“As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
Our faith journey is one of the most deeply intimate aspects of our life. Juxtapose that, God never intended for us to walk alone. Alas, while we are called into fellowship with one another, talking about our struggles in life and faith can be extremely vulnerable and thus challenging.
Coming in to counseling, the work you are looking to do is aimed at improving your overall well-being, that includes physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Though you have many parts, they are all one body. My goal is to create a safe place, free of judgement, to explore each in turn and move toward healing the whole person.
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
As shared in my bio, my faith is extremely important to me. That said, part of creating a safe place for you is that I do not force any of my personal beliefs on you. Rather, I come alongside you and create space for healthy dialogue. My own path has been anything but straight. It has been a long and windy road. I have experienced the pains of falling away and the joys of coming home. Given our identity is rooted in our Creator, when we block out that aspect of ourselves from the work I have seen that it can be limiting for clients and the progress made.
Practically speaking, faith in session is incorporated through prayer, reading scripture, and open conversations about faith life - the crosses and blessings. Note, that as I mentioned you are spiritual as well as physical, mental, and emotional so the conversations don’t focus solely on the spiritual.
Part of my daily prayer time includes praying for all the individuals God chooses to bring into my path through counseling, past, present, and future. So before you have even reached out I have already being praying for God to help bring about the healing you are in search of. The healing that you desire could be related to something in your present or it could be interwoven with something going further back. I do trust the Holy Spirit to provide the enlightenment and direction to move toward healing for you. Have more questions about what it might look like feel free to reach out.
A few of my favorite passages:
“Because you are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you.”
“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”
“Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. But it did not collapse; it had been set solidly on rock. And everyone who listens to these words of mine but does not act on them will be like a fool who built his house on sand. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and buffeted the house. And it collapsed and was completely ruined.”
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access [by faith] to this grace in which we stand, and we boast in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we even boast of our afflictions, knowing that
affliction produces endurance,
and endurance, proven character,
and proven character, hope,
and hope does not disappoint,
because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”
“As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.
Now the body is not a single part, but many. If a foot should say, “Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body,” it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. Or if an ear should say, “Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body,” it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be?
But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended. If they were all one part, where would the body be? But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, “I do not need you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I do not need you.”
Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If [one] part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.”
