Broken & Redeemed

I offer Christian integration counseling if that is something you would like to include in our sessions together. I also kindly respect your decision to not have faith integrated into therapy. If you would like to know more about my perspective on Christian faith and counseling, you may continue reading below.

There is something about brokenness that drives my passion to be a therapist.  Perhaps it is because I have experienced a certain level of human suffering myself, and on the other side—in time— I have ascribed new meaning and purpose to what once brought me deep pain. 

I also feel passionate and angry towards the enemy for corrupting and distorting what is good—our thoughts, behaviors, the way we feel about others, about ourselves. This is also no secret, I loath shame, it hides in the dark and cripples us and our relationships and our relationship with God. We each experience some level of it. We were born into shame, and I am passionate about bringing it into the light. 

It’s not that I am attracted to brokenness, but I do believe there is so much beauty that can come from it. Sounds crazy right, but it also sounds a lot like the gospel too. Jesus was broken so that we can be redeemed. He understands our state of brokenness being broken himself so that we can be made whole. 

For me, sitting in another's pain is sacred work. I am a therapist because I am truly and undeniably compelled by what God can do for me and you.  Just as Joseph said in Genesis 50:20, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good.” 

I do not claim to know everything, but here’s what I know to be true no matter where you are in your own story…

Suffering, brokenness, or whatever you are experiencing, while painful, has meaning. Your pain has a purpose. It has the ability to be blessed, it has the ability to be redeemed.  In the words of St. Augustine, “God judged it better to bring good out of evil, than not to permit any evil to exist.”  In other words, we hope for prevention: prevention of our current burdens, we ask “why” all the time. We blame God instead of seeking the restoration he desires us to receive. And you’re not alone. The psalmist asks “How long Lord?” which is often our cry. Yet somehow, someway, God deemed that restoration and redemption would be far greater in your story and walk with him than anything he could possibly prevent. We see that in the life of Jesus, and he sees it in you too. I can imagine that is why the Apostle Paul speaks to his profound new sense of boldness and courage despite his weakness in 2 Corinthians 12:10, “For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Despite the tremendous heartbreak suffering brings, I believe it also brings about opportunity.  Opportunities for connection, to make meaning out of our circumstances, and it opens us up to our need of grace on the path to redemption.  I believe my role as a therapist is to attune to your pain, and to sit with you in your broken state as I too, am just as broken.  Just as Jesus models how to approach suffering, he also reveals how we are to enter the suffering of one another just as he entered ours on the cross.  A lot can be said about the brokenness we endure here on earth, but what I know most is that it has to be attended to, in the context of healing relationships, and in time, it will be described with meaning. Only God can take your brokenness and bless it for his purposes in your life.

His grace is sufficient. When we are broken we become opened up to a new level of God’s good grace. We can either turn from it, or we can depend on it.

There is hope. The hope found in the gospel is what I get to extend to you, the same hope I was so freely given myself is freely given to you too.

And it doesn’t end there—God uses broken people, he does it all the time. He’s using me, and he’s using you.

God delights in coming to our rescue in our time of need.  I have learned for myself that while God does not always prevent our sufferings, he always chooses to redeem them, and use them for his good. He is passionate about doing so. He’s big enough for your pain, your hurt, and your anger.

And lastly, as your therapist I play just a small role in the greater redemption God wants to do in your life. The work we do is just an extension of the work Jesus wants to do in your life. I do not claim to be the source of healing—that’s not my role—but I will always point to a good, good creator who can and who does.