will never get better." Rather,
it is "what am I going to do with
it today?"
challenges?
can cope effectively and find any
measure of solace and comfort with-
out a very clear spiritual center.
You can start from Creation and
the Fall and go all the way through
the Tribulation and the Second
Coming and find story after story of
hardship and comfort. I often refer
people to the Book of Job and to the
Passion of Christ in the Gospels.
in an accident that has also
left him permanently disabled.
What is the priority of your
counseling goals?
logue, whether his true immediate
trauma is the loss of his mate or
the loss of his mobility. That takes
a bit of time and discernment.
treated by others?
to this life challenge having been a
resilient, motivated, positive, the
glass half-full kind of person, then
those folks tend to continue a more
positive recovery with whatever
point. If a person has been in a de-
pendent, abusive or self-doubting
state previous to a catastrophe,
then we have to guard against them
falling into a dependent victim role.
strophic event, such as 9/11, the
death of a child or a suicide. I try
to help the caregiver understand
the psychological content of that
catastrophe and then structure the
response using a marathon versus
sprint metaphor. For many who
are caring for a seriously incapaci-
er's or stroke victim for example,
the need to pace themselves is as
critical as the need to continue
to support the patient. Often the
caregiver gets out of balance. A lot
of times it's an economic thing, be-
cause it's just so expensive to try
to get in-home care or find qual-
ity care for long-term, chronic ill-
nesses. I emphasize over and over
with the caregiver that if you are
unavailable because of your own
depression, exhaustion, obesity
or whatever it is you're doing to
soothe yourself, how is that helpful
to your loved one?
care of themselves?
and we return to God. We have
God walking daily with us. To ask
for help with a physical problem
seems easier than asking for help
with an emotional need. The big-
gest barriers to receiving help are
financial. Often help is unavail-
able, especially in rural areas with
limited commercial services and
few qualified caregivers. Where do
we find the help? How do we get
help out to some rough, remote
county in some state somewhere?
as victims, but they need to know
We can make a choice. We can con-
sciously choose to shift from feeling
victimized to feeling blessed. We
can consciously choose to perceive
the glass as half full. We can be
careful about the people we allow
into our inner circle so that those
closest to us are the most resilient,
hopeful, encouraging and affirming
people we can find. I love Philip
Yancey's book How to Want What
You Have.
then some situation that others
might call catastrophic, you and
God can call something else, like a
life lesson, faith challenge or spiri-
tual correction. With patience we
can begin to understand what life
lessons or silver linings are there
for us to see.