Counseling Anniversary and My Video Debut

It’s been about a year since I left a regular, forty -hour a week job that provided delightful and practical benefits such as retirement, insurance, and paid holidays to begin counseling at a private practice as my primary job. I had already been with Crossroads Counseling for a while and had been planning on making the change, but it was still a big decision and a huge risk. I knew that it could potentially be a huge disaster, but I also knew that God had opened up a million doors for me to walk through and I felt sure of what He had told me to do. And so I took what is certainly my biggest risk yet and left the safe job that made me feel drained for the risky job that makes me feel alive. 

 In the last year I’ve developed a term of endearment for self-employment—I like to refer to it as “Living on the Edge”.  Anyone who is self-employed or who has a self-employed spouse knows exactly what I mean.  I don’t know when I’ve ever been so excited for a change, but I knew things wouldn’t be easy all the time so I tried to have realistic expectations. Even so, trying to imagine something isn’t the same as actually experiencing it. There was a particularly difficult season where everything seemed to go wrong. It was confusing and scary and every emotion I felt told me to just give up because this job would obviously never work. I started feeling crazy for thinking it would.

I had a particularly meaningful conversation with a co-worker during that time, and he reminded me that God doesn’t play jokes on us, doesn’t change His mind when He leads us to something, and that I could trust I hadn’t heard Him wrong several months before.  And I remembered that sometimes we have to put our trust in what we know instead of what we feel.  So that’s what Will and I tried our best to do, and of course everything worked out.  In fact, it worked out better than we had ever hoped.  Why did we ever get so worried?

Working in private practice at Crossroads Counseling is one of the best decisions I have ever made. I’m so thankful for the freedom to see clients without being bogged down with other things. I’m thankful that I can arrange my schedule to have time to speak, to teach, and to write. I’m thankful for the clients that I’ve come to truly know, love, and enjoy so much.  And I’m especially thankful for my Crossroads family. Everyone—my co-workers, our director, our administrative assistants—have always fully supported me, encouraged me, and treated me as an equal.  The other day I listened as a counselor who is much more experienced than I am referred clients to me over the phone, and I could have cried about the kind words she used to describe me. You just don’t find that everywhere. 

Last April Mutual of Omaha contacted me about making a video for their Aha Moment tour.  I spoke a little about making my decision to become a counselor and some of the things that go along with that.  I’ve been waiting for a while to share it, and now seems like the right time. Do take a moment and prepare yourself for the strength of the accent you’re about to hear.

At the end of this video I talk a bit about purpose. We all have natural gifts, talents, and abilities. The only thing I’ve ever been really good at is connecting with different people and making others feel comfortable. I never would have imagined that those things would have turned into my job, but I am a truly certain that God will take our lives and do more with them than we could ever ask or imagine if we will only follow Him and trust that He has good plans for us. Just like counseling comes naturally to me, you have something that comes naturally to you.  Maybe you’re great at decorating a house or making a delicious meal. Maybe you’re wonderful with kids.  Maybe you’re super organized or great at budgeting. Maybe you’re an expert at making spreadsheets, growing a beautiful garden, or writing. Whatever it is that comes naturally to you and makes you feel alive, there is a way to find purpose and serve others through that thing. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to make a career or job change, but rather that you embrace the special gifts God gave you and commit them to Him.  Who knows, maybe He will take them and do more that you ever asked or imagined too. 

Later on Mutual of Omaha will do some sort of voting campaign with these videos and the winner will get to make a national commercial.  I am certainly not expecting to be a national commercial star, but feel free to share this video if you feel like doing so. 

Have a good weekend friends. And let us all enjoy the brisk 92 degree weather and give thanks that it's no longer 130 degrees outside.

Whitney

Sometimes I Stand Up and Talk!

The summer has been long and full around here. I didn't teach any classes and counseling slows down a bit in the summer, so I've had plenty of time to visit with friends and family and continue in my quest to rid our house of 1983-ness. I know July isn't quite over yet, but all the teachers in my life are getting ready to head back to work and to me that means the Fall is almost here. I will be busy again soon, but there is always something exciting about the start of a new season.

Something that keeps me quite busy during the school year is speaking at different events. It truly is a huge honor when a group asks me to come, and I absolutely love getting the chance to meet new people and share things that I've learned. Though I particularly enjoy speaking at women's ministry events, I've also had the chance to speak at several community and student events and I've really enjoyed those as well.  You can click here, here, and here to read about a couple of the events I did this spring.  You can click here to read about some of the topics that I've spoken about often, and I also enjoy speaking on more traditional Bible study topics.

I've got some exciting events planned for this fall, and I would be so honored to add your event to my calendar.  Feel free to share this information and contact me with any questions!

Whitney

Fancy Friends

My friends have been up to some pretty fancy things lately.  Have you looked at the new issue of Martha Stewart Weddings? 

That's my friend Saron's wedding inside taking up an entire 8 pages! She got married back in April 2014 and she and my friend Alee worked for months planning the most perfect night.  The event took place in the cattle fields just besides her parent's house.  It was so personal and was filled with so many special touches.  Alee and Saron, along with family and friends, planned, designed, and built every detail of the wedding themselves.   You can read all about it in the magazine, or you can download the Martha Stewart Weddings app through Newsstand and check it out on your iPad. 

Photos by laurenkinsey.com

Alee and I have been best friends since we first met in the 6th grade.  Even as an eleven year old I was able to immediately recognize how incredibly creative Alee was, and I've spent the last two decades benefitting from her talents.  These benefits include but are not limited to--handwriting lessons (lost cause), "help" with all art projects ("hey Alee, why don't you draw/write this and I'll color it in?"), help with designing and with flowers at my own wedding, and help painting and decorating my house ("hey Alee, I'll just bring these things in here and why don't you put them on the shelves where they need to go. K thanks.").  Seriously, she has such a gift and can make anything look amazing.

Saron and I became close friends as teenagers when we were on our high school's dance team together.  We both lived out in the country, 30 minutes outside of town in different directions, so we spent hours together riding around in our messy cars, wearing spandex dance wear, and eating an abundance of unhealthy foods.  Saron has experience in event planning and can be counted on to get a job done right. She's got style, she's got sass, and I promise you will never be bored with her.  

Alee and Saron have their own event planning and designing business and they make the perfect team.  They are so talented and you can't imagine how hard they work.  Plus, they're just fun.  I'm so proud of these two and I'm not at all surprised by their success.  Make sure to like their facebook page and check out their website.  I'm sure they'd love to answer any questions you have about working with you on your event.  

While you're at it, check out the article my friend Lacy Deese wrote for the Clarion-Ledger here. 

 Lacy's a friend and my co-worker at Crossroads Counseling.  She's actually the one who helped me get the chance to be a part of Crossroads in the first place, for which I will be forever completely grateful! She's the perfect combination of wise and funny, and I love love love what she wrote about the goodness of God in this article.  It's just so true.  

And that's what my fancy friends have been up to lately. 

Whitney 

See You Later May

May was a wild month for me.  And for pretty much every other person I know.  May seems to be a month when a lot of things end, most notably school.  I'm finished teaching my college classes until the fall and once again I have been reminded of the blessing that is summer vacation.

I started the month by speaking to the Teen MOPs group at Parkway Baptist Church in Clinton, MS.  I know I have mentioned Mothers of Preschoolers before, but this group is unique in that it is made up of teen moms.  I could tell the girls loved the group, and I was SO impressed with this program and with the ladies who volunteer as mentors each week.  

I had the chance to write about about one of my experiences as a FUGE staffer on the FUGE blog.  If you know me then you know how special this camp is to me.  You can check it out here. 

A couple of weeks ago I did something really neat.  Back in April the Mutual of Omaha organization contacted me and asked me if I would film a video for their Aha Moment Tour.  I think one of their recruiters must have read the blog I wrote about my dad's heart attack, and they wanted me to film a short video talking about a moment in my life that impacted me in a big way.  Even though I'm really used to talking in front of people I was a tiny bit nervous, because I've never talked in front of a camera before.  The Mutual of Omaha people were so incredibly nice and they made me feel really comfortable.

Eventually Mutual of Omaha will post these videos, and the ones with the most votes will be made into commercials.  I'm not holding my breath for any such thing, but I'm really, really thankful I had this opportunity.  I am also really anxious to hear what my voice sounds like.  I'm pretty sure that there won't be any questions regarding where I'm from.  

If you're my Facebook or Instagram friend then you might have seen some pictures from my trip to New York a couple of weeks ago.  My sister graduated from Columbia with her MFA in creative nonfiction writing, so of course I had to attend the festivities.  I flew up the day after I filmed my video and met my parents, and I'm not exaggerating when I say that my family was perhaps the loudest group of people in Manhattan.  At least on the subway at 7 am.

I've been to two Ivy League graduations now, and let me tell you--these events are not for the weak or weary individual.  You have to be prepared to hustle, brave extreme temperatures, sit for an exceptionally long time with 40,000 friends, skip meals, and basically celebrate for 12 hours.  It's so fun, but it makes even the most prepared person feel a little insane.  I think due to all of the academic excellence around us Kayla and I were inspired to write some poetry throughout the day:

I had the best time visiting with Kayla's friends and participating in my favorite New York activity--eating everything I see.  It's slightly devastating that I can't eat at Absolute Bagel every morning at home like I can when I'm in New York, but those everything bagels with their lox will be forever in my heart.  Even though Absolute Bagel is my absolute favorite, the real highlight of the trip was being with these wild people.

Now summer is here, and maybe that means things will slow down a little.  And maybe that means that I will finally unpack my garage from when I moved into my house 10 months ago.  Only time will tell.

Whitney

Very Late April Wrap Up

Did you ever come home and realize that you've been so busy that every room in your house has become dirty? That’s pretty much how the whole month of April was for me. It was really busy, but it was also full of visiting with friends and other good things.

The month started with my friend Paige’s wedding. Paige and I have been besties since high school and I was so excited to be her maid of honor. Paige lives in San Francisco now, so it was great to spend time with her and other friends that I don’t get to see very often.

A couple of days after the wedding I spoke to the MOPs (Mothers of Preschoolers) group at North Monroe Baptist Church in Monroe, LA. Monroe is dear to me because my friends Megan and Emily both grew up there, and I can't begin to tell you the fun we've had there over the past ten years. The ladies in the group were really sweet and their meeting included the most excellent buffet of breakfast items, including a noteworthy breakfast sandwich that I have not stopped thinking about yet. They are an example to MOPs groups everywhere in the area of delicious refreshments.

I spoke using this microphone and I am pleased to report that I did not hit myself in the face.

My friend Susan made the trip with me and my friend Emily met us there. A personal low occurred when I was five minutes into driving us home and I felt my eyes start to close. We immediately stopped and switched drivers, thus poor Susan had to chauffeur me home. What would I do without friends like these?

During the month of April I was the guest blogger for Mississippi Women Bloggers. It was a challenge for me to write so much with everything else that was going on, but I think it was good for me and I’m so thankful to have had the opportunity. The month’s theme was Renew and if you didn’t read them yet I introduced myself and wrote about dealing with stress, the true meaning of home, comparison, using social media in a healthy way, and purpose.

The month of May got off to an excellent start this past weekend when I FINALLY got a new phone!

I got my old iphone 4 back in 2011 and I think it’s safe to say it was past time to upgrade. I can only equate my excitement to the time in 8th grade when I finally got satellite TV and could watch TRL in my very own living room. Do you have any suggestions for apps that I cannot live without? I haven’t been able to participate in app downloading for about a year and a half, therefore the most exciting one that I can think of is the Bank Plus app. Let me know what I've been missing.

I hope May has gotten off to a great start for you!

Whitney

Holey Sheets

When Will and I got married three and a half years ago we were given two sets of bed sheets as wedding gifts.  I feel like most adults probably have more than two sets of sheets for their primary bed, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend money on more sheets when we had two perfectly good sets.  So I set out to make these sheets last as long as possible, and this went pretty well until April 2015.

Several weeks ago I decided that it was time to finally cover the visible box spring with our most worn fitted sheet.  I didn’t realize until after it was already on that we had accidentally used the newer sheet instead of the more worn one.  I don’t know if you have ever tried to fit a regular sized fitted sheet onto a box spring, but let’s just say that the sheet is staying there for the rest of it’s life.  This left the more worn set of sheets to go on the actual mattress, which didn’t bother me.  After all, no one can even see the sheets. 

Things continued to go well for me and my sheets until one night Will got out of bed and I heard a ripping sound.  Apparently his “toe got caught” on a worn spot in the sheet and it tore. Let me stop here and say this—Will is what I would call a “hard mover”.  When he comes home he closes the door so hard that things shake.  He “places” glasses on the counter so hard that I’m nervous they will break.  If he stubs his toes they bleed.  If he turns over in his sleep it’s with enough force to pull the blankets completely off of me.  So when I heard that ripping sound I knew it was going to be bad.  We checked it out and indeed there was a substantial hole in the sheet.  So what did we do about it? Why nothing, of course. 

Over the course of the next couple of weeks the hole grew and grew.  It went from a substantial hole, to a big hole, to a huge hole.  Eventually it completely extended from one side of the mattress to the other.  Our feet and our dog would get caught in it.  At this point I had to take some action, but I still didn’t buy new sheets.  I just took the top sheet, tucked it in tight, and continued to ignore the problem. 

Why didn’t I just get new sheets? I had several reasons at the time.  I didn’t want to drive to the store to get them.  I was busy.  I didn’t want to spend money on something you can’t even see.  Mostly, I think the situation didn’t bother me until I was actually trying to go to sleep, so it was easy to keep ignoring. 

As I’ve thought about my sheet dilemma, I am reminded of how we sometimes handle small problems in our lives.  I’m talking about small things that we are dissatisfied with and that we can realistically change.  I’m thinking of issues with organization, time management, getting enough rest, eating habits, and other little things like that.  Sometimes it’s easy to ignore these things because they aren’t a big deal.  Other people can’t see them, and they don’t consistently bother us enough to force us to make a change. 

I finally broke down and got new sheets three weeks ago, and they are what I would call a Game Changer.  Here are some of our reviews on them: “Wow! I can’t believe how great these sheets are!”, “I love this bed!”, “I feel like I’m sleeping so much better!”, “I feel like we are sleeping in a fancy hotel bed!”, and “Do you think we’ll ever stop talking about these sheets?”  Sometimes we get complacent and don’t realize just how much a problem is affecting us until we’ve fixed it.  This goes for holey sheets and life. 

What are some easy changes you can make today to make life easier and more pleasant?

Beauty for Ashes

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  Romans 8:26 

I suppose I have known of this verse for a long time, but it wasn’t until January 2011 that I really understood what it meant.  January 11, 2011 was a rare snow day in Clinton, MS.  My graduate school classes had been cancelled and I was at my then-fiancé-now-husband Will’s apartment with a couple of other friends watching the college football national championship when my mom called.  I didn’t answer the first time, but I was worried that something might be wrong when she called back immediately.

“Whitney. Your daddy has had some sort of a spell.  You need to come home right now”, she told me in a voice that didn’t belong to her.  Absolute panic raced through my mind and body and I had a thousand questions that she couldn’t answer.  “It doesn’t look good.  You just need to come right now.  Give the phone to Will”, she told me. 

All I remember about that moment is that I wasn’t able to coherently speak to my friends to explain what had happened, nor could I coherently think.  A moment like this will make you realize what your faith is really made of, and I am forever grateful that my first instinct was to run into Will’s room and fall onto my knees.  I tried to pray and I felt like I was, but later my friends told me that I wasn’t speaking real words but just making noises.  When I look back at that moment, I am certain, absolutely, supernaturally certain, that the Holy Spirit was there, interceding for me when I could not pray real words for myself. 

My friends got me up and Will drove me two hours south to Forrest General hospital in Hattiesburg, MS.  When we got to the hospital we found out that my dad had suffered a massive heart attack known as the Widow Maker, a type of heart attack that immediately kills 9 out of 10 people.  He had been without a pulse when he got to the hospital, without oxygen to his brain for 45 minutes, and shocked over a dozen times before he somewhat stabilized.  The doctors at the hospital in my hometown of Picayune, MS had told my mom that he probably wouldn’t survive the ambulance ride to the cardiac unit an hour north in Hattiesburg, but that he definitely wouldn’t make it if they didn’t try.

Luckily, this story ends in the happiest way possible.  After the doctors told us that he likely wouldn’t make it, my dad started making tiny improvements and miraculously woke up a couple of days later.   That morning my mom woke my sister and I up from the bed we had crafted from ICU waiting room couches.  We ran, me accidentally barefoot, into his room where he was able to recognize us right away.  He left the hospital 7 days after arriving, rode his motorcycle for the first time 6 weeks later, and went back to work at the beginning of the summer.  He walked me down the aisle at my wedding that September, and I don’t know if there has ever been a bride more thankful to have her dad beside her.  Today he is healthier than ever with no lasting damage at all. 

My dad looking fine as ever!

If you happen to be looking for a Christian magazine, I recommend that you head to your nearest ICU waiting room because they are full of them.  I remember picking one up, while my dad was still unconscious, and reading “For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.” Romans 8:28 

This is another verse that I’ve known of for a long time, but it didn’t really become personal to me until the months following that night.  For several different reasons those months were HARD, probably the hardest of my life so far.  Despite being so happy and thankful that my dad was ok, life suddenly seemed unpredictable, out of my control, and terrifying.  If something this terrible could happen what else could happen? What if it didn’t turn out so well the next time something bad happened? For months I suffered from crippling anxiety plus guilt for feeling the anxiety.  Nothing seemed to be going right and it was hard for me to find “the good” in my situation.

What good things did I eventually find?  Most significantly, after a lifetime of sometimes doubting my salvation, my faith took a very real turn that night.  It didn’t happen quickly, but I can look back and see that it was the turning point. The anxiety I experienced finally resulted in me turning to scripture as a last resort, and this changed a lifetime of knowledge about God into a real relationship with Him.   Second, spending many months in counseling helped me to be able to connect to the desperation that some of my clients feel the first time they meet with me—I wouldn’t understand that feeling if I hadn’t experienced it myself. Third, I now have a story to share that may encourage someone else.  

Why am I telling you this story? Because sometimes it seems impossible to find the good right away.  Let me be very clear about this—I am in no way trying to compare my experience to whatever painful thing you have gone through.  My dad made it, but someone out there has a dad who didn’t and that is a pain that I can’t pretend to understand.  Someone lost a baby.  A marriage.  A dream.  A job. Maybe you’ve made a big mistake.  Maybe you haven’t lost anything, but maybe you are just disappointed with life and with God about the things that haven’t worked out the way you hoped.  Each of us has had different experiences and we can’t compare our hurt to another person’s.

But whatever your trouble is, know this—as long as you’re living, God has a good plan and a purpose for your life.  God brings purpose from the good things—your talents, experiences, and successes--but He also redeems and brings good from your hard times and mistakes too.  It may not be in the way that you expect or hope, but God, in His timing, will bring something good from your deepest pain.  We can count on this promise, today and always. 

“To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair.  In their righteousness they will be like great oaks that the Lord has planted for his own glory.” Isaiah 61:3