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christian counseling today
Vol. 20 no. 4
guidelines: 1) Maintain confidentiality and
anonymity; 2) Practice good listening skills
(no side conversations or interrupting); 3)
Avoid problem solving or giving advice; and
4) Make sure everyone has time to talk.
The kind of connection that can take
place in this context is profound:
“When
we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our
lives mean the most to us, we often find that it
is those who, instead of giving advice, solu-
tions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our
pain and touch our wounds with a warm and
tender hand. The friend who can be silent
with us in a moment of despair or confusion,
who can stay with us in an hour of grief and
bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not
curing, not healing and face with us the reality
of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares”
(Henri J.M. Nouwen,
Out of Solitude: Three
Meditations on the Christian Life
).
Often those who are the most able and
willing to be companions to someone in
pain are those who have experienced great
pain themselves. These “veterans” have lived
through suffering firsthand and know the
most essential element to healing is being
a companion who gives room for God, the
Great Healer, to do His work. As inspirational
speaker and Franciscan friar, Richard Rohr,
noted, “
Deep communion and dear compassion
is formed much more by shared pain than by
shared pleasure”
(from
Breathing Under Water:
Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
).
Finding Safe Places
Even if we muster the courage to seek a
community where we feel safe to share our
stigmas, where can that community be
found? Given the foundational principle
of the Church is to extend God’s relational
love to our neighbors, the first place where
healing communities should be found is
there. Ironically, though, a local church can
often be a place where the expectation to have
“everything in order” overrules any genuine
opportunity to be open, vulnerable and
honest.
“It is interesting to compare a legal-
istic church with a good AA [Alcoholics
Anonymous] group. In the church, it is
culturally unacceptable to have problems;
that is called being sinful. In the AA group,
it is culturally unacceptable to be perfect;
that is called denial. In one setting, people
look better but get worse, and in the other,
they look worse but get better.... The sad
thing is that many of us come to Christ
because we are sinners, and then spend the
rest of our lives trying to pretend that we
are not!”
– Dr. Henry Cloud,
Changes
That Heal
W
When Karen’s teenage
daughter, Cindy, came
home with a diagnosis
of bipolar disorder, she
was devastated. “It was
frightening—I felt scared
and hopeless, isolated
and stigmatized.” Then
she heard about a weekly
mental health support
group at her church where
family members and
those with mental illness
would share a meal, host
a speaker or discussion
and then break into small
groups for sharing and
prayer. She says, “I’ve
been here ever since,
experiencing God’s healing,
feeling His love through
that fellowship, and looking
forward in hope to that day
when He will wipe away
every tear from our eyes.”
