COUNSELING
Touchstone offers Christ-centered counseling
for people with life controlling issues like sexual
abuse, addictions, eating disorders, and various family
and
relational conflicts. Using both individual appointments
and small group meetings, our counselors help clients
to identify and change in specific core areas.
Our approach is based on the idea that at the deepest
level, all of us were created for a relationship with
a loving God who supplies all of our needs. Since we
no longer live in direct contact with God, we experience
suffering and loss, often at the hands of those who
claim to love us most. All too often, we make poor
choices
in response to our sufferings. As those choices build
on one another, they become engrained in us. Untangling
them takes time and often requires the help of a loving
counselor.
One of our clients writes:
I have walked through many valleys in my life: the
loss of my mom, abandonment by my father, and abuse
by uncles
and neighbors. The worst thing was that I lost my soul
in the midst of all these. I ran to find comfort in
a bottle, drugs and men, who at the end would leave
me
empty and discontented. Christ, in his unfailing love
sought me out of my darkness a few years ago. But all
my past experience made my Christian life confusing,
and I have not trusted God's love for me because my
heart still stands hard at times.
This past year God led me through the doors of
Touchstone where for the first time I am slowly seeing
the light
of what it means to live in a fallen world where I
have sinned and been sinned against. Touchstone, through
the
work of Melony in small group and individual counseling
has given me some resources to live by forgiveness
and grace in this fallen world. The ministry at Touchstone
points me to the cross weekly. I enter the rooms to
look
toward healing and restoration, the kind I can only
have from our Lord. I am loved well at Touchstone with
many
tears. The Lord will "restore the years the locust
have eaten."
Laura
This client’s story is not unusual. At Touchstone,
we see her sadness in the eyes of countless teens and
young adults each year. And we hear the hope of God's
forgiveness and grace well up in many of their hearts.
It is inspiring to witness their healing, humbling
to play a part in their restoration. God has given
us ringside
seats to the grand drama of all time, the rebirth of
the human soul.
Laura's story is not over. She has struggle and confusion
ahead of her. So do the others we serve. They will
come to grips with the evil done to them in a fallen
world.
And they will confront their own evil too. Their hearts,
hardened by sin and pain, will have to soften or be
broken day by day in the workshop of real world relationships.
They will have to choose to forgive and love. It's
messy
business. It rarely feels glorious. But it is.
The goal of our work is love. It is the work of divine
love that brings dead souls to life. And that love
is reborn when we learn to love. That's why I come
close
to tears when I read that Laura feels "well-loved" at
Touchstone. It means God is working here. He is in
the mess, making something glorious for her.
If you would like to inquire about counseling programs
at Touchstone, please contact us at
(615) 386-0108
P.O. Box 159231
Nashville, TN 37215
touch-stone@juno.com |
