Quotes by Counselors - Page 2

...the state of perfection is an elusive goal; demanding something so obscure as almost unattainable and can become a compulsive, crazy making squirrel-on-a-wheel way of living.
David W. Earle
Many of the habits of dysfunctional families use are not from the lack of love but are the result of fear. Knowing the love-limiting habits and behaviors of dysfunctional families is a wonderful beginning to lower the fear, allowing us to be real, allowing us all to learn how to love better.
David W. Earle
It’s not about some principled debate as to whether I should focus on what I have, or on what I don’t have. Rather, it’s about being thankful that I have the privilege to enjoy the former, and the opportunity to contemplate the latter.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Looking back, I now realize that I left home in search of all the things that were right in the very place I left.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
The birthplace of anarchy is the cemetery of freedom.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
The Will of God is the same for all. He has no favorites within His household. All He has ever done for any of His children He will do for all of His children. From the book: Removing Your Shame Label.
Eddie Capparucci
We work hard to believe that our actions really don’t affect others all that much because we want the license to act without thinking all that much.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
They sought the pain they knew so well and called it love.
David W. Earle
It would be infinitely more prudent to be a single “David” standing with God, than a million “Goliath’s” standing without Him.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
The road to success is paved with the hot asphalt of failure.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
My goals exceed the reach of my energies, but my God exceeds the reach of my goals.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
We want to 'write in' our plan and 'write out' the consequence. When we do that, we're headed 'right back' to what we foolishly thought we could 'write out.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
There are an incalculable number of things within me that I frantically wish to be emptied of, and despite my most earnest efforts to remove them, they remain. And it is Easter that reminds me that God empties out tombs.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Too often fear is fiction madly running amuck, all the while madly tracking ‘muck’ across the floor of fact.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
To be free to roam our own consciousness and be responsible for ourselves, a letting go process is required. We have to let go of how others define us; what damaging messages remain from childhood; how others define our relationship with the creator; and what expectations they may have for us.
David W. Earle
I can bow to fear and flee the pursuit of great things. I can bow to God and engage in the pursuit of making things great.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
What insanity propels me to incessantly invest in a world that never ceases to fail me? And what ignorance bewitches me so thoroughly that it keeps me from investing in a God who never ceases to be unfailing?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
I huddle in the dark with a mass of burnt matches strewn at my feet. And yet, for all of those matches I’ve not been able to light a single candle. And huddled in such deep darkness, I’ve somehow yet to realize that Christmas made both matches and candles forever obsolete.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Sometimes chaos is the very thing that deliberately shakes up our neatly ordered world’s in order to get us out of the neatly ordered ruts that have kept us stuck.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
More times than I’m willing to admit I am my own worst enemy, which suggests that more times than I’m willing to admit I should allow God to be my own best friend.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Parenting, similar to aging, is not for the faint of heart. It is a sacred journey, filled with learning experiences for both parties, not all of which are easy. This journey requires that we are brave, honest, noble and resilient. Love for our children carries us through this journey and encourages us to feel more, give more, and be more than we ever thought we were capable of.
Jeanmarie Wilson
God is able to fix that which is broken so that what stands repaired is immeasurably greater than that which stood before it needed repair. Therefore, the most staggering brokenness conceivable is in reality the greatest opportunity imaginable.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
We somehow have led ourselves to believe that our questions are big enough to encircle life, and that life is small enough to be contained by the answers. The real question might be, are we ignorant or just plain stupid?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Betrayal dressed in love and trimmed with the facade of good intentions is the most barbaric of all betrayals.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Easter is a time where we are reminded that conclusions in man's mind are beginnings in God's plan.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Risk is the stuff that sucks the predictability right out of the very things that we desperately wish were predictable.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
The worst defeat of all is to surrender without having been defeated. And it is Christmas that obliterates both.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Vulnerability creates unimaginable space to build each other up, as much as it creates ample room to tear each other down.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
When we hear these kinds of excuses from a drunk, we assume they are exactly that—excuses. We don’t consider an active alcoholic a reliable source of insight. So why should we let an angry and controlling man be the authority on partner abuse?
Lundy Bancroft
Yet, there is a sense of some deep sort that runs entirely contrary to human nature; that in putting ourselves first, we must by necessity put others first.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Maybe consequences are dear friends in stealthy disguise.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Despite how utterly massive they might be, it is never the size of the arsenal nor the strength of the warrior. Rather, it is a heart bent on sacrifice that is the most potent weapon of all.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Yet, there is a sense of some deep sort that runs entirely contrary to human nature, that in putting ourselves first, we must by necessity put others first.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
The greatest dividends in life are those that we give away.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
To maximize our lives we think that we should get up and join in the race. Yet, we rarely consider that maybe it’s less about joining a race and more about actually creating one.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Making amends is not only saying the words but also being willing to listen to how your behavior caused another’s pain, and then the really hard part…changing behavior.
David W. Earle
Maybe we ought to consider that sometimes the most destructive outcomes in our lives are the ones that we’ve created.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
No matter what we talk about, we are talking about ourselves
Hugh Prather
Although it pains me to admit it, I am quite familiar with the holes in life. And this familiarity is due to the fact that I spend far more time in these holes than I spend on the paths that brought me to them.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
The symptoms of abuse are there, and the woman usually sees them: the escalating frequency of put-downs. Early generosity turning more and more to selfishness. Verbal explosions when he is irritated or when he doesn’t get his way. Her grievances constantly turned around on her, so that everything is her own fault. His growing attitude that he knows what is good for her better than she does. And, in many relationships, a mounting sense of fear or intimidation. But the woman also sees that her partner is a human being who can be caring and affectionate at times, and she loves him. She wants to figure out why he gets so upset, so that she can help him break his pattern of ups and downs. She gets drawn into the complexities of his inner world, trying to uncover clues, moving pieces around in an attempt to solve an elaborate puzzle.
Lundy Bancroft
If left to my own simplistic devices and the sorely scant limits of my abilities, would I not die a death of the blandest sort imaginable? And should I not thank God that He graciously gifted me with an imagination that renders such a death entirely unimaginable?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
I, like you, was not depraved or defected before birth but created to be magnificent, a wonderful and freeing realization - simple but explosive.
David W. Earle
The voice incessantly quelled in the chorus of human voices will always be the voice of God. And given a reality of this magnitude, I would be well advised to cease my babbling and encourage those around me to do the same.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
The ‘deep pause’ needed to cultivate wonder is far too often back-filled with an incessant busyness, as busyness errantly presumes a ‘deep pause’ to be deeply wasteful.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
My sin murdered Him. And out of this self-loathing shame borne of the understanding that I could perpetrate such a heinous act, I am barely able to raise my head sufficiently to ask what crazed insanity would prompt Jesus to walk out of an empty tomb for the single purpose of pursuing a decaying soul that murdered Him? And I would be wise to consider that the question itself is asked only because I have yet to touch the barest periphery of God’s love despite the fact that because of an empty tomb it stands right in front of me.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Our best-laid plans are often our worst-made decisions.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
When will I realize that without God my world is draped in shadows between which there is not a single ray of light? And when will I recognize that with God, my world is deluged in light between which there is not a single thread of darkness?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
To build refuges of my own making is to construct fortresses of sand at ocean’s edge, where the relentless tides of time will leave my most magnificently constructed walls as perfectly flat sand. And now that I am subject to the very tides that destroyed these walls of mine, I am left with the reality that my single and sole refuge can only be the God who created both tides and sand.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
You will find it hard to hear from God until you let go your rights and your agenda.
John Eldredge
Children have empty erasable white boards upon which big people write indelibly imprinted messages into their tender subconscious minds.
David W. Earle
All along, I was less concerned about walking a path of integrity and more caught up in a compass calibrated by greed. And with a compass such as this, how is it that I’m having a hard time understanding why I am where I am?
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Don't get me wrong. A good marriage, adequate financial resources, even a clean home and well-behaved children do bring some measure of happiness. However, temporal blessings, as wonderful as they may be, are only a taste of the real thing. They cannot sustain inner happiness any more than eating a scrumptious meal keeps tomorrow's hunger at bay.
Leslie Vernick
It’s about recognizing that the great movements and moments in history laid on the backs of ordinary people who simply chose to do extraordinary things.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
If there’s any redeeming quality that I can find in running away from something, it’s that I’m on my feet. Now all I’ve got to do is alter my direction.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
It’s really a rather simple thing to bring balance to my anger. All I need to do is remember that the ‘hand of cards’ that have been dealt to me pale in comparison to the ‘deck of cards’ that I’ve thrown at others.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
Without an imagination we would be irreparably shackled to what is, and never be released to what could be.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
The presence of a path doesn’t necessarily mean the existence of a destination.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
The underlying attitude comes bursting out of his words: He believes his wife is keeping something of his away from him when she doesn’t want intimate contact. He sees sexual rights to a woman as akin to mineral rights to land—and he owns them.
Lundy Bancroft
Judging others is too often escapism dressed in the garb of righteous indignation, whereby I dutifully point out in others that which I probably should be pointing out in myself.
Craig D. Lounsbrough
If I were to be brutally honest with myself, how often is my journey actually a path designed to circumvent my journey?
Craig D. Lounsbrough