have magic answers. I mean, it'd be cool if we did. We just have what Scripture's given us, and that Scripture's been given to you. We have this God who's able to meet us in every pain and affliction. And even if the affliction is not removed, to give us peace there.
The indicators, I don't know. Like you move into the stuff, like if there's domestic abuse in the home, if there's violence, if they're hearing voices, you know, please reach out, and we'd be glad to consult on that. But in most cases, I'd say what's most often necessary is actually a patient endurance in the confusion.
The push to pull in a counselor is often rooted in, “We need to know how to fix this.” And in many cases there's not a fix. It's a walking through and discerning over time what the Lord is doing in the mess. And that takes patience. That takes endurance. That takes a willingness to let the messiness still be a little bit messy, and to beseech the Lord that He'd bring clarity.
But we're here, we're glad to consult.
Shanda: Yeah, we're always looking at the ability to function daily. If depression has somebody in bed, and they can't go to work or is not doing their schoolwork, that's a more major depression. Like, [it’s] interfering with their daily activities. Of if the anxiety has people having panic attacks, and those are escalating into physiological responses that are kind of dangerous and scary and overwhelming. We can provide some, I think, added skill and, and perspective in that.
But at the end of the day, what we bring to the table is always going to fall short if the community is not still actively involved. We've said the hardest client to help is an isolated one who does not have the community. So the care that we give, that objective safe space where one of the things that we offer is, as a client gets to walk into the room, and—it's a different relationship. They don't have to take care of us. They don't have to worry about all the dynamics that might come into some of the other relational realities of community. It is more of a one-way street where we are there, very targeting and focusing on what's going on in their lives. And sometimes that can be helpful.
It can be a little more intentional, a little more focused, a little more, kind of drowning out the background noise to, to home in on something that God might provide in, in that context. But it's, it's always, meant to be, again, just sending people back into community.
And we can provide certain support at times. But we always want to do that in tandem and in collaboration with the church and the people of God being able to carry the burdens alongside that individual who, at some point, those circumstances, by God's grace, will change, and they're going to keep walking with God. And whatever troubles were there by His kindness—I pray will dissipate and the community will remain. That's the hope.
Lindsay: Thank you for that. Before we kind of end the night, I just want to ask each of you to share one Scripture that you consistently go back to that gives you hope, encouragement, freedom when you're in a place where you're feeling all the feels, you're turned up to an 11, and you just know that you need God to do something in you. It's just hard to think about how to move forward. Or, like someone shared on here, they're feeling numb. What is some Scripture that consistently has helped you navigate those seasons?
Shanda: What comes to mind is something just on the forefront of my mind, so it's what I'm going to share. But it's Jeremiah 17:5–8. That is just recognizing that when we trust in ourselves, we're going to be like a shrub in the wasteland. But as we trust in God, we're going to be like a tree planted by streams of living water. That even in a season of drought, we don't cease to bear fruit.
The heat turns up in our lives, and the circumstances are going to press in. And some of the creature comforts that I've relied upon are going to disappear. And it's like, what is this core essence of my soul? Where am I going to draw sustenance? Where am I going to draw strength in life and capacity?
And I, I pray that that is the Lord. That I would set my face like flint to seek His glory. That even in the midst of hardship, that the Spirit would bear fruit in my life. That we can grow into the likeness of Christ. Even in the midst of the heated circumstances increasing and life getting more difficult, God is at work.
And that I would not go to my self-sufficiency or to the world's answers in those moments, which are, are lesser loves or false saviors. But that my heart would stay steadfast to believing that God is at work, and that I would be able to glorify Him even in hard circumstances.
Brittany: I think Lamentations is really helpful for me, as someone who probably would lean more toward being ruled by my emotion. It's been helpful to, like, kind of recalibrate and be able to receive them and give them to the Lord and Him, like, shift my perspective to like, “God, Your mercies are new to me. You are with me in this. I have these words that sometimes, when I don't have the words, that You've given to me in Scripture that can help give me something to say to You when I don't know what to say.”
And then also a way of, like, remembering who You [God] are in the midst of that, too: “In the midst of my pain, in the midst of my crying out, in the midst of wanting to, like, just curl in a ball, You're still here with me. And You're still present. And You haven't changed or shifted. You're still watching out for me.
“You've still gone before me. You're coming behind me. You're hemming me in.”
Like, all the different Psalms. There's so many different passages for me. But that process of being able to talk to God and shift my perspective and let Him help me do that has been really, really helpful for me, especially in the last several years.
Andrew: The whole Bible. Genesis to Revelation. Lindsay: How did I know you're going to say that?
Andrew: I mean, guys, Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” I, I don't have a more foundational place to bank our hope. If He made everything, if He designed everything, if everything is purposed, then my experience in this life—He's ordained it. He's worked it out.
I don't have to be afraid. Psalm 139:14–16. That God knit us in our mother's womb and put us together and knows us intimately, and set before us the days before there were one.
That He sovereignly knew. He sovereignly crafted us. Ephesians 2:10. We’re Christ's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that He set before us.
He set the plan before us, and He's made us exactly in the way that He wanted to, right now, for this moment, for this time for the suffering and for the good. Philippians 1:6: He began a good work, and [He] will bring it to completion in the day of Christ jesus. What confidence we can have. That God is at work, and He finishes what He starts.
We don't have to rush. Jesus was never in a rush. I don't know if you've noticed that in the Gospels; it's fascinating. He's raising people from the dead, and He's, He's not in a rush about it. Like people could interrupt Him. We serve a patient, loving God who has ordered our days. And so in the midst of the messy chaos of today, we're given anchors for hope, from Genesis to Revelation.
And we know in Revelation, all our emotions will be just right. That'll be great. It'll all fit perfectly. We'll feel exactly the right things all the time. They won't be confusing anymore. Which will be fascinating, when that day comes.
And so literally, all the Bible's really good. I highly recommend it. It's a good book.
Lindsay: Alright, so your homework is [to] go home and read the whole Bible. You heard it here first.
Andrew, Shanda, Brittany, thank you so much for giving us all your wisdom, and honestly, stewarding your gift well. God has called the three of you to be counselors, to serve and love this church, to serve and love your clients. And I've just gotten the privilege, as many of you in this room have, of just seeing them steward that calling so well. And it's not an easy calling. And so I just thank you for sharing with us tonight.