“A Tutor For Your Feelings” – Out of the Mouths of Babes

In my typical, can’t-help-myself pattern, I have been churning on the give-and-take of faith.  We all want peace and contentment, but this seems to be a gift that comes on the other side of fear and adversity.  It would be nice if God would just “dump” peace and joy (and all the fruit of the Spirit, Gal. 5:22-23) into our lives without any effort from us, but that’s not how it works.  We can’t do it on our own and yet we are required to to trust (not just with our minds and hearts, but with our feet/actions).

My mind is wandering down this path because of my son, Luke.  We recently began taking him to counseling because he was becoming fearful of certain situations and those fears were spreading to other things.

Halfway through the school year, Luke suddenly began avoiding the bus (it took awhile but we finally figured out that an older kid had gotten in trouble and Luke had to move out of his seat to let the older kid sit closer to the bus driver – seems pretty benign, but somehow that triggered an “out of control” feeling for him that began to grow).  The first day his fear manifested, he feigned sickness and I made him stay in bed all day and miss his ninja warrior class, so I guess he decided that tactic wasn’t going to pay off.  Thankfully, we had basketball as a bargaining chip and he knew if he was too sick to go to school, he was too sick to play ball, so that kept him moving forward.  The psychosomatic stuff then turned into sensory issues, crying and panic, and as time went on, he began to exhibit OCD types of coping behaviors.  It was bad.  We thought it might be a “phase” and so we tried to deal with it on our own.  As things got worse, I read books to help us find new strategies, but nothing seemed to help.

For awhile my little man had tears every day before school. It broke my heart to see him like this.

Finally, I reached out on social media to try to find a good cognitive behavioral therapist.  Come to find out, LOTS of people have kids who need counseling.  From all the private messages I received, I realized it’s not something that people readily talk about.  I was so grateful for the help and encouragement.

I’m not eager to “label” my kids, but I just don’t think there should be any shame about acknowledging challenges.  I’d love to tell you that I’m this amazing Mom who was able to wisely discern exactly what to say and do to help my son overcome his fears, but I hit a wall, and I don’t think there’s any shame in seeking help.

Similarly, when we realized Carlie was a struggling reader, I felt guilty at first and wondered what we could have done differently, but it became evident that her brain just processes information in a different way.  We realized very quickly that we were not equipped to help her, so she has been working with a private tutor for three years and the progress has been remarkable.  I’m not advertising to everyone that my child has a learning disability, but I also don’t shy away from it and I don’t want Carlie to be ashamed of it.  She is such a smart kid and, more important to me, she has good character and emotional intelligence (I’ll take that over book-smart any day).  Maybe she will never speed read a book or write a novel, but she has other strengths and I want her to be proud of her whole self, even the parts that might seem “inadequate” to the world.  Often those (so-called) inadequacies are where God teaches us to depend on Him, where we learn empathy, where we learn to be overcomers.

I feel like God is already using Carlie’s experiences to help her siblings.  Luke was a little apprehensive about going to the counselor until Carlie told him, “It’s not a big deal – it’s like having a tutor for your feelings.”  Simple and brilliant.

. . . a tutor for your feelings.

When Carlie described it that way, I realized that we all need a tutor for our feelings.  For many of us, it is our parents who model for us and teach us how to navigate fear and uncertainty, how to manage disappointment and grief.  For others, maybe a teacher or boss or coach, but we all need help navigating emotions at different times in our lives.

And I’m not sure how this happened, but it seems as if we (as a society) have become inept at processing emotions.  You would think in our current world – with the incredible information resources, the technology, our connectedness through social media, etc. – that we would be a society of emotionally intelligent people.  But that is not the case.  As Brene Brown points out in Rising Strong, “We don’t know what to do with discomfort and vulnerability. . . most of us were never taught how to hold discomfort, sit with it, or communicate it, only how to discharge or dump it, or to pretend that it’s not happening.”  She calls this “off-loading” and believes that we numb ourselves compulsively and this is why we are the most “in-debt, obese, medicated, and addicted adults in human history.”

My kids might grow up to be a royal mess, but I’m going to do everything in my power to help them embrace life.  Ironically, empowering them actually means teaching them how to be vulnerable, how to live with mystery and uncertainty, how to take responsibility instead of blaming, how to grieve . . . all the things we desperately avoid.

Our children might hate us for it later, but they are stuck with a Mom and Dad who believe it’s important to “deal” with stuff.  Keith often says, “The truth is not the problem” and we both believe it is unhealthy to avoid problems, or put on a happy face and pretend they don’t exist.

We all need a tutor for our feelings.

If you look at the people in the Bible that God used most profoundly, you’ll find them a ragtag mess.  He never picked a person who “had it together.”  He picked people who needed to overcome fears, who had flaws, who made mistakes . . . people who needed a tutor for their feelings.

God is the ultimate tutor, and He can work with any student (even the reluctant ones, like me) who is willing to step “out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9) This sounds beautiful, but in reality, stepping out of the darkness (the known, the familiar, the denial or illusion, the repressed) and into the light (the new, the exposed, the vulnerable) is hard work and often goes against our human nature.

Interestingly, God does His most amazing work through people . . . He shines His perfect love through imperfect people.  I’m grateful for tutors and counselors, pastors and teachers.  I’m grateful for authors and songwriters and poets who bring to light our common experiences.  I’m grateful for artists and musicians who can break through to the deepest parts of our hearts and minds.  I’m especially grateful for family and good friends who love us through the most difficult times.

Before we sought out a counselor, we prayed with Luke, and we memorized encouraging scriptures.  All of that is good – prayer and scripture are powerful – but God also empowers people and He created us to depend on each other.  We had to reach out for help before those prayers and scriptures could take hold in a practical way for Luke.

Within a few sessions with a wonderful counselor, our son, Luke, was able to face his fears and understand more about how his mind and body work.  (And I should add that healthy fear can be good – it can motivate us toward positive action – but unhealthy fear is paralyzing).  He was able to identify the things he could control and let go of the things he could not control.  The thing he was afraid of is now “no big deal” but he had to face that fear over and over before he mastered it.  His symptoms are gone, he is peaceful, and we are finished with counseling (for now – we might have to go back for “tune-ups,” if needed).

The day that Luke colored his “brave-o-meter” all the way to the top!

I wish God would just take away our fears, but the pathway to peace is not a smooth, well-marked road.  Sometimes the pathway to peace takes us over some rough terrain, through some dark, scary places.  The good news is that He is with us and we do not have to let fear control us.  “This is my command – be strong and courageous!  Do not be afraid or discouraged.  For the Lord your God is with your wherever you go.”  Joshua 1:9

Sometimes I hear preachers or Bible teachers falsely advertising this “pie-in the-sky” faith where everything will be fine if we just pray hard enough, if we just have enough faith, if we give ourselves fully to the Lord.  I’m not sure where they get this stuff because the Bible makes it pretty clear that we are going to have trouble in this world (Jesus was perfect and yet he wept, he got angry, he got frustrated, he questioned, he suffered).  But the good news is that we can “take heart” and have hope.

 “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 (NLT)

We can find peace in the midst of turmoil and pain.  Our fears and difficulties will not magically go away (although I know God does work amazing miracles sometimes – we just can’t predict or control them), but with God’s help, and the help of the various “tutors” God has placed in our lives, we can face our fears, we can put one foot in front of the other, we can walk out of the darkness and into the light, and really LIVE our weird and wonderful lives.

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