“You must be the first real Christian I’ve ever met, because I’ve spent my whole life in church, and I’ve never heard anyone say what you just said. You really believe what you say you believe.”
This from the woman who just walked into my counseling room whom I may have initially labeled “resistant.” Cold. Skeptical. Burned. Defensive.
These conversations remain with me as I review the hours I’ve spent in the counseling room . . .
Five years ago, life was different. I was “living the dream,” having devoted myself to hours at the piano. It was all I ever wanted to do. I had the skills and a lifetime of experience. It was my comfort zone and very much a part of me, and I died inside when it was gone.
Five years ago, thanks to an overuse injury, I faced the dark reality that my fingers may never touch the piano again.
And that’s when I entered the counseling room.
As a counselor. I had little to no counseling training or experience. But I had prayed for a new path, and maybe this was it? Selfishly, I needed to be distracted. Anything to fill the freshly empty days my lost ability had brought me. Anything to preoccupy my mind and take it away from the nagging physical pain that threatened to undo me.
Where to start . . . Well, I loved the gospel, and I hated abortion, so I started at my local pregnancy center. They were looking for “client advocates,” and the next thing I knew, I was in the “counseling room.” It was a volunteer position and was technically defined as “mentoring.” But it meant the door was wide open for me to peel back the layers and speak the truth of Christ into the brokenness before me. And that’s what I did. And I loved it. And it became part of me.
Four years later, I found myself accepting a very part-time position as a counselor at a local ministry to women in the adult entertainment industry. I didn’t know it was a paid position when I was interviewed. And though I have a Bachelor’s Degree {in music}, my only qualification as a counselor was pure experience – over a thousand hours in the counseling room.
God writes crazy stories. And my journey from pianist to counselor is one of them.
I now spend about six hours a week in the counseling room. Many days, I leave completely floored. Not by what I’ve just heard, but by what I’ve just said. And it’s nothing profound. It’s just the Spirit of Wisdom using my mouth to make the glorious Truth known.
And I get in my car, and I drive away feeling like I’m living a non-reality, because it’s all too much. It’s all too wonderful. It’s like a dream.
Yes, by God’s grace, I’m beginning to see the pieces come together. When my dream of being a pianist died, that’s when I entered the counseling room. And there I found a new passion, a new love, a new dream . . .
To visibly witness the urgency of the lostness of a soul, and to speak the only Truth that can save it.
To peek and pry into the emptiness and the hurt and the brokenness of a life, and to journey upward on the road to restoration.
To listen and to love. To identify and to understand. To be upfront and honest, but to soak it all in grace, and forgiveness, and Jesus.
To be the hand that opens the Book. The voice that repeats the Words of the ages. The heart that aches to impart its Hope.
I had no idea that this was my dream.
And that’s when I entered the counseling room.
[image credit: unsplash.com ]
Journey of the Word 