Multitude of Counselors

Multitude of Counselors 3rd Season Recap

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

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Series Code: MOC

Program Code: MOC170039A


00:26 Welcome to A Multitude of Counselors.
00:28 We're so glad you've joined us for our program today.
00:31 We're titling the program third season recap
00:34 because we're going to recap all of the programs
00:37 we've had this season.
00:38 Let me give you just a little bit of history.
00:40 Our first season, we didn't have guests at all.
00:42 We just had a multitude of counselors discussing
00:45 different mental health issues.
00:47 The second season, we decided to invite
00:49 guests on that could help
00:51 to make it a little more personal
00:53 and we discussed mental health issues.
00:56 This third season,
00:57 we've had guests but we've had guests
01:00 taking up two segments instead of just one.
01:02 So we ended up with an odd program,
01:05 not that this is going to be an odd program.
01:07 It's going to be an awesome program,
01:09 but it's the 13th one,
01:10 and what we're going to do is recap all of the others.
01:13 So I'm going to just take them one by one.
01:14 We're going to spend four, five minutes
01:16 talking over the gist of the program
01:19 and then what was the takeaway
01:20 because we find that mental health providers
01:22 are often really focused in problems.
01:24 We wanted to find the problem for sure,
01:27 but we also wanna have some kind of takeaway,
01:28 some kind of action step.
01:30 So let's do it, guys. You up for it?
01:32 Yes. Let's do this.
01:34 So glad you're here this morning.
01:35 So let's introduce our amazing panel
01:37 of counselors today.
01:39 It's Paul Coneff from Texas.
01:41 He's a marriage and family therapist
01:42 and runs Straight 2 The Heart ministries
01:45 and is an author and a bunch of other amazing things.
01:47 And we have Christina Cecotto.
01:49 She's from Tennessee,
01:51 she's a licensed professional counselor.
01:53 And oops, I said that wrong.
01:54 You're an...
01:56 LCSW, licensed clinical.
01:57 LCSW, licensed clinical social worker.
02:00 But that effectively is a professional counselor.
02:03 And we have Dr. Jean Wright,
02:05 he's a clinical forensic psychologist
02:07 from Pennsylvania, Philadelphia to be specific.
02:10 And we have Rob Davison.
02:13 And Rob Davison is a professional counselor
02:16 from Maryland.
02:17 And I am so thankful that each one of you are here
02:20 to do this amazing recap.
02:22 So let's put on our thinking caps
02:24 and try to distill down
02:26 what was on each one of these programs
02:27 and what was the takeaway,
02:29 what can we give people to think about.
02:31 Jamie George talked about dictatorship
02:33 in mental health.
02:34 Boiling that down,
02:36 we realize that servant leadership
02:37 was really an important thing
02:39 because you can take that dictatorship that
02:42 micromanagement of people that are under your power,
02:46 so to speak,
02:47 and you can take that principle and that repression
02:51 and you can put that in a family
02:53 or in a church with devastating results.
02:56 Have you guys every experienced that,
02:58 micromanagement dictatorship?
03:00 Yeah, control can take place anywhere.
03:02 That's right.
03:03 And then we're shutting down
03:05 other people's ability to blossom.
03:06 That's right. How so though?
03:07 Like, why can't we just be controlled
03:09 and like blossom in that control,
03:10 like what happens?
03:12 I think it's a matter of really looking at leadership
03:15 from a standpoint of you don't manage people,
03:18 you manage things, projects, initiatives, you lead people.
03:21 And so the servant leadership part,
03:23 for me, is that you serve first.
03:25 And in your service,
03:26 you demonstrate to the people who work for you
03:28 or with you or around you
03:30 that that is the most important thing.
03:32 And then they are more likely to follow your lead
03:34 when you demonstrate an air and an attitude of service.
03:37 And I think it's, you know, if somebody says,
03:40 "I'm in charge, I'm the head of the house,
03:42 or I'm the CEO, whatever.
03:44 I'm the leader and you do it my way,"
03:46 it's safe in the short run
03:48 because I don't have to navigate the messiness
03:50 of getting to know your story,
03:52 you getting to know my story, working it out,
03:54 creating win-win situations.
03:55 It's much easier to just say do it in the short run.
03:58 But we lose the relationship component.
03:59 So it can seem more efficient,
04:01 like a dictatorial style of leadership
04:03 can seem more efficient in the short run,
04:05 but it ends up being less efficient
04:06 in the long run, would you say that?
04:08 Oh, yeah.
04:09 When we're on the receiving end of being controlled,
04:11 we take away all dignity, we take away all creativity,
04:14 and this is not what God is about.
04:16 I think that's the first thing to go is the creativity.
04:18 He gives us the freedom of choice,
04:20 and so we have to figure out what life is about.
04:22 Now, control is important,
04:24 but we don't want to be fully controlled,
04:26 that just takes away our...
04:28 A more dictatorship authoritarian approach to me
04:31 is the person's very, very insecure.
04:33 They don't have the security
04:34 to enter into the messiness of relationships
04:36 where we're going to agree to disagree.
04:38 We're not always going to think alike.
04:39 Yeah. Yeah.
04:41 So bottom line is we need to encourage anybody
04:43 in a position of power over other people
04:45 to be a servant leader rather than a dictator.
04:47 What do you do if you're under a dictator?
04:51 How can we encourage those folks?
04:52 Pray. Pray?
04:54 Lots of prayer.
04:55 Revolt? No.
04:56 We have a lot of examples, Daniel, Shadrach,
04:58 Meshach, and Abednego.
05:00 We have Mordecai rising up and serving.
05:02 There's ways to serve.
05:03 Nehemiah was...
05:04 So we have a lot of biblical examples of people
05:06 who were clear about who they were,
05:07 who their God was while they were serving.
05:09 Let me ask you a question. I run into this.
05:11 People say,
05:12 "Wives should submit to their husbands."
05:15 And, you know, we've all heard that.
05:16 But some people take the view that wives should always submit
05:20 to their husbands
05:22 unless the husband asked them to do something
05:24 that in and of itself is wrong.
05:26 But I don't agree with that.
05:27 And here's why.
05:29 Because there are some husbands that tell the wife what to eat,
05:33 what to wear, what to say,
05:35 and that in and of itself is wrong
05:37 because that's taking away that woman's freewill.
05:40 You get down to creation.
05:42 We are created in whose image?
05:44 God's. God's.
05:45 So if I start micromanaging somebody to the point
05:48 where I'm telling you what to do,
05:49 how to dress, what to eat,
05:51 am I robbing you?
05:52 Of your individuality.
05:54 And to me, the evil of dictatorship
05:56 and that kind of control, and it's mind control.
05:58 That's right.
06:00 It might be too strong of a word, but it's mind rape.
06:02 We're raping somebody else's mind.
06:03 Yes.
06:05 And so what we're doing is
06:06 I'm creating you now in my image.
06:08 That's right. That's why it's wrong.
06:09 That's why it's controlling.
06:10 And so even if nothing...
06:12 We're not asked to do something immoral
06:14 in a given dictatorship situation,
06:16 it's just the control that's wrong.
06:18 I really like the verse that says everything you do,
06:21 do unto God, not unto man.
06:22 And I can't quote the reference exactly,
06:25 but I think that goes with everything.
06:27 We don't need to eat and dress and everything
06:30 according to what our husbands want necessarily.
06:34 Of course, we want to take into consideration...
06:35 There might be a place for submission
06:37 even to a tyrant.
06:38 Depends on the context.
06:40 There's a line, there's just a point where you can't submit.
06:42 But we also...
06:44 And we'll get into it later, but Mike Tucker,
06:45 we talked about the difference between being in a relationship
06:49 with dysfunction versus abuse.
06:50 Yes, yeah.
06:52 And even in Ephesians 5 where it says submit,
06:54 before that, it says submit, one, to God first.
06:58 And then before that, it says speak to evil,
07:01 don't associate with it.
07:02 So in Ephesians 5, it says,
07:05 if there's evil, if there's wrong, expose it,
07:08 not just submit to it mindlessly because then,
07:11 if I submit to it mindlessly,
07:13 I'm giving up my responsibility
07:16 to be a thinking person created in the image of God.
07:18 And you're actually creating a codependent relationship too
07:21 when you're enabling the abuser or the dictator
07:23 or whatever you want to call it
07:25 to continue acting the way that he's acting.
07:26 I've seen this on church boards for many years.
07:29 There was a bully on the church board
07:30 and nobody wants to take him on
07:31 because they know they'll be his next target.
07:33 You'll see what happens.
07:34 So now they're reinforcing,
07:35 they're enabling his negative behavior.
07:37 Scripture is clear.
07:38 It's not just the woman to submit to the husband.
07:40 The husband is also to submit to the wife.
07:43 Amen.
07:44 It goes both ways.
07:46 And what is submission
07:47 but it's a willingness to want to serve.
07:49 Certainly, yeah.
07:50 Submission is predicated on sacrifice.
07:52 So if someone has sacrificed for you,
07:53 you can safely submit to them
07:54 because they have your good in mind.
07:56 So moving on to the next program we had,
07:59 it actually kind of flows into their theme.
08:01 They talked about becoming life partners through prayer.
08:04 It was Jason and Natanya Vanderlaan.
08:06 And they literally fell in love and courted in the context
08:09 of going through a 40-day prayer challenge
08:12 on the phone.
08:13 He lives several states away.
08:15 And they talked about the way that they conduct
08:17 their marriage and how they're committed
08:18 to radical honesty with one another.
08:20 And so they talk through difficult issues.
08:23 They have the hard conversations
08:25 because they don't want to stray away
08:27 from their union even in thought.
08:29 And they have different views.
08:30 So what do we do
08:32 if we have different views in a marriage?
08:33 We have to bring...
08:35 We may not be able to have the same narrative,
08:38 but we can at least coordinate our narratives,
08:41 and we can at least understand one another.
08:42 What I find is that people
08:44 don't really need to be agreed with.
08:45 They just need to be understood.
08:46 Have you found that to be true?
08:48 Yes.
08:49 This is the model that God has of marriage.
08:50 He doesn't expect us to be carbon copies of each other.
08:53 And when you say radical openness,
08:55 that is the key to relationship is that openness
08:57 and the honesty
08:59 and what that will develop over time,
09:01 the more we know one another,
09:02 the more we're going to be into each other,
09:04 that is intimacy.
09:06 That is into-me-see. That's beautiful.
09:08 And I think we need to also look at
09:09 our styles of relating,
09:11 how have I learned to navigate
09:12 and survive in life
09:14 and how do I bring that into the marriage
09:15 because a lot of marriages,
09:17 you know, we just talked about controlling dominant marriages,
09:19 dictatorship,
09:21 but there can also be where both couples
09:22 avoid conflict.
09:24 It can be a quiet marriage on the outside.
09:25 But we're not having those difficult issues.
09:28 And there are some who brag about,
09:29 "I never had a fight with my spouse."
09:31 And I always think, "What's wrong with this?"
09:33 Well, maybe it's good, I hope so.
09:35 Maybe they're actually working things out, but sometimes,
09:37 it means that there's just this quietness
09:39 and there's so much going on inside
09:41 and there's so much sadness
09:42 and pain and nothing's being discussed.
09:44 Or one person is completely subjugated
09:47 to the other and they have no individually left.
09:49 Right.
09:51 I've had people tell me, like, after I do marriage counseling,
09:52 "Well, we don't really have those problems."
09:54 And I asked one couple, I said,
09:55 "Well, there's one person not showing up."
09:57 Exactly.
09:58 And the husband is honest.
09:59 And he said, "Well,
10:01 my wife does tend to please me."
10:02 So what that means is he needs to be responsible
10:05 to be drawing her out.
10:06 Yeah.
10:07 Because otherwise, if she's just pleasing,
10:09 they're missing out on the real intimacy.
10:10 Don't take advantage of her passive personality.
10:12 Or she's just going to please and not rock the waves.
10:15 And that's not getting a close touch.
10:18 And true servant leadership
10:19 lifts people to their full potential.
10:21 Yeah. Exactly.
10:23 It's like we should be high tides
10:24 because when the high tide comes in,
10:25 it lifts all the boats.
10:27 Love that.
10:28 And I think one of the barriers
10:30 to radical honesty is defensiveness.
10:32 What do you mean?
10:34 There's this personalizing, I guess, or shaming of oneself.
10:38 "Man, I must not be any good if she's saying such and such"
10:40 as opposed to "Okay, let's work on this.
10:43 This behavior that
10:44 she's talking about really stinks."
10:46 So kind of making some distance between that.
10:48 The hardest complaint to hear is the one about you, you know?
10:51 And I think that's why it's so important
10:53 to listen and not just hear.
10:56 It sounds simple, it's difficult to do.
10:58 And when people are talking
11:00 and you have that radical honesty,
11:01 we're preparing our response to what the person is saying.
11:04 That means you're not listening.
11:05 Instead of listening to that. Yeah, you're not listening.
11:06 It's really dying to self. Absolutely.
11:08 And really focusing on the other person
11:10 and being willing to enter in, and be a team player.
11:12 You have to make time to do that though and know
11:13 that that's what you're going to be doing.
11:15 And you may hear some hard truths,
11:16 you know, but that's fine.
11:18 You know, if you're going to do this together,
11:19 that's what communication is.
11:20 And that's how you grow. Exactly.
11:22 It's avoided because it's painful,
11:23 but that's how you grow. If you don't avoid it...
11:25 We actually had a lot of real alpha
11:26 types on this season,
11:28 did you notice that, like several,
11:30 like really high powered individuals?
11:32 And one of them was Sean Boonstra,
11:34 and his program was titled
11:36 "The Man Who Almost Never Slept"
11:37 because he has sleep issues.
11:40 But we dug down into the layers, didn't we?
11:43 And we found that
11:44 he also has some issues with perfectionism,
11:46 but then it's kind of hard to call it an issue
11:48 because it really works for him and he's a high achiever.
11:51 And he kind of wasn't ready to let go of it.
11:54 We really tried with him but it was just...
11:56 Didn't he kind of separate out?
11:58 He really compartmentalized, like...
12:00 We identified perfectionism for sure.
12:03 I proposed the idea of putting a tweet out there
12:07 with a typo in it and leaving the typo,
12:09 and he almost had a meltdown right in front of us.
12:12 But he said that he had completely
12:14 compartmentalized salvation
12:16 away from his career achievement perfectionism.
12:19 So he knew that he stood in Christ's merits,
12:22 but he was also very, very particular
12:24 about the work that he did.
12:26 So we decided to leave it there.
12:28 He did say that we should do another program
12:30 with him on introversion
12:32 because he claims he's just an incredible introvert,
12:34 so we'll have to revisit that and see if we get
12:36 a little farther next time with Sean Boonstra,
12:38 but he was delightful to have...
12:40 We also had Mike Tucker, another type A high achiever.
12:45 He talked about
12:46 a vulnerable moment of his life.
12:48 He had lost his wife of 40 years recently,
12:53 a couple years ago.
12:54 And then we talked about that story,
12:57 and then his remarriage.
12:59 Did you guys track with that?
13:01 That was a pretty heart-wrenching story.
13:03 It was just a short amount of time
13:05 that he found out that she had pancreatic
13:07 and liver cancer,
13:08 and then a few weeks later...
13:09 She was gone. She was gone.
13:11 And one of the things he said was so interesting.
13:13 It was several months after she had died,
13:16 and he was just kind of getting through
13:17 the grief process.
13:19 But something great happened with his ministry,
13:22 some triumph, you know, that he had accomplished,
13:24 and God had done an amazing thing for him.
13:26 And immediately, he wanted to call someone.
13:29 But there was nobody to share with.
13:30 And there was no one to call.
13:31 And then he realized, "I need to get remarried,"
13:33 I think he thought in that moment.
13:35 Didn't he say that one reason to get married is that so that,
13:39 especially, the woman can witness the man's life.
13:42 What does that mean to witness the life, didn't he say that?
13:44 I think he said something to that effect.
13:46 We all need a witness.
13:47 We need somebody close to us
13:49 because we are defining intimacy
13:51 as not just sexual intimacy
13:53 because that's what we tend to put on the term,
13:55 but intimacy is really sharing our life together,
13:57 sharing our stories, creating meaning together.
14:00 And when he has something very special happen,
14:02 he had no special person to add to the meaning of that,
14:05 to witness that, see that.
14:07 And being married keeps you accountable.
14:09 Doesn't that go back to why God created us?
14:11 Because He wants to share Him with us and us with Him.
14:18 Right.
14:19 I mean, the whole point of creating Eve speaks to that.
14:21 I mean, Adam was doing pretty well.
14:23 I don't know how long he was by himself,
14:24 but he was not paired up, and the rest of the people...
14:28 I'm sorry,
14:29 the rest of the animals in garden had a partner.
14:30 They're people, animals or people too.
14:32 Thank you very much. Appreciate that.
14:33 But yeah, he was alone.
14:35 And it's not good for man to be alone.
14:36 Right, right.
14:37 And so from the very beginning...
14:39 And Tucker talked about particularly males,
14:40 men, have a hard time being...
14:42 And we know the research is that men do
14:44 better health wise and mental health wise...
14:47 We live longer. Yeah.
14:48 We keep them on track. Absolutely.
14:51 Get married pretty quickly.
14:52 What do you say, 10 to 15 months after...
14:55 A man that's happily married, typically marries...
14:57 Yeah, so that's the average statistic.
14:59 Yeah, that was certainly true in his case.
15:01 But I love that thought that
15:02 we need to not only love and be loved,
15:05 but we need to know and be known.
15:07 That experience of having someone else
15:09 witness your life is,
15:11 I think, essential to mental health.
15:13 And maybe we could speak
15:14 to the lonely people in the world
15:15 because loneliness is so pandemic.
15:18 How can people start to connect?
15:20 What are some of the things
15:22 that you share with your clients, guys?
15:24 I think it's important to find small groups.
15:27 It can be two or three, it could be five or six,
15:29 seven people
15:30 that we're sharing life together.
15:32 Amen, amen.
15:33 I think it's important also to participate in activities,
15:36 particularly, like a community service,
15:38 you know, joining yourself to a group, an organization,
15:41 someone who's doing good. Having a purpose.
15:42 Yeah, having a purpose, doing good, helping others.
15:44 When you help others,
15:46 it takes the focus off of yourself
15:47 and your loneliness.
15:48 You're living a larger story.
15:50 Yeah, absolutely.
15:51 Pushing yourself a little bit to get out there
15:53 when we don't really feel like.
15:54 Yeah. Right.
15:55 You know, I was waiting for this scripture to come in.
15:58 And this is the place. Okay, go for it.
16:00 We're talking about relationship and knowing.
16:02 Okay.
16:05 John 17:3 says...
16:08 It says, "And this is eternal life
16:09 that they may know You,
16:11 the only true God and Jesus Christ
16:12 whom You have sent."
16:14 We're talking about knowing God
16:15 and Jesus Christ,
16:17 and we don't just know Him,
16:18 that's a process of getting to know Him.
16:20 So for lonely people, yes, we need the small groups,
16:22 we need to get out in the communities too.
16:24 But to know the Father and the Son,
16:27 that is the foundation of what all of our clients
16:31 and we need is to know, and that's a process.
16:34 So that's the vertical connection.
16:36 And you're saying that people will actually do better,
16:39 I'm adding to what you're saying,
16:40 in the horizontal relationship process
16:42 if they have that vertical connection.
16:45 I think that God is all about that.
16:47 But don't people also come to the vertical connection
16:50 through horizontal fellowship so they kind of...
16:52 Both ways. Both ways.
16:53 But also scientific research shows those who live faithfully
16:56 tend to live longer, healthier, recover from surgery better.
16:59 So, you know, oftentimes,
17:01 people find one thing that they like,
17:02 and then they camp on just that, just small groups,
17:04 just outreach, just a relationship with God.
17:06 We need all the pieces of the puzzle.
17:08 And it's interesting to me that all of the things
17:10 that we've mentioned here,
17:11 faith, small groups, and activities,
17:13 and community services type of thing are all things
17:17 that we can find through church.
17:18 Yes.
17:19 You know, I'm constantly telling my clients,
17:21 you need to find a church home.
17:22 Right.
17:24 And because that's like the clearinghouse
17:25 of all these different things.
17:26 Another tool, I think too, is journaling.
17:30 If you're not having a partner, if you don't have a partner,
17:32 or if you're grieving, journaling, I think,
17:34 is a really good tool because it can help you
17:37 take time to reflect on yourself.
17:39 It can help you realize things about yourself.
17:41 And actually, there's a quote,
17:43 and it actually talks about the secret of the success
17:46 of a Christian walk.
17:47 And it says, "Christian workers
17:49 can never attain the highest success
17:51 until they learn the secret of strength.
17:53 They must give themselves time to think, to pray,
17:56 to wait upon God for the renewal of physical,
17:59 mental, and spiritual power."
18:01 Time to think, "What's that?"
18:04 And Mike spoke to that because he talked about it,
18:07 he did writing, and writing, and writing about it.
18:09 And he also walked, like he said,
18:11 I think 15 miles a day or something,
18:13 which I totally get
18:15 because I think best when I walk,
18:17 and I actually take clients on walks
18:19 when they have trauma to work through sometimes
18:21 because walking bilateralizes the brain.
18:23 So I think walking is a gift to us
18:25 to help us process mentally.
18:27 Have you found that to be true? Oh, yeah, absolutely.
18:29 And a disclaimer about the journaling.
18:31 If you're journaling for grief purposes,
18:33 I always tell people,
18:34 you can pour out your heart
18:36 just like David did in the Psalms,
18:37 but you want to make sure you end on a positive note.
18:40 And what I did with one individual is,
18:42 every time they just poured out how hopeless they felt
18:45 that they found a verse that was contrary
18:47 to what they were feeling
18:49 because when they started journaling,
18:50 they actually got more depressed.
18:52 And so I said, "Okay, we got to add in some verses.
18:54 And that's where Comfort for the Day by Karen Nicola,
18:56 that's very good.
18:58 It's comfort for the day, so it's one day at a time,
19:00 we're not asking you to read a book,
19:02 we're asking to think about scripture,
19:03 process the point.
19:05 Now isn't it so though
19:06 that there are going to be times
19:07 when grief is so intense
19:09 that you can't see anything positive,
19:10 like I'm thinking Pat Arrabito, A Mother's Tears that program?
19:14 There was a period of time there she lost her husband
19:16 and her two oldest children to a plane crash,
19:19 all in one fell, swoop.
19:21 And how could you possibly think positive
19:24 or I should say feel positive
19:26 even though she's continued to claim the promises of God?
19:28 I don't think you're going to feel positive
19:30 but I think grieving with hope is key
19:33 to not getting into something called complicated grief
19:35 which is the unhealthy type of grieving.
19:39 Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry to interrupt.
19:40 She made it very clear
19:41 that she wasn't preparing for a crisis,
19:45 but she was prepared for the crisis.
19:47 How?
19:48 She had a walk with God that was very solid.
19:51 And then when the crisis came,
19:53 she had a lot to fall back onto that God is good,
19:56 that God is going to get her through this
19:57 even though it was extremely painful.
19:59 Yeah.
20:00 And she said the one thing she couldn't handle
20:01 was losing children.
20:03 So she's being honest with God.
20:04 She not only said that there's one thing
20:06 she couldn't handle but she knew
20:08 that God would not take her children.
20:09 Right.
20:10 And then that very belief that she had was shattered
20:13 when she learned that they were gone,
20:14 I mean, no survivors.
20:15 Can you imagine that moment?
20:17 And then she had to accept that reality.
20:18 Wow.
20:20 So part of her preparation was being honest with God,
20:22 and then when life radically shifted for her,
20:25 she moved into that reality with God,
20:27 which has a lot of sadness, a lot of pain, a lot of grief,
20:29 but she moved into it in a very realistic way.
20:32 And she also spoke very poignantly
20:34 about the effect on her two surviving children
20:37 that were younger,
20:38 which really touched me when she talked about,
20:40 you know, her children, especially her son.
20:42 And because at the age, developmental level,
20:44 they were not prepared for the loss
20:46 that they had experienced.
20:47 They lost half their family.
20:49 Right, and just the simple things
20:50 like him setting the table and having three bowls.
20:53 And saying, "There's only three."
20:54 Yeah, when they were a family of six.
20:56 That really hit me that the difficulty
20:59 for children to process grieve is different.
21:01 So yes, she had a foundation with God,
21:03 and she said that God is good.
21:05 But a seven and nine-year-old, maybe not the same.
21:08 And even though she had that foundation with God,
21:10 imagine that foundation shifting quite a bit.
21:12 Yes.
21:13 With that one belief system that she had
21:15 and that God would never take away her children
21:16 and yet that happened,
21:18 so even having that foundation
21:20 as her coping skill was probably shifting.
21:23 This is maybe a subtle point.
21:24 But did it hurt her to believe
21:26 that God would take her children?
21:29 I would say no.
21:30 And I would say, well,
21:32 we have a choice between believing
21:33 something very positive
21:35 and believing something negative,
21:36 and they're equally plausible, believe the positive one.
21:39 So she believed that God would spare her children
21:43 didn't turn out to be true,
21:44 but that didn't really put her at a disadvantage.
21:46 Some people would say, "No,
21:47 believe the worst
21:49 because that prepares you for the worst."
21:50 What I find is people believe the worst
21:51 trying to prepare for the worse.
21:53 There's no end to the worst.
21:54 I feel like being ready for God's will kind of like
21:57 when Jesus was asking,
21:58 you know, "Please take this cup of suffering from Me,"
22:01 yeah, He eventually said...
22:03 What did He say? Someone help me out here.
22:04 "Not My will but Thy will be done."
22:06 Right, "Now My will but Your will be done."
22:08 So I think that's the safest place
22:10 to be as opposed to...
22:12 At least that's what I found in my own life
22:14 when there's disappointment.
22:15 And I thought, "This is the one thing
22:17 God would never do and it happened."
22:18 So for me, that's my safe place is just saying
22:21 let Your will be done
22:22 because I don't know what it is.
22:23 I think it's also important to understand
22:25 that God is sovereign.
22:26 And so we may want something or think,
22:28 "He's not going to do that, you know,
22:30 He's only going to do what He thinks like a handle.
22:32 Well, God I can't handle this."
22:34 But that's not up to us to...
22:36 That's not up to us.
22:37 We got to reason the other way and say, "If God let it happen,
22:39 it must be that I can handle."
22:41 Exactly. Well, where is God in it?
22:42 How many time have we prayed
22:44 and it didn't come out the way we wanted?
22:45 Exactly.
22:47 You don't turn and run from God.
22:48 You say, "Okay, You're in charge."
22:49 He gives you the strength.
22:51 CS Lewis said,
22:52 we shouldn't bring to God what should be in us,
22:53 what ought to be in us, but what is in us.
22:55 So she's bringing to God,
22:57 "I couldn't imagine losing my children,
22:59 so you wouldn't do that."
23:00 But that didn't stop her
23:02 from staying connected to God in very strong way
23:05 and trusting His promise.
23:06 In other words, you can say, "God,
23:07 I think you might have miscalculated,
23:09 but I'm going to stay with You
23:10 and find out maybe You're right."
23:12 It wasn't a significant that even on this program,
23:14 all these 20 years later, there were still tears.
23:18 So somebody said that, yeah, the grieving goes on,
23:22 so the pain will come back periodically, and that's okay.
23:26 So it's an unrealistic expectation
23:28 to think that all that pain is just going to evaporate
23:29 and you'll be totally past that.
23:31 It's been said that tears are a sign
23:32 that love was there.
23:34 That's exactly right.
23:35 So, she's not going to stop loving
23:36 her husband and her children.
23:38 That's right, that's right.
23:39 Yeah, she's doing life very well now,
23:40 but there are still times
23:42 when we feel the intensity of the pain,
23:45 and we still are able to function of life
23:48 and come to other people's side
23:49 and help them through their pain.
23:51 Grieving with hope.
23:52 And yet we have that hope. Like Christine said.
23:55 The Apostle Paul said and Christine
23:56 has brought those up a couple times,
23:58 grieving with hope.
23:59 Yes. Yes.
24:00 Wow.
24:02 One of the most kind of scary shows was escaping
24:03 from the black hole of depression.
24:05 And I added to the title,
24:07 all the other things that Steve Walberg
24:08 was going through,
24:09 that was really kind of a harrowing journey, wasn't it?
24:12 But he came out on the other side of it.
24:13 Here's the strong man, this evangelist,
24:16 you know, communicator,
24:17 and a leader, and all of a sudden,
24:20 he stopped sleeping.
24:21 And then he takes some medications,
24:24 and the medications start to have side effects,
24:26 and there's this process,
24:29 and then he starts to have anxiety and panic,
24:32 and he ends up almost coming unglued.
24:34 I mean, he just describes it, like he...
24:36 He's very honest about it,
24:37 I was amazed how honest he was.
24:39 He said he was broken. Yeah.
24:40 Yeah. Oh, yeah.
24:42 One more than that,
24:43 he was actually thinking about,
24:44 "I am dying."
24:46 Yeah, yeah. He imagined being in a casket.
24:48 Yeah, yeah.
24:50 I was really touched by the fact that, you know,
24:52 he's got a reputation to protect an image
24:55 to kind of polish up.
24:57 And a lot of times,
24:58 when you become a public figure,
25:00 you become very image-conscious,
25:02 and donations are contingent upon you being able to,
25:05 you know, all kinds of stuff,
25:06 it's all kind of ramifications
25:08 of letting your image get tarnished,
25:09 but he's like been very honest about.
25:11 And I don't think it's hurt his ministry at all.
25:13 It's expanded.
25:15 I wonder how many of us,
25:16 if we would allow ourselves
25:17 to be who we really are publicly,
25:20 well, he got the place he couldn't hide it,
25:22 but you know... Here's an opportunity.
25:24 A lot of people are just seeing...
25:26 They want to know who we are publicly.
25:28 So I know this is not the program, but...
25:30 Yeah, we've been talking...
25:32 And we've been talking about in future seasons
25:34 to have the counselors themselves
25:35 become the guests.
25:37 How did we get into...
25:38 I'm just not ready for that yet.
25:40 But I think one thing about Steve,
25:41 I noticed too, was,
25:44 you know, it's very important to him to know
25:46 that we all believe in prayer.
25:48 I have a prayer in discipleship ministry,
25:49 but sometimes when I'm training,
25:51 people get disappointed when I say,
25:52 work with professionals,
25:53 work with counselors, work with doctors.
25:55 And they go,
25:57 but then prayer isn't all powerful.
25:58 No, prayer can lead you to it.
25:59 And so one of the things
26:01 that Steve is very passionate about is a friend,
26:02 Kerry Gibson,
26:03 "I want you to go talk to a doctor, Dr. Nedley,"
26:07 and that made difference because prayer alone
26:09 would not have been enough for him,
26:11 he was on these medications.
26:12 You know, you don't pray for a broken leg,
26:13 you go have it set, and he had a broken brain.
26:15 But you can pray too.
26:16 And so he went to a professional
26:18 who could do professional blood tests,
26:19 get scientific evidence, and what was in his blood...
26:21 And the brain is the physical organ
26:23 than sometimes develops...
26:24 And then begin to withdraw from those, get medications,
26:26 it would help him withdrawing a healthier way,
26:29 and then give him supplements.
26:30 And prayer is important, prayer led him to that place.
26:33 And it was part of it, and counseling was part of it.
26:35 When I just read this morning,
26:36 and Mrs. White says that faith is prayer with works.
26:41 So taking action, praying, but also taking action...
26:43 And don't you think like when we do counseling,
26:46 like sometimes you come to a place with a person
26:47 where you're like,
26:49 you need more than what counseling can offer you,
26:50 and it's good that we're able to admit that,
26:53 and just say it is what it is.
26:54 Especially for those more serious
26:55 psychological disorders,
26:57 I think, it's important that medication can bring you
26:58 to a baseline where counseling
27:00 and therapy can be more effective.
27:01 That's right.
27:03 So I often tell my clients, you know,
27:04 pray without ceasing and take your medication,
27:06 especially if that's what's working for you,
27:08 that combination with this depression, anxiety.
27:11 You know, the research says
27:12 that it's a combination of medicine and prayer.
27:14 And definitely psychotic disorders,
27:16 you can't even really expect to treat those effectively
27:20 without some kind of medical intervention.
27:22 And we need to see resources,
27:23 there's different pieces of the same puzzle
27:25 as opposed to either or.
27:27 A lot of people get into black and white either or.
27:30 Now this is complementing each other working together.
27:32 You bring all of the resources on a given problem, and then,
27:36 you know, you can start to remove certain ones,
27:38 you know, and see if there's still...
27:39 See what works for you.
27:40 And Steve's a good example there because he's sharing
27:42 with friends, a friend shares with him.
27:44 And then... Yeah.
27:45 Let me just plug here.
27:46 If we're on medication,
27:48 make sure that we're under medical supervision.
27:49 Medical supervision.
27:51 Well, obviously, we're very chatty today.
27:53 We enjoyed this recap, it was good.
27:55 And it was kind of breakneck,
27:57 but join us for the next season of A Multitude of Counselors.
28:01 May God bless you.
28:03 Amen.


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Revised 2019-01-03