LAST year of graduate school

I keep thinking I will blog. I keep thinking I will find time or energy to post. I think about a lot of things to share. It's complicated now with confidentiality issues with my clients. I can't just share details freely. It's complicated because I am so overwhelmed this year. The learning curve has been steep.

But I will tell you when I finish and graduate in June I will be throwing a party in my head. Right now I'm in my second to last quarter of graduate school~ in finals.I have had papers due for weeks now. I think I am coming to my breaking point. I have had a migraine for the past few days I can't seem to shake. I feel paralyzed writing these papers. I feel like I am writing the same thing over and over.

However I do know I am not only becoming a better writer (academic writer-notice I did not add blogger) and more importantly I am growing as a therapist. I am starting to own what I tell my clients. If I can't live it and believe it what makes me think my clients will be able to embody what I am even talking about? I still believe in change. I believe in hope. I am clinging tightly to a God who can save.

I understand now why a lot of therapists become depressed and quit. I understand why a growing majority of therapist become suicidal. They hear awful stories every day. They see everyone at their worst and they want to escape the pain. I am determined not to numb myself to sleep but to face the pain with strength, boldness and fierceness. While I am learning about being a therapist my clients teach me how to be a stronger person. My clients have been through abandonment, abuse, neglect, sex trafficking, they have had everyone turn their backs to them, they have been malnourished, they have experienced the death of their dad, the emotional abuse of their mom and they do everything they can do to numb this pain. They get high, they are compulsive fighters, they drink themselves into oblivion, they steal to feel wealthy, they have sex to feel whole. But in my office I see survivors. I see strong fighters. I see myself in their eyes. I see someone who beneath the hot mess is a person in the image of God who does HAVE WHAT IT TAKES to make it, to change, to recover and to find

HOPE.

So even if I don't pull an A on all these integrated papers on faith and therapy I have found something much more precious and that is hope.