Transparency

Seeking therapy is hard. I get it. No one wants to admit he or she needs help, but once you realize that help is needed, you then have to get past the ‘what will the neighbors think’ thing. But at the end of the day we all need help, and the neighbors have enough troubles of their own.

We all need help. That’s the message of the gospel. We don’t share Christ to people who don’t need God and his healing, Jesus answered them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” Luke 5:31. Rather, the good news is that Jesus came to heal us, to give hope where there is no hope, to restore, and make good again.

 I don’t know about you, but there have been many times in my life I’ve been sick. Sometimes my sickness was a result of others’ actions. I was only four years old when my mother committed suicide, leaving me to be raised by an alcoholic dad. I suffered with depression and hopelessness until I submitted to Christ at age 13, and my life was transformed.

I needed help when sexual temptation tried to ruin my marriage, and depression tried to come back for an encore from my younger years. I needed help with teenagers who helped me revisit my control issues, and reminded me that I don’t have very much of that.

You see every season of life has its challenges and sicknesses, but God, the great physician is in every situation. He came for me, and he came for you.

Over my 28 years as a mental health therapist I’ve learned a lot about what God can do, and I can testify that it’s truly amazing. I’m humbled that he’s used me to be his mouth piece to share specific ways to conquer many of life’s struggles. I’ve seen lives changed and transformed, I’ve seen miracles.

So thank you for allowing me, a fellow patient of the Great Physician, to be transparent. I look forward to sharing God’s healing words with those he sends me.

Blessings,

Pete Thompson