Quotes by Counselors

It’s not so much about writing the story of Christmas itself, as ingenious as it is. In reality, it’s much more about writing the story of Christmas into the story of life so that it will become the story of life.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Despite the voices of the culture that would scream otherwise, victory is irreparably tied to the surrender of self. And that explains why so few are truly victorious.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

I hold in my hand a million ideas and more. But if I am puzzled as to why they have never leapt out of my hand and been birthed into the realities they were crafted to be, it is likely because the other hand has withheld the sacrifice that is necessary to birth an idea.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Easter is the invulnerable tale of utter selflessness where at an inestimable cost God did for us what He did not need done for Himself. And that kind of ‘doing’ happens every day.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

We will find it increasingly difficult to believe that we've been set free from sin, from the law's power to condemn, and that God's smile is resting upon us if we continually give ourselves over to what we know we should avoid. Sin strips our faith, and it leads to ultimate deadness in our lives.

Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

Thanksgiving is an attitude that must be rooted in the ‘gift of life’ if we ever hope to be thankful for the ‘gifts’ of life.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

If I’ve prayed, I never have to worry about being the first one to show up.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Maybe the truth of it all is that we’re just too fearful to give our faith enough running room to realize that this precariously thin path that led us to the end of this life is dwarfed to obscurity by the infinitely vast byway that begins immediately on the other side.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

The presence of a path doesn’t necessarily mean the existence of a destination.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

My worth is not based on the ‘work of my hands’ despite how feverishly I might work and how audaciously successful I might be. Rather, my worth is based exclusively on the astonishing fact that I am the ‘work of God’s hands.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

If my goal is simply to survive the journey, then I’m not on the journey in the first place.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

In too many instances we have settled for a world of our own shaping that is shaping up to be in terrible shape.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

If one wants to be loved and return it full score dagger of silence closes the door.

David W. Earle

The adult within me would be much wiser to learn from the child within me rather than focus on the demand that the child within me grow up.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

We describe a person without compassion as “heartless,” and we urge him or her to “have a heart.” Our deepest hurts we call “heartaches.” Jilted lovers are “brokenhearted.” Courageous soldiers are “bravehearted.” The truly evil are “black-hearted” and saints have “hearts of gold.” If we need to speak at the most intimate level, we ask for a “heart-to-heart” talk. “Lighthearted” is how we feel on vacation. And when we love someone as truly as we may, we love “with all our heart.” But when we lose our passion for life, when a deadness sets in which we cannot...

John Eldredge

In the thoughtlessness of my incessant hurry, I have made God an ‘addendum in’ my life verses the ‘agenda of’ my life. And what I need to hurry up and realize is that with these priorities positioned as such, what I am hurrying to is my own demise.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Disappointment focuses on ‘what is not,’ and completely misses the far greater reality of ‘what now is.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

The love of Christ for me will get last say. He is merciful to me for his name’s sake, for the sake of his own goodness, for the sake of his steadfast love and compassion (Psalm 25). When he thinks about me, he remembers what he is like, and that is my exceeding joy. My indestructible hope is that he has turned his face towards me, and he will never turn away.

David A. Powlison

I must be ever so careful to remember that my pain is a precious salve that when used in the service of others can heal a thousand wounds and more. And I must likewise remember that if I do not use it as such, I have done nothing more than wound myself yet again.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Worlds of my own creation are erected with walls that are within but a few scant paces of each other. The world that God creates for me has no idea what walls are.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

To fill the fathomless caverns of my thirsty soul I must work entirely contrary to impulses of my own humanity, for it is in emptying myself at the very point where I am most empty that I fill myself.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

This woman’s size protected herfrom the hurts of the worldbut it also imprisoned her soul. As the merry-go-round revolved, she ate another French fry,as a silent scream frozen on her face.

David W. Earle

When you attempt suicide, the counselors try to talk you out of trying it again by asking you about other people, which is good prevention if you care about other people.

Albert Borris

It is, I think, a far lesser offense to blatantly ignore God’s directions for our lives rather than arrogantly think ourselves shrewd enough to be able to bend them to our liking without breaking them and therefore breaking ourselves.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

If we’re missing life it’s probably because we’re expecting it to reveal itself to us, rather than realizing that life is revealed by us looking for it.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

When I looked at myself through the prism of awareness, great tears came as I connected with how this wounded child felt.

David W. Earle

In the end, if we don't have God we don't have anything other than an end.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

What is fear but that ‘thing’ that we believed to be as powerful as it pretended to be.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

The extent of God’s grace always eclipses the extent of my grotesqueness. Therefore, I can never be bad enough for God to tell me that He’s had enough.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

I would suggest that the prisons I incessantly create are not designed to lock me in, rather they are designed to lock the world out. And the oddity is that either way, I am a prisoner who has sentenced himself to a prison within which I do not belong.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

The one encouragement we can always give our children (and one another) is that God is more powerful than our sin, and He's strong enough to make us want to do the right thing.

Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

Our prayers are something akin to delivering a list, verses surrendering a life. The former will always leave me creating the next list, while the latter will leave me creating a new life.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Heaven shows up all the time. But we plan our time so that we show up in other places.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

We want a fresh start only because we didn’t sufficiently care for the last fresh start.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

If the truth gets in the way, I will remove it. But truth be told, removing the truth never removes the truth.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

We are partners with our children because we are just like them, dearly loved sinners.

Elyse M. Fitzpatrick

As a parent who raised his children in dysfunction, I know the parental wounds my children received were not intentional; often they were my best expression of love, sometimes coming out sideways, not as I intended.

David W. Earle

Mediocrity is ‘purpose’ left to rot in minds ensnared in the deluded rationalization that vision is nothing more than a collection of fanciful dreams constructed by an imaginary God.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

If I am sufficiently brave to extract the cancer of fear, I have effectively gutted my conviction that what stands before me is impossible.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

With God, the impossible is not an obstacle but an invitation.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

When you're emotionally, physically, mentally or spiritually drained, bad things happen. - From the Book: Removing Your Shame Label.

Eddie Capparucci

Sometimes what is said to be a gift may appear more of a curse only because the greatest gifts of all are the gifts that have enough disruptive force to break us out of everything that’s breaking us. And God loves us far too much not to give us exactly those kinds of gifts.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Suddenly finding myself imprisoned in the ruins of the fortresses I created, I realize that that which I built to protect me has now become a labyrinth that is set to destroy me. And laying spent in the rubble, I finally realize that there is only one fortress and I cannot create it because there is only one God.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Happenstance is the myth of the simple mind, for it is the deliberate genius of God that what appears entirely disjointed always reveals itself to be stunningly seamless. And it is in reflecting on such stunning ingenuity that our faith becomes seamless.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Every parent is an artist, for the bared canvas of a newborn’s soul begs for the artist’s touch. And because this is so, a parent must prepare the palette with the utmost care, choose the brushes with poised caution, and mindfully attend to every brushstroke regardless of how slight. And such caution is utterly imperative for the emerging rendering will be both a legacy borne of the parent, and a life lived by the child.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

If we fail to instill a fixed sense of confidence in our children, we will raise handicapped children who have no handicap other than the conviction that they believe they do.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Either we are running ‘from’ what we fear or running ‘to’ what we fear. The former is a choice controlled by fear, the latter is an action inspired by it.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

They sought the pain they knew so well and called it love.

David W. Earle

Too often my solution is to let something die because I can’t keep it alive, when God’s solution is to let something live because His Son already died for it.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

To destroy that which seeks to destroy me, God invites me to stand against it until it stands down and then falls down.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

To keep my life free of evil I must of necessity keep my life full of God, for keeping my life full of anything else will give evil everything else.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

The war on Christmas is waged of weakness and fed by vision blinded. It is a war of intellect blunted to stupidity and calling begging at the feet of cowardice.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Starting over is an acceptance of a past we can’t change, an unrelenting conviction that the future can be different, and the stubborn wisdom to use the past to make the future what the past was not.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

If no one has boundaries…how can there be any transgression?

David W. Earle

We’re making our decisions … or so we think. Yet in truth, ignorance, greed, and the scourge of immediate gratification are often the things that are making them. So if we’re going to truly live well, maybe the first thing we need to decide is who’s deciding.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

Maybe what I need to be rescued from is the feeling that I don’t need to be rescued, for without a doubt this is the most difficult rescue of all.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

What I allow into my head finds its way to my heart, which is a porthole to my soul. Therefore, I might be wise to consider the state of my soul, and then walk this process backwards.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

What I do know is that there are two kinds of pain in this life: risk and regret. I'd rather live with the first than the second.

Holley Gerth

The very places that we presume God not to be are the very places that are filled with His footprints and littered with His fingerprints.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

The only thing I have to wait for to change my life is my attitude.

Craig D. Lounsbrough

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