Council of Counselors: Vulnerable Counselors / Jesus Loves Porn Viewers / Gender Dysphoria / Cohabitation Myths / Grieving Children

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.

Dear Counselor, You Are Permeable by Eliza Jane Huie

Counseling sessions are not simply two people spending an hour together. You are “taking in” the entire session. Just as the details of the book affected me, in a similar way you absorb the words you hear, the body language you see, the tears, anger, shame, and pain. You are impacted. How can counselors better deal with this permeability?

• If you are interested in seeing the spiritual-relational-emotional benefits in being vulnerable, consider this excerpt from my booklet Vulnerability: Blessing in the Beatitudes.

Jesus’s Compassion for Those Who Love Porn by Mo Isom

What my eyes had taken in for years and years, my heart had translated into feelings of insufficiency, into dependence on affirmation from others consuming the same perspective-warping things. But then Jesus collided with my story.

• If a sense of shame and inability to withstand unpleasant emotions feeds your struggle with porn, consider my post “Negative Emotion Tolerance in the Pursuit of Sexual Purity.”

Carrying the Cross of Gender Dysphoria by Mark Yarhouse

Certainly Christ loves us now with as much love as He loved His other disciples. He will give hope in our own dark nights and raise us into newness of life, just as He said. This brings us back to the reminder that it is in suffering well that the beauty of life in Christ is made manifest. We rejoice in our suffering precisely because it is through our hardships (and handling of those hardships) that God is glorified. This joy is not exhibited primarily through a smiling face. Sometimes it is through tears and open hands that might feel empty. Suffering in these moments, especially, is an act of worship, in which believers unite their suffering to Christ.

• Many parents wonder how to have conversations about transgender-related issues with their children; here is an example: “Talking to My Boys after the Transgender Talk at Their Public School.”

The Three Myths of Cohabitation by Andrea Palpant Dilley

According to a recent sociological study, cohabitation has a notably deleterious impact on one particular group: kids. “As marriage becomes less likely to anchor the adult life course across the globe, growing numbers of children may be thrown into increasingly turbulent family waters,” writes Bradford Wilcox in Foreign Affairs.

• Cohabitation: A Conversation Starter is a 6 minute video that arrives at this same conclusion using other sociologically derived research.

How Children Respond to Loss and How to Help by Linda Jacobs

Most of us like to think of children as lighthearted, happy-go-lucky, without a care in the world. Yet, we know that many children will experience the death of a loved one. When a death occurs it turns a child’s world upside down. It is times like these that children’s pastors and church leaders need to be prepared with how to help the parents help the child. At other times when a parent is deep in grief, a minister may be asked to speak with the child directly. In extreme situations, such as a sudden death, the pastor may be the one who tells the child about the death of the loved one. It is important to understand the many issues involved when ministering to grieving children.

What I’m Reading

The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus by Zack Eswine. Dear Pastor – Desire burns within you. You’ve trained and dreamt of doing large things in famous ways as fast as you can for God’s glory. But pastoral work keeps requiring your surrender to small, mostly overlooked things over long periods of time.

You stand at a crossroads. Jesus stands with you. You were never meant to know everything, fix everything, and be everywhere at once. That’s his job, not yours.

So what now? Let the apprenticeship begin.

Tweets of the Week

Meaningful Meme

On the Lighter Side

Because, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones,” Proverbs 17:22.