Tag: Thrive

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Stormy Waters: Who is in your boat?

For those of you who follow my personal Facebook page, you know that my recent trip to counsel global workers started with a bang. I was sitting on a plane, minding my own business, watching a movie, when I experienced the most painful back spasms ever. If you have flown internationally, you know there is that time, in the middle of the flight, where the cabin is super dark and everyone is supposed to be asleep. I was trying to comply! I am a girl who flies a ton but in all those travels, I have never had the need to push the call button. I was humbled when I had to not only push the button, I had to engage numerous flight attendants to help me. (Shout out to Lufthansa Airlines…I am forever grateful for the care they gave to me! Carol, Caroline and Lauren literally held my hand, encouraged me, and did everything they could to help me through a crazy time.)

The rest of that day was equally humbling as the back spasms continued and I had to be transferred through airports in a wheelchair, transported with special equipment and given special assistance at every turn. If it weren’t for Lorrie Lingren, the CEO of Thrive Ministry, I would probably still be sitting in a concourse somewhere in Germany. Of course, the larger concern looming through it all was, how effective would I be once I got to the conference!?

Fortunately, once I got to the hotel and was able to take some muscle relaxants, the healing could begin. I also had Mary Ellen, our Physical Therapist on the volunteer team, who worked on me and our precious doctor, Cheryl, who walked me through the pain management. I felt close-to-fine once the retreat commenced and I was able to use the experience to relate to some women in tough life situations.

Our speaker was ironically talking about navigating stormy seas in life. Talking to a room full of women, engaged in serious work around the world, who live cross culturally…you might have expected the message to be one that gave them license to take a break. Instead she crafted her message with words like; keep going, don’t quit, trust the journey.

Our speaker referred to the familiar Biblical account, in Mark 4, where the disciples of Christ are in a boat with Him when they encounter a storm. While they fret, He is sleeping, giving them the impression that He doesn’t even care. But if you look a few verses back, He actually took them into that storm so He knew all along about the trial they would face and that He would calm the waves at the right time.

Life is full of storms. Everyone faces struggles that, in the moment, seem overwhelming. When I called my sweet husband from Germany, he was ready to hop on the next plane to come and save me, but I knew in my heart I needed to trust that God knew my struggle. I am grateful that I did not turn back. I would have missed out on connections with women who needed encouragement to stay put, keep focused, fight for good things in the world. My calling can’t be minimized because of a bump in the road!

Are you in a life trial where you feel alone and unseen? Are you unsure if the God of the universe cares for you? I am positive that He does. Who else is in your boat? When I look back on it, I had a whole team of people caring for me so that I could, in turn, care for others. Do you need someone to remind you not to quit, to keep going, to trust in the journey?

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia

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Learned anxiety?: Learn Faith

Part of being a new client, when beginning therapy, is a general intake form. These entry forms have questions about your mental health history, including past counseling, identified diagnosis and current symptoms. Most clients, who are ready for time on the counseling couch, feel ready for outside intervention because their life situation has caused enough anxiety, enough depression, enough anger…whatever it is…that they are driven to counseling, by that symptom, that is starting to feel unbearable.

Some anxiety and depression are healthy!

Anxiety and depression naturally accompany hard life situations. Who wouldn’t feel depressed or possibly anxious after the death of a loved one, loss of a job, strained relationship with a child, ongoing illness or any variety of trauma? Some anxiety and depression is actually a sign of processing hard life things WELL…it is when you can’t get off the couch for days, can’t go to class without heart palpitations, or you feel like fainting at inconvenient times, that we intervene to make life manageable again.

Anxiety, in particular, can be limited by learning your body signals, using positive self talk in the crisis, changing up life routine, and even taking medication if you need a reset. But once you feel a little more yourself, there might be some talk therapy surrounding how living life, feeling just a bit out of control, may not be the worst thing imaginable. In fact, it might be a little healthier than the I-have-all-my-ducks-in-a-row model. (Those ducks-in-a-row people have issues too, just so you know.)

Right now, there are a number of self-help gurus, who have large audiences believing that if you just work a little harder, stay a little bit more positive, create better mojo/karma/tribe, your life will instantly improve and all your dreams will come true. I am not against any of those things, but in my experience, anxiety and depression aren’t eliminated just because you try harder.

So, what if, instead of beating ourselves up that our lives aren’t perfect, we embrace a little of the chaos, as part of the larger plan? I for one, have worked hard, have been positive even in some really dark times and have an amazing tribe, and yet…life is still freakin’ hard.  BUT…that difficult stuff is the stuff that allows me to do my calling well. I have a calling to counsel people in dark places and my personal chaos is sometimes the best tool I have…empathy and compassion rarely come from easy peasy lives.

If you are in control of your destiny, is it your destiny?

I want to leave you with a little thought provoker…for those of you who are looking for purpose, looking for a way to feel whole, wanting life to mean more… Do you believe in calling, destiny, or a “reason you were put on this planet”? Are you struggling to feel like you are doing “it” because your life feels out of control or a little messy? What if feeling in control of your destiny means you aren’t on the path to your destiny? What if destiny HAS to come from the outside and be a bit of a struggle? In my case, my purpose is God-driven…He dictates my path. Is there a higher power dictating yours and you are busy trying to organize, plan, hustle, team build and in that controlling stuff, you are missing your purpose, and as a result…feeling depressed, anxious and messy?

My friend, Hunter, texted me this morning with an “aha” from a book she is reading. Paul David Tripp says in New Morning Mercies, “What is the lie? It is the lie that life can be found outside the Creator.” Hmmm…now that is something to think about!

As always, let me know if I can help.

Love,

Sonia

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Broken Things: God can’t use perfect people

I always wanted to be a counselor. From the time I was just a kid, I found myself sitting on couches, listening to people’s stories. When I suggested the idea to my parents prior to heading off to college, my dad seemed confused by the idea of it. He was the son of immigrants, grew up in a gang in East LA…he did not get the concept of sharing your story with a STRANGER. Plus we had church, which was supposed to be where you got that kind of support. So instead of focusing on an actual profession right at first, I attended a liberal arts college and studied Communications and Political Science and got a Masters in Education so that I could teach high school history and government. I loved teaching but even then, my favorite part of the job was building relationships with students and mentoring them in life. My revised plan became to continue in the field of education and be a school counselor someday. But marriage and my girls and a few moves across state lines changed all that. I now realize that our journeys are not completely our own, and there may have been just a tiny bit of wisdom in the madness of God’s plan for me.

When I finally went to seminary to get a degree in Clinical Mental Health, in my forties, I was actually thinking that I would use my degree in a ministry setting, since at that time I volunteered in those capacities on a regular basis. I was going to grad school again because I had a number of life experiences by this time that gave me some wisdom to speak into other people’s lives and I wanted to enhance that life experience with some big time book knowledge. But my time in my second-time-around grad school, mostly outside the classroom, broke me in so many more ways. Once again, life journey often outweighs book stuff. I have seen things now…hard things. I know now, all that real life was so that today, I can sit across from almost anyone and empathize with their situation, using an emotion I have once experienced, maybe not in the exact way, but similarly. It took me awhile to fully understand that it isn’t the perfect stories that minister to people, but rather brokenness and rebirth that encourages the downtrodden and broken hearted in their pain.

Have you ever been weary? Are you broken hearted now? Do you wonder what you have to offer anyone? My guess is that if you have endured trials in your life, you are more than prepared to be a mentor, a soul mate and an encourager. You might be just getting started in leaving a legacy of helpmate and friend. When people are perfect, they really have nothing to offer the hurting world. Who wants to be told how to live by someone who has not faced struggles? Are you ready to accept the challenge of taking your brokenness and turning it into service to the world?

When I look back at the times in life that I felt broken…when I was lonely, depressed, struggling in relationships, financially wrecked, betrayed and overcome with grief…I never felt that I had something to offer anyone. But once the wounds began to heal, because of God’s mercy, good counsel, the elapsing of time and support of other encouragers, I started to realize the power that comes from overcoming the battles of life. Do you have some power that has yet to be tapped into?

 

This morning, I was listening to this song…and I once again was reminded that in brokenness, we are simply in training for our calling. Are you ready to join in the hard work of turning your sorrow into dancing?

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia

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Holy Week Counseling: Make your life a prayer

I will be the first to admit I don’t get as much counseling for myself, as I would like. I have never had a manicure from someone with manicured nails either. It is probably true for most professions. Fortunately, I have some friends who are amazing listeners, good question-askers and love me, even in my weakness…so they are just like a good counselor!

Last week I had lunch with my friends Jayna and Carla. We met on a mission trip and there is something about serving side by side that builds a bond that is supernatural. We are able to share from the deepest parts of our hearts…the stuff that is raw and painful, but we can also be a source of hope for one another in this crazy world, as we encourage, pray for and crack jokes with one another that we think are hilarious. If you don’t have any friends like this, you need to find some.

We were having a conversation about prayer and how disappointing it can be when you pray so hard for something and the answer is…. silence, or no, or not now…. All three of us have some real prayer requests right now. We are all three in some trenches of life and if there is a magical formula for getting our prayers answered, we want to know what it is. Someone pass us the magic wand if you have been hogging it!

Of course there is no magic wand. Sometimes in life, our challenges don’t go away with the wave of a hand. Sometimes there are struggles that sit next to us for long periods of time and the more we pray and the more the answer is no, the more we want to give up hoping.

Jayna knows about cancer. Her beautiful daughter has been battling brain cancer most of her life. I can tell Jayna that my numbers that had been going down, went up again and she knows what that feels like to hear. She knows what hope has to be mustered if you are going to stay in the fight and that even when God is silent, He is working.

Jayna encouraged me to make my prayers an act of worship. She reminded me that prayers are not just about asking for what we need, but they are petitions ensconced in praise to our Lord who walks beside us in the Valley of the Shadow of Death…where we need not fear.

This week is Holy Week, a time when we reflect on the suffering of Christ and the liberation of our souls when He is resurrected. I wonder how many times in His life, even prior to the week leading up to his crucifixion that He felt lonely and sad, frustrated that life wasn’t just a little bit easier in the day to day. I wonder how many times He wished his Dad would just “fix it”. But we know that Christ continued to battle for our hearts, our souls and our minds by living His life to the fullest. His life was lived sacrificially, in obedience, one foot in front of the other. And in that, He pointed to heaven.

Who is with me, to start today…to live in a way that we point to heaven in our struggles and even when the answer is silence, no or not yet, we remain faithful because the God we serve is our hope, our redeemer and the reason we live? Who is ready to make their life a prayer that allows God to be all He is both in heaven and here, on earth?

As always, let me know if I can help.

With love,

Sonia

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Why I do what I do….

It was the summer after junior year in college. A friend of my brother John offered me an opportunity for a paid internship downtown Los Angeles, at a bank headquarters. I was tasked to offer computer support to a division that was trying to implement a career path program that employees could access. Apparently this friend of John’s assumed that because John and I were genetically linked, I would be able to offer expertise in this area. I muddled through the summer, enjoying the time only because the intern program was amazing and I met interesting people and made more money than I thought possible, since my previous paid positions were things like babysitting, camp counselor and working as a hostess at a coffee shop. With lots of help, I got the job done and managed to fool my supervisor into thinking I knew something about my assignment but since I was miscast, I was relieved when it was over.

One of the most requested topics in the counseling room is that of finding fulfillment. Some seek fulfillment through relationships, through career, through family, through faith, even recreation. All of these are avenues for the richness life has to offer. As a counselor, I love the opportunity to explore with clients, the paths available to them for satisfaction in life. As a Christian counselor, it is so important to offer time for reflection for what God may want for clients as they pursue a deeper understanding of the meaning of life.

The Apostle Paul teaches on the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12 and gives warning to what happens when the church does not acknowledge the gifts of each of its members. So often, the places we work and serve in life are quick to fill roles, rather than let members use the skills God has equipped them with. Paul celebrates the diversity of people by reminding us that who we are individually and what we have to offer our community, is as different as the parts of the body with all its uniqueness in function. We need one another just as each part of the body is useless without the support of other parts.

Last night I dropped a box on one of my toes. I am not sure why I needed this experience to remind me what happens when even the smallest appendage is out of commission. In our communities that we live, work and serve, every person has an offering. When one is not operating in fullness, the whole community is hindered from operating at full capacity, just as I am limping around today with an injured toe. Do you know what it is that you bring to the communities of your life?

When Mike and I felt the call into ministerial occupations, it came out of our desire to see the church operate according to the model given to us in the New Testament that has each member of the body of Christ working within their gifts and talents for the good of the community. God, through the Holy Spirit, has gifted each of us with talents, skills and abilities that have value for personal and corporate fulfillment. However, most often, a few people are given the opportunity to use their gifts while many people live hesitant to offer what they have for fear that others will not see their worth, or that what they have to offer is irrelevant. Instead, people work and serve outside their call or not at all.

Calling looks different for everyone and sometimes takes time to uncover. If you have ever been miscast in life, you know that uncomfortable feeling that comes with having to perform in a role not fitted for you. When you are given the role that fits, there is a deep satisfaction that is inspiring and life-giving. It is a good idea to ask yourself if you have a place in your life where you are able to do what you do best, for the benefit of the larger community.

A couple of years ago, I was given the opportunity, through connections at Denver Seminary, to serve with an organization called Thrive. This Christian organization has a mission to encourage and empower Global Women to thrive and to be their advocate. As a counselor, I now serve as a convention volunteer using my abilities to encourage North American women serving overseas. This is an example of how I use my skill for the Christian community as one body part supporting another. It is a role that fits and as a result, I am blessed as much or more than the women I serve.

What are you doing to uncover the calling on your life?