Liberating Grace Christian Counseling

Liberating Grace Christian Counseling It’s time to discover whose you are, why you are here, what God has done for you, and begin living life with purpose and joy!

As a professional therapist, my role is to guide you as you take steps towards positive life changes, healing, and hope. Together we’ll work to uncover and better understand the life challenges and day-to-day stressors that detract from your life and focus, and begin identifying and practicing things that will make you healthier. Maybe it’s anxiety, a relationship problem, or emotional pain from long ago. Maybe it’s something that “just doesn’t feel right”, or perhaps you just need extra support for a major life decision or situation. I’m here to listen and to help provide the confidence and guidance you need to change negative behavior patterns and begin taking steps in the right direction.

03/29/2024

"The cross proves that Jesus loves us more than His own life." Paul Ellis, The Grace Bible

Day 6If you have been following our story this week, there may have been times when you thought, “oh poor Gary, poor Kat...
03/09/2024

Day 6
If you have been following our story this week, there may have been times when you thought, “oh poor Gary, poor Kathy’. And yes, we did get off to a rough start in childhood and young adulthood. The most helpful things we have done have been to 1) no longer take responsibility for things that we were not responsible for, 2) take responsibility for our responses to what happened to us, and 3) grieve the losses that we experienced because of the first two.

You may ask, “How have you been able to do that?” Our story of survival began for me back in April of 1967. After being baptized twice, while telling my best friend why she should received the life of the Lord Jesus, I realized I was “a good salesman but had not bought my own product”. Sitting on the front pew at Kildare Baptist Church, I received His life. That did not immediately undo my years of trauma and no one told me really what had happened to me that night. Over the years, I read hundreds of books, attended many conferences, took and taught classes in the church, always trying to “get close to God”, do what I thought would please Him, and “grow spiritually”.

Gary attended church in Houston with his sister and “walked the aisle” when he was11 and then attended church sporadically because he liked the pipe organ in the Methodist Church in Dallas. When he came to college in Nacogdoches where I was living with my parents and going to college, he was introduced to the possibility of a relationship with God like he had never experienced. After work one Sunday night, he went to church with me. (Of course he drove his own car because he “did not date the help” and he was my boss.) After the service I got brave and asked him what he thought and he said, “I feel like this is the first time I have ever really been to church”. We began to attend a young adult Bible Study around the topic of the Lordship of Christ. One night after the Bible Study, he was compelled to get on his knees and say “Lord, I received you as Savior when I was 11 but I didn’t know I was supposed to receive you as Lord. I do that now.”

We got married on March 9, 1974 in that church and the Lord was gracious to send Maj. Ian Thomas to our church a year or so later to teach on “The Saving Life of Christ”. We didn’t understand it all but it gave us great hope. Since that day, we have attended both Baptist churches and non-denominational ones. We both served to exhaustion trying to do “the Christian thing” and having a hard time seeing how the gospel was “good news”. Lots of times it felt more like condemnation when we failed, never measuring up to God’s expectations of us, and more of a burden than a blessing.

That could be the end of the story but it is not. What would make an old couple who could be retired, traveling and counting their days be willing to put their dirty laundry on the clothesline of Facebook? We believe that we have come to an understanding of the gospel that has revolutionized our lives. We were taught all about how to live “for Christ”. Now we are learning how to live “from Christ”. It is a very different way to live. If you are interested in knowing more, ask us or read the book The Rest of the Gospel: When the Partial Gospel has Worn You Out by Dan Stone.

This understanding of the good news has made a huge difference in our marriage, our parenting, grandparenting, and our mental health. We are becoming free of the guilt, shame, regret, and hurt of our past. We are experiencing freedom and purpose in our present as seniors that we didn’t expect. That has made room for patience, empathy, and grace for each other and others. We have shared our story in hopes that you will be encouraged to face your past, be real, give yourself and others grace in the present as you have been given grace in Christ.

Our favorite Bible verse now is right in the middle of the pr******te verses. It is I Corinthians 6:17, “but the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him”.

His grace is truly liberating grace.

Day 5Because we have 5 children, 12 grandchildren, and 1 on the way in June, we thought we would talk about parenting a...
03/08/2024

Day 5
Because we have 5 children, 12 grandchildren, and 1 on the way in June, we thought we would talk about parenting and what we have learned. We have often said, “if marriage doesn’t take the selfishness out of you, parenting will”. Because fear and shame were such a part of our lives, our parenting was driven by both. We wish we could say that our motives were always exemplary but the truth is that sometimes our parenting was driven by simply survival.

On our good days, we wanted better for our children than we had had but on our worst days, we had darker motives. Sometimes that meant using our children’s accomplishments to lighten our shame load, other times to give us identity that we struggled to have outside of them being well-behaved and clean, and other times we were driven by a need just to have some peace and quiet.

Because of the fear and shame, we were heavy on law-based living. The Lord had promised me soon after Ben was born that they would be “soldiers of the Cross” so we tried to run a boot camp. Our efforts included Christian school, church every Sunday, and no sweet cereal other than someone’s birthday. We had a lot of other rules. When John became a jailer, he accused us of sheltering him too much. He said he didn’t know what a drunk person looked like or what ma*****na smelled like. After about 6 months, he did come back and say, “Thank you, I had a childhood”.

As the kids grew up, at church we began to hear about grace. No one told us that the law was for unbelievers, to convince them of their need for a Savior. No one told us that you parent a child with a new heart differently. Our first move to help our children find their own faith began when they were freshman in high school. We allowed them to either stay home from church or go with their friends one Sunday a month. As a sophomore, they chose 2 Sundays. By the time they were seniors, they were choosing every week.

Because we both had alcoholism in our family, we were also afraid to allow any alcohol in our home. We finally decided to take the Bible literally because of Gary’s frequent indigestion and “take a little wine for your stomach”. Our first trip to Albertson’s to buy a bottle of wine was a true comedy routine. Neither of us knew what to buy and we were frightened that someone “from church” might see us. We were keeping the pendulum far away from drinking to excess. The first time they saw their parents having a glass of wine at dinner was a big and we believe, healthy change.

There were many times when we have felt like we had failed as parents. One day as I was expressing this to the Lord, He told me that kids are like a 3-legged milk stool. One leg is their DNA, one leg is our parenting, and one leg is their choices. Adam and Eve had a perfect parent and they still messed up. I realized that if we had been perfect parents, our kids would not need God.

We were all learning together. We had never been parents and they had never been children. Now that they are parents, we can see the seeds that we planted and often watered with our tears, are coming up and producing an amazing harvest. Every dime and minute we invested in them has produced rich rewards. Sure, we drove old cars and wore hand-me-downs (and occasionally ate less-than-fresh meat), but the love we now see between them and for us made every sacrifice worth it.

Grace has done what the law never could.

Day 4Just like our children seemed to all come to our home at once, it felt like they all left at once. The teenaged yea...
03/07/2024

Day 4
Just like our children seemed to all come to our home at once, it felt like they all left at once. The teenaged years zoomed by and gave way to the young adult years which were filled with dating, breakups, engagements, marriages, divorces, careers, and grandchildren. You would think that life would have begun to slow down but the race changed and the pace picked up. Gary was now working from home and Y2K kept him busy with clients from coast to coast until there was no more work and he had to take a job that included a long commute. He was able to go back to working from home after 3 years. I had various jobs and volunteer positions including jail chaplaincy, Teen Court Coordinator, and Victim’s Advocacy because Gary encouraged me to pursue my interests and calling outside the home.

As our children found their places in the world, for 10 years we had 2 sons and a son-in-law in law enforcement, 1 son who was a fireman/paramedic, and one son in the Air Force and later in Afghanistan. We laugh and say that “my hair turned gray and Gary’s turned loose”. Being busy was probably not a bad idea compared to sitting home, worrying about our family. We continued the work of healing but also began to help others heal through my work and Gary’s involvement with a men’s ministry called Wild at Heart. Our motto became “why only make lemonade with the lemons in life when you can make lemon pies?”

Looking back, we realize that we had a serious lack of “recreational intimacy”. We didn’t take enough time off, too few vacations, and little down time to enjoy ourselves, each other, and our families. As our fear and shame began to abate, our awareness of “all work and no play” became more apparent but we still had few remedies. Gary’s mom came to live with us and I started graduate school at 56 while still working. His mom had to move to a care facility and he took over much of her care while working and supporting me. We learned to support one another through the deaths of our parents, job transitions, and several church disappointments.

In all of these experiences, God’s sustaining grace became more real. He gave us energy, wisdom, and direction when we needed it. He seemed to send the right person, book, song, or thought just when things felt hopeless and overwhelming. We didn’t know it at the time, but He was preparing us for the greatest years of our life.
Stay tuned.

Day 3Just because we sang a song at our wedding (Day 1) about the Lord providing for us, it would have been hard to tell...
03/06/2024

Day 3
Just because we sang a song at our wedding (Day 1) about the Lord providing for us, it would have been hard to tell we believed He would from the way we worked. Instead of “seek ye first” it was “do ye first”. We “believed” that He would provide but we lived like He couldn’t or wouldn’t. I came from a long line of workaholics so that was nothing new.
My workaholic career began by taking 21 hours in college the semester we got married at Spring Break. It evolved into thinking I had to cook every bite from scratch, nurse all the babies, and teach school 30 miles from home after making 7 lunches every morning. Throw car pool, sports for 5, and church involvement into the mix. I knew nothing but busy for many years. Gary’s dad dying when he was a young teenager left him thinking “now, I will never know my dad” and “now, it is all up to me”. He often said to himself, “the cavalry is not coming” when faced with problems where help and guidance were needed. This left him feeling very abandoned and working very hard to make up the difference. Little did he know that Calvary had come and now he has a Father.
We called it “workaholism” but actually shame was the driving factor behind our actions. I had surgery to correct my eyes at 29 but the residual effects of having the problem lingered well past the successful surgery. When the kids were teens, I began to work on my childhood s*xual abuse. The shame from those situations had a profound impact on our marriage in many ways as you can imagine.
While reading the book “When Victims Marry”, we realized that Gary’s dad was an alcoholic. He had always blamed himself that he couldn’t connect with his dad. When he desperately needed his dad’s help to navigate puberty, there was no relationship to foster that. That also had a significant impact on our marriage.
Our years from 40 to 60 were filled with lots of questions, trying to understand ourselves and each other, grieving our losses, and forgiving those who had hurt us. We gained some answers that brought freedom, but also still found ourselves in prisons of shame.
We tried to give each other time and space and money to work on their issues. We learned to see the other’s comments more as observations than judgments. It hasn’t been easy or fun to dig up these bones but we feel like our children and others have benefitted from our being willing to face these hard realities in the hope that we would all find freedom.
Doing this kind of work with five teenagers in the house (laundry and meals of monumental proportions not to mention expenses), was not easy but God was His faithful self. “All these things” we did not see coming but He did and He has provided what we have needed physically, emotionally, and spiritually above what we could ask or think.

With our baggage and 5 children in tow, there were many opportunities for conflict so it may be hard to believe that we ...
03/05/2024

With our baggage and 5 children in tow, there were many opportunities for conflict so it may be hard to believe that we didn’t have a real argument for the first 10 years we were married. But when we did, we took desperate measures. One Sunday morning, we took the kids to church, dropped them off, and came home and sat in the car under the basketball goal and had a much-needed discussion. Each of us said what we thought about our relationship and what we thought was wrong. Do you wonder how we went that long before saying these things? We were both afraid. I was afraid that if I expressed myself, Gary would leave and I would feel alone like I did when my dad worked 24/7. Gary says he was afraid that if he expressed himself, I would leave and he would truly be a failure like he believed he was. Lots of dysfunction ruled our roost.
It was later in our marriage when we read Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pete Scazzero that we came to understand that we were each living by unspoken family and cultural rules, almost like 10 Commandments. These rules revolved around things like family, money, use of time, resolving conflict, s*x, grief and loss, success and expressing anger and other emotions. These rules were so engrained that we didn’t notice them but they became an issue when the other “broke the rules” we lived by.
It has taken some awkward silences, therapy, lots of reading, some preaching, and a whole lot of conversations to come up with what we believe and practice about these various topics. We have discovered what each is gifted for and does best and have given up the rigid roles and rules that we grew up with. We try to remember to say thank you for mundane tasks that the other takes because they know the other partner doesn’t do it well or dislikes it. We have taken seriously the verse in the Bible, Ephesians 5:21, that says “Submitting yourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ”. We both have taken unmet expectations to the Lord and found their fulfillment in Him. Putting all of our eggs in a broken person’s basket is not a wise way to live.
We think we are seeing the beauty of not being alike in most ways. We pray that when people see our unity despite our very different personalities and experiences, they find hope that they can become one with God as well.
Our common desire to bring glory to God is the glue that has held us together when things got rough. (Of course, the possibility of being the single parent of 5 kids added some extra incentive at times as well).
Stay tuned for Part 3 tomorrow.

As Gary and I approach our 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday, March 9th, we decided (I suggested and he agreed) that ...
03/04/2024

As Gary and I approach our 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday, March 9th, we decided (I suggested and he agreed) that we would write a few Facebook words that we wish we could have heard when we were first starting out in marriage. What would we tell our younger selves if we could have talked to us from the experience we have now?

We think it is really important for you to know that we have not had an ideal marriage full of lollipops and rainbows. We were two very broken people were just trying to figure out how to make life work when we got married. Gary’s dad had died when he was 13 and we had no clue how that would impact us. I had a disfiguring eye condition and a history of childhood s*xual abuse that I brought along with me. Both of us were wearing masks that initially attracted us to each other but that have been slow and difficult to take off.

Gary was 25 and had lived on his own working in Dallas. I was 21 and still living at home with my parents and finishing college. After being married only 6 months, we were pregnant and had 5 children over the next 6 years. Obviously, we are not going to give advice on birth control here. Our children are a blessing but it is a lie to even pretend that marriage and children are easy even on a good day.

Each day this week, we want to share what we are learning. First, God’s got us. It often doesn’t look or feel like it. We have discovered that He is more interested in us and our family than even we are. His love and grace have been the backbone of our lives.

At our wedding we had the guests sing “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these other things will be added unto you” from Matthew 6:33. We had no earthly idea what that meant. In context, it meant food and clothes and He has provided those for sure. Even more it has meant grace to forgive, to stay and communicate when we would rather run, and to take responsibility for our part in the problems.

Stay tuned for Day 2.

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76051

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