Living Water Christian Counseling, L.L.C.

11/19/2025

This is so real!

Parents are spending more time with their kids & focusing more time on their mental health….so why are kids struggling MORE with mental health issues?

What are we doing wrong?

Listen to this!

11/14/2025

Sometimes I have clients reach out with emotional emergencies. I only respond when we are working through something new that needs immediate reinforcement.

This morning a client reached out because her automatic thoughts are causing her to spiral.

Thought replacement, a part of CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy is the best way to retrain your brain out of chaos.

If you find yourself in a similar situation where your automatic thoughts are controlling your bevaioral outcomes. Simply use the tool below. 🩷

Your thoughts are powerful so be careful about what you are telling yourself!

********

🏠 Situation: He didn’t text back and it’s been 20 hours.

🧠 Automatic Thought:
I did something wrong

😑 Emotion: Chaos, fear, sadness, guilt, shame, anxiety

🏃‍♀️ Response:
Cry & Spiral

**** The goal is to find a new THOUGHT so your emotions and responses stay in check. ALL you have to do it replace the thought.

🏡Situation: He didn’t text back and it’s been 20 hours.

🧠NEW Thought:
He fell asleep
His phone broke
Etc

☺️NEW Emotion: Calm, regulated, secure, patient

🏃‍♀️NEW Response:
Go on with your day

The homework is to work on thought replacement so she can move on with her day!!! 🩷

Questions?

Pic of Piper for fun!

09/15/2025

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
— Proverbs 22:6

This verse encourages parents to instill godly values and habits in their children, with the hope that these principles will guide them throughout their lives. The original Hebrew for “train up” implies much more than instruction—it speaks to dedication, initiation, and intentional shaping. It is not a promise or a formula for guaranteed outcomes, but it is timeless wisdom.

The reality is, our world has competing plans for our children. Whether we like it or not, social media, culture, and society at large are also shaping them. The training we provide at home is vital—yet not foolproof—especially in a world where evil is real and ever-present.

How terrifying it is to know that even the most loving, God-fearing parents can still lose their children to the world. Love me or hate me, I grieve for the Robinsons. I can only imagine that they, too, raised their children according to biblical truth. People may blame them or vilify them, but my heart breaks for them.

Hate me more if you must…

My heart grieves for Tyler as well. A young man whose heart was won over by the lies and darkness of this world. It could’ve been my child. It could’ve been yours. As a therapist with over two decades of experience, I’ve seen this story play out far too many times. That’s why I withhold judgment—both from the parents and the child. I strive to see them as God does: broken, hurting, misled—not beyond redemption.

And yes, my heart breaks for Robin Westman too. I don’t know much about her parents yet, but I imagine they tried, just like so many of us. We should all be grieving. The last thing I will ever do is point fingers. After 22 years counseling teens, young adults, and families, I know this: we no longer have full control over our children.

But we still have influence.
We still have prayer.
We still have hope.
And we still have work to do.

So I’ll keep raising mine up the best I can.

🩷 Melissa B.

09/12/2025

Take time to grieve!

I feel grief physically in my tummy and behind my eyeballs.

I don’t force it down, igore it or dismiss one single emotion as it rises up and comes out softly, triggering my tummy and eyes to simply release the tears.

My body knows what to do.

In my opinion, as a Christian therapist, I think we (Christians) tend to ‘hyper spiritualize’ everything and move WAY too fast when it comes to grieving.

Has someone ever said, “God never gives you more than you can handle” when someone you loved died or “God needed them in heaven, (neither are biblical by the way, but that’s another story).

How about, “you just need to pray more?” WHAT?!

This is a small example of “hyper-spiritualization.”

The point is, it’s too soon and it could come off as insensitive or might make the person grieving feel guilty for not having faith in the moment.

It dismisses the person’s grief and the very purpose of grief and it doesn’t work!

When my sister died and countless people tried to console my teenage heart by saying these things I wanted to punch them in the face!

And, I cringe when I hear people saying it as an adult. It’s too soon. I have had countless people sitting across from me in my Counseling office, sharing the exact same experience in their grief.

What happens when we lose someone is that our head and our heart become disconnected. Our heart knows the truth, but our head just can’t comprehend.

Time, the grieving process AND truth bring them into alignment again, in time.

Social media is already doing this by saying “God has a plan or God is going to use this, Charlie’s death is waking people up & will cause so much good!”

Although this is TRUE, the timing is off. Remember Charlie’s wife and daughter just saw him die. We all did.

Tyler’s parents need time to grieve.

Fletcher and Harper’s parents need time to grieve.

Iyrna’s family needs time to grieve.

WE need to grieve!!!

Did you know that God created our bodies so wonderfully that the actual process of grief (the frequency of grief) HEALS the physical body???!

If we move too fast onto anger or action we risk experiencing not only delayed grief but stored emotions that cause physical illness in our body.

My advice, grieve, grieve and grieve some more. Note where you experience grief and be mindful of letting in come when it needs to.

It will come out sideways if you don’t (it will come out as anger, anxiety, depression, etc).

Just grieve and allow God to regulate your grief with His truth in time. Even Jesus wept. John 11:35.

Praying for you in your grief! It will heal you!!!

Getting gushy,

Melissa B.

09/09/2025

09/09/2025

This happened to me today!!!!

My morning habit stack almost always includes vision casting!

I have not done it in a long time so this morning I grabbed my prayer journal and my markers, closed my eyes and began to vision.

I began to write and then quickly realized that I am actually SITTING in the center of the things I have prayed for and visioned for years!

What?

I’m here and feeling humbled, grateful, teary and feeling all of the feels.

Why had I not thanked him 100x over by now? I was so focused on the next thing or the things directiy in front of me that I completely MISSED it!!!

Girls!

It’s GOOD to vision! Just don’t forget to take time to realize how FAR you have come and ALL that He has done!!!!

Amen, Amen!

Note: The text was to Madison this morning after realizing I was sitting in my vision!!! ❤️

09/08/2025

What if that thing you are begging God for is not in the plan that He has for you?

What if you were to give up the ‘thing’ for a moment and truly trust that…

His ways are higher than your ways.

His thoughts are higher than your thoughts.

The heavens are higher than the earth.

Is it time to give up the “thing?”

The plan, the opportunity, the job, the idea, the success, the home, the person, the money, the business, the vision, the dream…

IT’S SO HARD!!! 🥹

This is where faith comes in and we have to trust that as our father, He already knows the plan and His plan is to prosper. Our job is relinquish control, surrender the ‘thing,’ pray and have faith that God is who He says He is.

Isaiah 55:8-9

09/06/2025

Sometimes you need a rainbow to remind you that the trials are not forever…

and that God’s promises ARE!

Genesis 17:7