Reflections on Pastoral Counseling
Pastoral counseling exists…
to help people tell their stories more honestly, and find hope without the hiding;
to admit where we need rescue from the pressure to perform,
and allow our real pains, and longings, and disappointments, and failures, to surface
where they can be named and known, and met with the compassion and power of Jesus,
in whose presence, who you really are is held in the light and loved
by the God who tells us truth we are afraid to speak
—that we are not, and cannot, and were never going to be enough to save ourselves—
and gives himself without limit as our help and our healing, our hope and our future.
This—finding ourselves truly known, honestly named, and unshakably loved by the God who came for the sick, for the sinners, for the lost, for the weary, for the hungry, the helpless, the defiled, and the dead—
is the true alternative
to denial, distraction, and numbing,
to cycles of determination and despair,
to a serial lineup of heroes that crash under our God-sized hopes.
This is what we aim to be as pastoral counselors: another battered and beloved person to listen past what it has seemed safe to say in public, and bear witness to the real you— the one that needs the mercy of God in the face of Jesus—and speak his comfort and hope to that you.
As often as we meet.
Until the One we long for comes.
Laura Henrich is a pastoral counselor here at Unbound Grace. Pastorally trained at Beeson Divinity, Laura is invested in trauma-informed care and has particular interest in anxiety, relational trauma, spiritual abuse, attachment, codependency, and shame.
Laura is currently accepting new clients!
You can contact Laura at laura@unboundgrace.life.
This post is indebted to the vision of ministry described in the forthcoming book by Jonathan Linebaugh, The Well that Washes what it Shows: An Invitation to Holy Scripture.