Healing for the Holidays: Part 5—Tidings of Comfort and Joy

Note: This is the fifth in a series of posts on Healing for the Holidays. Read Part 1: A Promise, Part 2: Give Sorrow Words, Part 3: Holiday Healing Q/A, and Part 4: A Lament for Your Loss.

Comfort and Joy

When we lament to God and cry out to Him when we’re experiencing holiday loss, what does God promise? Does He promise to remove all grief? No, for this side of heaven that would require removing all memory of our loved one—something none of us would want. Does he promise to change or “fix” everything? No, that’s not what God promises either.

When we cry out to God, here’s His promise: He comes. He comes in His comforting presence.

In God’s Healing for Life’s Losses, I defined comfort as:

Comfort experiences the presence of God in the presence of suffering—a presence that empowers me to survive scars and plants the seed of hope that I will yet thrive.

My Personal Comfort Journey 

My Father passed away on my 21st birthday. It was a year later, on my 22nd birthday, that I began to experience God’s comforting presence.

For me, comfort reflected itself in my decision not to give up on God and not to give up on ministry. I was in seminary, preparing for ministry, and secretly doubting God—doubting His goodness, His trustworthiness, His ability, or at least His desire, to protect me and care for me. As comfort came, I came face-to-face with God. We had some wild talks. We had some fierce wrestling matches.

God won. I surrendered. I was still confused about the details of life, but committed to the Author of Life. More than that, I surrendered to Him and was dependent upon Him. My attitude was like Peter’s when Jesus asked His disciples, “Will you, too, leave me?” Remember Peter’s reply? “To whom else could we go? You alone have the Words of life.”

I was surviving again, surviving though scarred. I was not and never again would be that same naïve young Christian who assumed that if I prayed and worked hard enough, God would grant me my every expectation. My faith was not a naïve faith, it was now a deeper faith—a faith that could walk in the dark.

Asaph’s Personal Comfort Journey 

According to Psalm 73:21-28, suffering is an opportunity for God to divulge more of Himself and to release more of His strength. When Asaph’s heart was grieved, and his spirit embittered, God brought him to his senses. Listen to his prayer. “My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Psalm 73:26).

In grieving we say with Asaph, “My flesh may be scarred, my heart may be scared, but with God I can survive—forever.”

Thus faith perceives that God feels our pain, joins us in our pain, and even shares our pain. In fact, faith believes that, “in all their distress he too was distressed” (Isaiah 63:9). His sharing of our sorrow makes our sorrow endurable.

Faith does not demand the removal of suffering; faith desires endurance in suffering, temptation, and persecution (1 Corinthians 10:13). Faith understands that what can’t be cured, can be endured. Faith delights in weakness, because when we are weak, then God is strong, and we are strong in Him (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

Grieving is a normal response to loss. However, God does not abandon us in our dark, dank casket. God, who is Light, shines His light of comfort into our hurting hearts.

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen 

The traditional Christmas carol, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen beautifully communicates the comfort we find in God’s presence. The carol is about the incarnation of Christ—Christ’s being born in the flesh so that He could be present with, dwell with us.

Like all true and faithful Christmas carols, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen tells a story in stanzas—a story that progresses from Christ’s birth to His death and resurrection on our behalf. The final stanza captures our Christmas comfort, our holiday hope.

Now to the Lord sing praises,

All you within this place,

And with true love and brotherhood

Each other now embrace;

This holy tide of Christmas

All other doth deface.

O tidings of comfort and joy,

comfort and joy,

O tidings of comfort and joy.

Our “tiding” at Christmas is “Merry Christmas!”

The holy “tiding” of Christmas is “Comfort and joy!”

At Christmas, you may not feel “merry.” But in and with Christ, you can experience comfort (God’s comforting presence). And you can experience joy. Joy is not happiness or merriment. Joy is a settled, quiet peace and confidence that God is good even when life is bad and sad.

My tiding for you this holiday season is more than “Blessed Thanksgiving,” or “Merry Christmas,” or “Happy New Years.” My tiding to you through Christ is, “Comfort and joy.”

The Rest of the Story 

Surviving the holidays is, for many, a pretty major goal. But…is it possible that even more could occur? Could we move from surviving to thriving? We’ll discuss that journey beginning in our next post.

Pausing to Reflect 

How could you experience God’s presence in order to experience His comfort and joy this holiday season?

Help for Your Healing Journey 

For additional help on your healing journey, learn more about God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting.

Healing for the Holidays: Part 1—A Promise

Holidays… They’re “supposed” to make us think of words like thankful, merry, and happy. We’re “supposed” to associate holidays with a phrase like “Home for the Holidays!”

But… what if a loved one is not coming home this holiday season? What if death, divorce, or distance causes us to associate the holidays with words and feelings like depression, anxiety, and stress?

Holidays can create fresh memories of our loss and a fresh experience of pain and grief. The thought of facing another holiday season causes some people to wish they could sleep from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving until January 2. Loss is always hard, and at the holidays it can seem crushing. The thought of being in a festive mood for two months is just too much to bear when our heart is breaking.

A Note to Those Who Are Happy at the Holidays

Some of you might be thinking, “Bob. Don’t be such a downer. I love the holidays!” Awesome. I have no desire to diminish your joy.

However, your experience is not universal. For many of your friends, neighbors, co-workers, and relatives, the holidays are bittersweet. So keep reading…if not for yourself, then for others—so you can empathize with and care for those who need healing for the holidays.

A Promise to Those Who Long for Healing for the Holidays 

Jesus understands. “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). I include this verse every time I autograph a copy of God’s Healing for Life’s Losses.

In this one verse, Jesus gives you permission to grieve and permission to hope. Jesus is real and raw, just like life can be. He is also honest and hope-giving. His words, His life, death, and resurrection, give us healing hope.

The Apostle Paul offers the same message of sorrow mingled with healing. Sharing with Christians who had lost loved ones, Paul speaks of Christian grief—grieving with hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

In this first post in our blog “mini-series” I want to follow the lead of Jesus and Paul by giving you:

• Permission to Grieve: Hurting During the Holidays

• Reason to Hope: Healing for the Holidays

In subsequent posts, I want to journey with you through biblical, practical, relevant ways you can grieve and grow, heal and hope.

Permission to Grieve: Hurting During the Holidays—It’s Normal to Hurt

It’s normal to hurt. When you see the empty chair during Thanksgiving dinner, it’s normal to hurt. When you unwrap the ornament that was your loved one’s favorite, it’s normal to hurt. When you usher in a new year apart from someone you love dearly, it’s normal to hurt.

Loss and separation are intruders. This is not the way it’s supposed to be. God designed us for relationship—it is not good to be alone.

Jesus did not just talk about loss and grief, He experienced it. When Jesus saw Mary weeping over the death of her brother Lazarus, he was deeply moved (John 11:33). Coming to Lazarus’ tomb, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

On the cross, experiencing separation from His Father, Jesus cried out. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46).

If the perfect, sinless God-man Jesus wept over loss, then it is normal to hurt. If Jesus agonized over separation from His Father, then you have permission to grieve.

Paul did not just talk about loss and grief, he experienced it. Imprisoned and separated from Timothy, his son in the faith, Paul writes, “Night and day I constantly remember you in my prayers. Recalling your tears, I long to see you, so that I might be filled with joy” (2 Timothy 1:3-4).

Toward the end of his life, almost totally alone, Paul recalls, “At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me” (2 Timothy 4:16).

Memory is a great blessing—and can be a great curse. The memory of relatives separated from us by death, divorce, or distance is a legitimate source of great pain and a legitimate reason to hurt.

Reason to Hope: Healing for the Holidays—It’s Possible to Hope

It’s possible to hope. In the midst of Paul’s grief over being deserted and betrayed he also said, “But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength” (2 Timothy 4:17).

At another point of candid grief, Paul shared that he “despaired even of life” and “felt the sentence of death” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9). Yet, he also knew, “This happened to us that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9). With Christ you have reason to hope for healing for the holidays. Loss is not final or fatal. It’s possible to hope.

Jesus, forsaken by His Father because of our sin, was raised from the dead by His Father. Even more (if you can say “even more” about the resurrection!) He is now seated at the right hand of the Father! Reunion. Relationship. Oneness.

Separation is not final with Christ. It’s possible to hope because our God is the God who raises the dead. He can resurrect your hope.

The Rest of the Story

You may be thinking, “That helps to know that I have permission to grieve, but what do I do with my hurt during the holidays?” And you may be asking, “I’m glad for the promise of healing for the holidays, but how do I find it?” Great questions. We’ll journey together in subsequent posts to find God’s answers for life’s losses.

Join the Conversation 

Shakespeare said, “Give sorrow words.” What words would you give your sorrow over your hurt during the holidays? What glimmers of hope and healing are you seeing this holiday season?

Help for Your Healing Journey 

For additional help on your healing journey, learn more about God’s Healing for Life’s Losses: How to Find Hope When You’re Hurting.

Quotes of Note: My First Priority in Ministry

The following “Quotes of Note” are from Chapter Five of Equipping Counselors for Your Church. This chapter focuses on relational change management and biblical conflict resolution. For quotes from Chapter One, read God’s Grand Vision for His Church. For quotes from Chapter Two, read Knowing and Loving Those We Serve and Equip. For quotes from Chapters Three and Four read Christ’s Compelling Calling. 

• Biblical counselors don’t say, “Physician, heal thyself.” Instead, we say, “Soul physician, go to the Soul Physician for healing before counseling others.”

• Before you prepare a change management plan, prepare people. Before you prepare people, prepare your own heart.

• Transformation starts with hearts: changed leaders leading changed people who change churches who change communities.

• Launching a biblical counseling ministry isn’t a task to accomplish. It is a relationship—with God and others—to nourish and enjoy.

• The end goal of biblical counseling is worship—entrusting ourselves to, exalting, and enjoying God (Matthew 22:34-40).

• The end goal of the process of launching a biblical counseling ministry should be to shepherd Christians to a deeper worship of Christ.

• The book of Nehemiah is not about organizational leadership; it is about shepherding people whose transformed lives lead to a transformed community.

• Change is like a ship that we simultaneously sail and refit.

• Relational change management is a continuing conversation, not a lecture. Commit to dialogue rather than monologue.

• Relational change management asks, “How much change can our people appropriately digest? How much change can our people realistically implement?”

• We should not expect people to change because we said so, but because God says so.

• In the Redwood National Park there is a hollowed out tree that you can drive through. Since you don’t do that every day, there’s a sign before the entrance to the tree that says, “Others Have. So Can You.”

• Rather than going toe-to-toe with ungodly critics, Nehemiah encouraged God’s people to minister shoulder-to-shoulder (Nehemiah 2:11-20).

• Nehemiah had sufficient inner resources to stand alone if need be. In the tenacious discharge of his responsibilities, he was prepared to have no one but God. His energy was not dictated by other’s apathy.

• When someone pushes us, our inclination is to push back. When someone gets in our face, we’re tempted to get in their face. Nehemiah chose to get face-to-face with God (Nehemiah 4:4).

• When life stinks, our perspective shrinks. When our perspective shrinks, we need a full dose of eternal perspective, of God perspective. We need to remember Who God is, who we are in Christ, Who it is that is calling us, and what He is calling us to do.

• Great leaders respond to the potential death and destruction of a dream with life and creativity.

• You can define the greatness of leaders by what it takes to discourage them and by how they encourage everyone around them.

• Paul demonstrates that when conflict occurs, my first ministry, even before I launch any other ministry, is to love others with Christ-like love.

Join the Conversation 

Which quote about relational change management and biblical conflict resolution resonate with you the most? Why?

The Law and Church Counseling: Part Six—Counting the Cost 

Note: You’re reading Part Six (the final post) in a blog mini-series on The Law and Church Counseling. Read Part One Caring Carefully, Part Two The Legal History and Climate, Part Three Scope of Care, Part Four Quality of Care, and Part Five Building Safeguards Into Your Ministry. I’m summarizing these posts from material in chapter twelve of Equipping Counselors for Your Church. To learn more about the book, which is now available for pre-order, visit Equipping Counselors. 

Seven pertinent issues summarize the quality of care matters that every biblical counseling ministry should address: propriety, humility, referral,  confidentiality, church discipline, documentation, and supervision. In Part Four, we examined the first three issues, and in Part Five the fourth and fifth issues. Today in Part Six, we explore documentation and supervision in biblical counseling.   

Documentation and Biblical Counseling

If scope of care or quality of care issues arise, it will be extremely helpful if you have carefully documented your training. Have available copies of your training materials, and keep copies of your completed evaluations of trainees (see Appendix 10.1 of Equipping Counselors for Your Church).

You should also document each counseling relationship with basic case notes (see the Biblical Counseling Record Sheet in Appendix 11.1 of Equipping Counselors for Your Church). Case notes should include the name of the person seen, the date, the session number, a review of the previous session, goals for the current session, an in-session summary, a listing of post-session homework, and the next meeting date and time. On the back of this form, include a treatment plan that matches your training model. In this way, all record-keeping stays consistent with the training received. In case notes, assure that your graduates do not use psychological labels and diagnostic categories. Typically they lack training for this. Additionally, the use of such labels could be perceived as movement away from spiritual care to psychological and even licensed counseling.

Keep these records on site in a secure location—they should never leave the building. There is no clear, uniformed standard for how long to keep such records. Best practice ministries tend to keep them for three years, after which they are destroyed.

Supervision and Biblical Counseling 

Note: In chapter eleven of Equipping Counselors for Your Church, I go into much greater detail about practical “how to” principles and practices of supervision and continuing education for church-based biblical counseling.

All graduates of your biblical counseling training must be supervised by qualified individuals. As part of supervision, the supervisor should discuss all counseling evaluation forms completed at commencement (termination), and these evaluations should be maintained. You should also document and keep records of all continuing education.

Final Thoughts: Count the Cost

I am not naïve. This is not an “easy” blog topic. However, I don’t like to pretend. We have to address these “elephants in the room.” They deal with the law of the land to which God commands us to submit and they deal with the law of love which God commands us to obey.

God calls us to be prudent in regards to our responsibilities to abide by and respect the law. And he calls us to be loving and above reproach as we minister to people. We are to be shrewd and wise as snakes and innocent and harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16).

There is nothing we can do to prevent someone from suing us. We can only provide the best practices possible to defend our actions before the legal system, and more importantly, before our God.

Nothing can, or should prevent us from ministering to the Body of Christ. Yes, we need to count the cost (Luke 14:28-33). And, yes, we need to serve God even when there will be a cost—as there always will. We can never allow the fear of man to stop us from serving God.

Practicing What I Preach

Regarding the law of the land, I need to practice what I preach with this disclosure statement.

As the author of this blog mini-series, I am not a legal expert. The reader should not consider this series legal counsel personally or for any specific church or ministry. I provide this series simply as a synopsis of my research of best practices designed to help readers to become more aware of some basic ethical and legal considerations. I encourage readers to take responsibility for remaining current, as legal interpretations change over time. I encourage churches to contract with an attorney who is an expert on the pertinent laws in their state, as laws vary from state to state. I encourage churches to maintain and provide malpractice and liability insurance covering the church, pastors, trustees, elected leaders, and those trained in the biblical counseling ministry.

Join the Conversation

Of all the principles in our six-part mini-series on The Law and Church Counseling, what do you think is most important? What would you state differently? What would you add?

A Lament for Your Loss

This week I’ve been explaining why it is unbiblical to try to forget our past. In Ask the Counselor, I noted that we should reflect on our past. Yesterday, in Blessed Are Those Who Mourn, I described the first part of reflection: candor—being honest with ourselves.

Today we’ll look at a second aspect of reflection: lament—being honest with God. I develop this material further in God’s Healing for Life’s Losses. Here’s an excerpt from chapter three: “A Lament for Your Loss Mourn.”

Biblical Lament: Telling God the Truth

Numerically, there are more Psalms of complaint and lament than Psalms of praise and thanksgiving. Lament is vulnerable frankness about life to God in which I express my pain and confusion over how a good God allows evil and suffering.

Lament is a faith-based act of persistent trust. Lament is one of the many moods of faith. Psalm 91’s exuberant trust is one faith mood while Psalm 88’s dark despair is another faith mood. A mood of faith trusts God enough to bring everything about us to Him. In lamewnt we hide nothing from God because we trust His good heart and because we know He knows our hearts.

My Personal Lament Journey

In the weeks and months after my 22nd birthday, I engaged in passionate lament. What made my struggle with my father’s death even more difficult was my lack of assurance that my father was a believer. I had witnessed to him, prayed for him, and he even began attending church with me. Yet even on his deathbed, he made no verbal commitment of faith in Christ.

So I shared with God. I told God, “What’s the use? Why did I pray, witness, and share? Why should I ever pray again? Why should I ever try again, trust again?”

I shared my confusion and my doubt with God. “Why does everyone else’s parent accept Christ in a glorious deathbed conversion? Why can’t I have assurance of my Dad’s presence with You?”

Were my expressions of lament biblical? Can lament be biblically supported? Does God truly prize lament?

Biblical Lament Samplers: With Christ in the School of Suffering

According to Psalm 62:8, if we truly trust God, then we’ll share everything with God. “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.”

The biblical genre of lament expresses frankness about the reality of life that seems inconsistent with the character of God. Lament is an act of truth-telling faith, not unfaith. Lament is a rehearsal of the bad allowed by the Good.

When we lament, we live in the real world honestly, refusing to ignore what is occurring. Lament is our expression of our radical trust in God’s reliability in the midst of real life.

Psalm 73 is a prime example of Lament. Asaph begins, “Surely God is good to Israel” (73:1). He then continues with a litany of apparent evidence to the contrary, such as the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the godly (73:2-15). When he tries to make sense of all this, it’s oppressive to him (73:16). He then verbalizes to God the fact that his heart is grieved and his spirit embittered (73:21).

His lament, his complaint, drew him nearer to God. It did not push him away from God. “Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand” (73:23). He concludes, “But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge.” (73:28).

It was Asaph’s intense relationship with God that enlightened him to the goodness of God even during the badness of life. “Till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny. . . . As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O LORD, you will despise them as a fantasy” (73:17, 20). Spiritual friendship with God results in 20/20 spiritual vision from God.

Asaph illustrates that in lament we come to God with a sense of abandonment and confusion (Isaiah 49:14; Jeremiah 20:7; Lamentations 5:20). We then exercise a courageous, yet humble cross-examination. Not a cross-examination of God, but a cross-examination and a refuting of earth-bound reality with spiritual reality.

That’s exactly what occurs in Jeremiah 20:7; Lamentations 5:20; and Psalm 88:18. In all three passages, it appears by reason alone that life is bad and so is God. Yet in each passage, God responds positively to a believer’s rehearsal of life’s inconsistencies.

In Job 3, and much of Job for that matter, Job forcefully and even violently expresses his lament.

What’s the point of life when it doesn’t make sense, when God blocks all the roads to meaning? Instead of bread I get groans for my supper, then leave the table and vomit my anguish. The worst of my fears has come true, what I’ve dreaded most has happened. My repose is shattered, my peace destroyed. No rest for me, ever—death has invaded life.

In Job 42:7-8, God honors Job’s lament saying that Job spoke right of life and right of God. God prizes lament and rejects all deceiving denial and simplistic closure, preferring candid complexity.

To deny or diminish suffering is to refuse arrogantly to be humbled. It is to reject dependence upon God. Moses chastises God’s people in Deuteronomy 8:1-10 for forgetting their past suffering. God wants us to make use of our suffering, to remember our suffering, to admit our need for Him in our suffering, and to rehearse our suffering (external and internal) before Him.

On the Road to Hope

Will we be disappointed with God or disappointed without God? We can either lament with and to God, or we can complain without and about God.

If facing suffering is wrestling face-to-face with God, then complaint is our decision to grapple with God about life hand-to-hand, eye-to-eye. Will you?

Join the Conversation

How would you compare your response to your suffering to Job’s? Jeremiah’s? Jacob’s? David’s? Paul’s? Jesus in the Garden?

Hope Positive: Christopher Yuan’s Testimony 

The testimony of Christopher Yuan and his parents about God as the Hound of Heaven. The story is told in more detail in Out of a Far Country: A Gay Son’s Journey to God. A Broken Mother’s Search for Hope.