No Roar Today - A Day of Contemplation

Dear Lion Hearts,

Today, it seems that I have overestimated some things and let down boundaries that I should have kept up.  Not walls but boundaries that are necessary for the safety of myself and others.  You know when I set out counseling, and pastoring and all that goes with that, I knew that there would be a requirement of an investment of myself and my life.  I was prepared for that.  I did not realize how much setting up clear boundaries would be necessary and how they are not to keep things out as much as they are for keeping health, safety and sanity in.  Men and women leave the ministry at alarming rates every year.  Good people with hearts that were fully seeking God and His ways.  But they were too trusting, too open, too accessible and ended up used up, worn out and hurt.  Alot of times the hurts come from within the church and the congregations.  Those are the ones that sting the worst.  Those are the ones that make a good minister question.  Worse yet is when the lack of boundaries and communication causes a good minister to bring hurt to another.  It is such a time as that for me right now.

Many do not realize that when a minister opens up and counsels with someone that there is a pouring out that happens from the counselee and the counselor.  Both are somewhat investing in one another.  And really there is a connecting of hearts in the process of Biblical Counseling because you pray to see the person as Jesus sees them.  To hear the pain and turmoil through His ears and not your own.  We tend to be too judgemental as people.  Good Biblical counseling must come through the Holy Spirit. To our human nature, this process becomes draining very very quickly and when you add the dynamics of the families involved within the church, well every session shall we say can be overwhelming.  But as a counselor, you have to look past all that and obey God and say and do what needs to be done.  He is the Counselor anyway, we merely facilitate what He is leading in the session. 

When I stepped into this role, I felt that God was using it as part of my ministry as a whole.  So I have not charged anything for the people who come to me for help.  Sometimes I ask for donations to the main ministry I work with but I have never taken a penny for counseling anyone. Others would say to me - "you better be careful, people wont value it or you if they dont have to pay for it".  I disputed that and still do to this day.  If it is God and He brings them in to me, their valuing it is determined by their yielding to the changes He is asking of them and they will value it beyond measure as the transformations occur.  But for the most part - here is the sad thing - the majority of people who come to counseling are not coming to change anything about themselves.  They are coming to have someone agree with them that they are alright.  That it is the rest of the world that is the problem.  Truth is none of us are truly "alright".  We are living in a fallen world with the effects of sin, past and present touching us everyday.  We all have "stuff".  Some just need a helping hand in dealing with it.  Much like we need to have check ups to make sure the body is working well, sometimes we need an emotional, soul realm check up and adjustment guided by the Holy Spirit.

I have a heart for young people - not little people so much, they are cute, but it is the teenage to young adults that pull at my heart strings.  Through some thoughtlessness and lack of wisdom I unintentionally hurt one of them and their family this week and it has really knocked the wind out of me.  If people could really understand just how much it costs us to do what we do as counselors there is no way they would think that we could do something on purpose to hurt someone.  Pastors, ministers, counselors - we are all people too and we miss it and mess it up pretty well.  We cry over these things, ask forgiveness and try and learn from them.  But the sting of those who are supposed to be on the team with you, not allowing for you to be human is the deepest wound.  It is the ground shaking one.

I have faith in Jesus and He has all this in His hands.  My love for Him is great and my desire to serve Him is still within.  It is just sad when you feel you have to turn away from what your love and passion is, in order to process and endure.  Burnout does happen in the ministry.  Heartbreak does happen in counseling and investing in other's lives.  Hopefully forgiveness does too.
Pastor V