Council of Counselors: Hatmaker’s Friends / Mental Illness / Seasonal Affective / Sleep Overs / Adultery

This is a weekly post that highlights resources from other counselors that I have found helpful. The counselors may be from the biblical counseling, Christian psychology, integration, or secular counseling traditions. By linking to a post, I am not giving it my full endorsement, I am merely indicating that I believe it made a unique contribution or raised an important subject for consideration.

Truth + Love by Jamie Ivey

We absolutely love Brandon and Jen Hatmaker. We love their entire family, and they’ve been our friends for many years. They’re the kinds of friends you laugh and cry with, host supper clubs with, and vacation with. We love them. We always will. There are also two other things we really love. 1) We love the holy, God-breathed Scriptures–the parts that are easy for us to accept, as well as the harder parts. 2) And, not in spite of our love for Scripture, but because of it, we love people in the LGBTQ community.  

• For more on Ivey’s point #2  consider Do Ask, Do Tell, Let’s Talk

Does Mental Illness Mean I’m Not a Christian? by Amy Simpson

Question: I have been diagnosed with schizophrenia. It’s awful. I can hardly get up and dress myself some days, it’s so hard. I am a Christian. Can you tell me if you lose your salvation for having this illness? And is schizophrenia caused by not serving God correctly or by believing lies?

• For more on a Christian perspective on mental illness consider this resource.

Seasonal Affective Disorder—What You Need to Know by Joel Young, MD

If you find yourself falling into the doldrums at the same time every year, likely tied to this time of year when our hours of daylight dwindle, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), sometimes called seasonal depression, may be to blame. Most SAD sufferers experience symptoms during the winter months, causing researches to conclude that inadequate sunlight may play a role. You don’t have to spend the winter months feeling depressed and unmotivated. Here’s what you need to know about seasonal depression.

• For more on the potential role of culture in season affective disorder, see this post.

Children and Sleepovers: What Parents Need to Know by Tim Challies

My family doesn’t do sleepovers. Before our children were even old enough to ask, Aileen and I talked it through and determined that we would not allow them. We would simply take sleepovers off the table altogether. A couple of years ago I wrote about this in an article titled Why My Family Doesn’t Do Sleepovers and something crazy happened. To date, nearly 8,000,000 people have read it. Every few months something happens within Facebook and it goes viral all over again. In the past week alone another 600,000 people have dropped by my site to read the article.

‘Love Warrior’: Bestselling Memoir, Mistaken Message by Winfree Brisley

In her memoir, Love Warrior, Melton lays bare the story of their broken marriage and path to reconciliation, including how she came to answer her husband’s question—and her realization of how she also needed to ask God the same question. In order to find answers, she seeks to better understand her own past struggles with various addictions. Melton’s story is brave and vulnerable, which almost instantly makes her feel safe and trustworthy. She gives words to things many women have felt or experienced yet may have been unable to form into cohesive thoughts or sentences. Many will think, Yes, that’s it! She understands! And because Melton seems so real and honest, we want what she says to be true.

• For a recommendation on a book that accomplishes the strengths of Melton’s book with a more gospel-centered perspective see the “What I’m Reading” section below.

Tweet of the Week

Thanks for the Mention

• Servants of Grace for linking to the “19 Possible Motive-Triggers for Pornography” article.
• The Beacon of Lighthouse Baptist Church for linking to the post “The Noun ‘Counsel’ and the Verb ‘Counseling.'”
• Visionary Womanhood for linking to the “Chronically Self-Centered Spouse” series.
• Reforma 21 for translating in to Portuguese and posting “19 fatores que motivam o uso de pornografia” (“19 Possible Motive-Triggers for Pornography”).

What I’m Reading

Unfaithful: Hope and Healing After Infidelity by Gary and Mona Shriver – Statistics show that one in every four marriages is impacted by infidelity. So the odds are pretty good that you or someone you know has experienced the searing pain of marital infidelity. But adultery is not an automatic death sentence for your marriage. You can trust again. You can restore intimacy. You can have a relationship that you will both cherish for a lifetime.