Do you struggle with getting out of bed, let alone going to church?  Or do you want to be free but feel like you’re caged?  Are you at wit’s end trying to find people who will acknowledge that life is hard even for Christians or will not blame you for everything “wrong” in your life?  Do you still believe in God, but are confused or angry that He can allow so much suffering to happen?

It’s hard to be happy or even know how to live practically when growing up in hard environments where people either make you feel like you’re nothing or expect more than you can reasonably give.  Then, the passion you once had for life, let alone any path to God’s purpose for you, is easily lost once you encounter your first challenges in early adulthood away from home.  By the time we get into our later adult years, we might know we need to change but still lack the motivation to grow.  Then, even when we have the motivation to grow, we might not have the skills to do it effectively.

These challenges threaten us from multiple fronts: at work, at home, or even in our own brains/bodies.  They come in the form of anger, fear, guilt, sadness, shame, suffering, and worry.  They overwhelm us and we do our best to get by, but the days pass by and nothing gets better on its own.  The simple things get hard and we can no longer function, feel positive feelings, or think rationally.  We need help.

The Christian faith is the only one where God tells us that we are not alone.  God is the One who goes before us, walks alongside us, and is our rearguard.  God the Father even loves us so much that He adopts us as His own children.  God the Son, Jesus Christ, even considers us His personal friends.  God, the Holy Spirit, has the express purpose of never leaving us alone without help or hope.

And what is more, our Triune God raises up brothers who are born for a time of adversity—not just when things are going well.  In fact, God tells us that there are friends who will stick closer than biological family, and encourages each one of us to be reliable for one another.  These are deep personal relationships where God and the family-of-Christ actually chooses to be there for one another, even/especially when it’s hard.

An ICHTHYSroe counselor can walk with you and guide you on God’s path to healing, change, and growth—even when it feels like your circumstances never change.  Even when no one else chooses to, we will.  We do this because we have been called by God to help you see His perspective and be who He created you to be by navigating the brokenness we experience in this world.

ICHTHYSroe Biblical counseling can help you regardless of your age, as you mature through the stages of individual development (e.g., early childhood, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood).  This can be helping you master each developmental goal as you progress from critical period to critical period, or this can be growing purposefully over a lifetime of navigating different spheres of influence (e.g., school, work, home, government, public square).

While we try not to label individual concerns because that risks broad-brushing your specific issues, some have found it useful to express our expertise according to the following clinical areas (alphabetized to show lack of ranking) before translating to Biblical categories and understandings:

• Emotional Dysregulation (e.g., anger, fear, guilt, sadness, shame, suffering, worry)
• Developmental (e.g., attention-deficit hyperactivity, autism spectrum disorder, high performance)
• Impulse-Control (e.g., behavioral/process addictions, eating disorders,  obsessions/compulsions, substance abuse)
• Grief & Loss (e.g., ambiguous [missing relationships], finite [deaths of loved ones], nonfinite [personal tragedies, career disappointments])
• Lifestyle Challenges (e.g., career, passions, relationships, school)
• Personality (e.g., borderline, narcissistic, obsessive-compulsive)
• Traumatic Stress (e.g., acute, chronic, complex, developmental, intergenerational, societal oppression)

In the course of our time together (slowly, over weeks, months, or even years) we will start by (and go beyond) considering:

• How do you view yourself?  How do others view you?
• What are the facets of cultural identity that have shaped your life experiences (e.g., age, attraction, career, education, ethnicity, family, gender, geography, neurodevelopment, religion, socioeconomic status)?
• What is your overarching purpose in life?  What are your near/intermediate/long-term goals?
• What challenges are you facing?  How have you been responding?
• What relationships or communities are important to you?  How have you committed to and/or shaped them?  How have you been received?
• What have your greatest successes been?  How were they achieved?
• What have been your hardest challenges in life?  What have you learned from them?
• What prevents you from growing?  What would motivate you to change?

And then, most importantly, we can delve into:

• What/who is most precious to you? What would you do for it/him/her? What would life be like without it/him/her? What could change that for you?
• What do you hope for among the possible and the impossible? How do you determine what is possible vs. impossible? What do you do with the impossible?
• When did you recognize God’s presence (for the first time, the most, and the most recent)? What preceded, coincided, and followed? What did you realize about Him in those moments? What was easier or harder to hold onto when circumstances changed?
• What would be the worst thing to ever happen? What would it be like for you to have it happen? What would it be like for you to have it undone or overcome? Which would you prefer?
• When/what/why do you interact with God?
• What makes you laugh, cry, wonder, or sigh? How often do you do those?
• What is the hardest thing for you to do that you want to do but just can’t seem to do consistently? What is the most automatic thing for you to do that you actually don’t want to do?