Beauty for Ashes

Hello friends! If you are visiting from the Rankin Baptist newsletter or the Crossroads Counseling Facebook page, then welcome! I'm Whitney Caves, a Licensed Professional Counselor with Crossroads Christian Marriage and Family Counseling Center. I work with clients facing a variety of issues including anxiety, depression, and low-self esteem. I see clients at our Clinton and Pearl locations, and Crossroads has several other locations throughout the state. For more information about our services, visit our website by clicking here.

The piece of the article that I shared in the Rankin Baptist newsletter was first published on my blog a few months ago. Here is the full article:



January 11, 2011 was a rare snow day in Clinton. 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 dad 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”, 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 sounds. When I look back at that moment, I am certain, absolutely, supernaturally certain, that the Holy Spirit was there, interceding for me when I couldn’t pray real words for myself. 

My friends got me up, and Will drove me two hours south to Forrest General hospital in Hattiesburg. 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 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.

Fortunately, 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. 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 in search of 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 

I’d known this verse 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, my relationship with God 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 in a way that I never had before, and this strengthened my sometimes shaky faith in a way that nothing else ever had.  Second, spending time 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 do I share 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 things that others go 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’re just disappointed with life and with God about the things that haven’t worked out the way you hoped. 

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

After I originally posted this story the Mutual of Omaha organization contacted me and asked me to make a video for their Aha Moment Tour. Click here if you'd like to hear me talk a little about why I love counseling and finding purpose in everyday life. 

Thanks so much for reading!

Whitney 

It Can Wait!

If you know me well, then you know this—I am the anti-procrastinator. And this is not always a good thing, no indeed, not at all. If something needs to be done, I have to do it right away or else. Or else I’ll get crazy and only be able to think about the thing that needs doing. Every day for years I’ve gotten up and made a To-Do list. I like to make a list for the day and for the week. I like to make different categories of lists (grocery list, book list, house list). Sometimes I’ve even made lists for the month or for a season (I have an actual Summer ’15 list in my planner. I don’t know if I’m proud of this or not. Maybe I should have kept this a secret because now maybe you think I'm a little scary. I'm not!).

Making a To-Do list really is a great idea. It helps us organize our thoughts, put them all down where we can see them, and cross them off as we get them done. I will make lists forever, I’m sure. However, sometimes I have a special knack for making things harder than they have to be. Sometimes I put more on my list than is humanly possible to complete in the amount of time that I’ve given myself, and I spend my day sprinting around in a state of frantic-ness that is completely self-induced.

In the past I’ve had this bad habit of sprinting around, constantly doing things and never resting, but not necessarily doing the things that I most need to do in order to make my life go smoothly. This always results in me having a Quarterly Crash where I pretty much get sick because I’m so exhausted.  I fully recognize that this is terrible for me, and in fact it’s something that I am constantly helping my clients with in counseling. It’s not good for me, I don’t feel like it’s honoring to God, and it’s a pattern that I’m determined to stop as I head into my 30’s.

This Saturday I was especially tired. Not just my body, but my mind and my spirit too. During the school year I teach a couple of college classes. I added a third class to my schedule this semester and after the first two weeks of teaching I was wiped out. And I know I am not alone in being tired out from the beginning of the back to school routine!

Even though I was tired, there were some things that I needed to take care of this weekend. But this time, before I made my To-Do list I decided to make an It Can Wait List. I got out my list paper and made a list of things that I needed to do at some point, but not necessarily right away. Some of these things included:

• Taking the leftovers from our garage sale to the thrift store. They had been riding around with me for a week. A couple more days wouldn't hurt.
• Bringing an enormous pile of clothes to the cleaners. They had been riding around with me for like a month. What’s another couple of days?
• Washing the dog. He would be ok for another couple of days.
• Cleaning anything.
• Doing any sort of exercise.

And then I made a list of things that really could not wait. It included:

• Washing clothes.
• Getting ready for classes.
• Laying down and not moving for a little while. Preferably in a dark room. 
• Watching Step Up on ABC Family.  This most assuredly could not wait. Do you remember this? I think I could do this dance from memory. And then I would not be able to move for a week.

For me, the key to this working is asking myself a couple of questions—What is most important here? What will make me feel the least stressed today/this week/ this month? What do I feel like I need right now? The idea here is not to procrastinate. It's to give ourselves freedom to wait on some things in order to really focus on what's most important for right now. And really to just chill out altogether, because a lot of things really can wait. 

Because I'm so tech savvy, I made this special picture to go along with this idea.

Have a good weekend friends. I hope Step Up comes on ABC Family again so you can watch it too. I'm pretty sure it inspired me on towards success this week. And thank you so much for all your kind birthday wishes!

Whitney

Getting Older, But Certainly Not Old

Next week I turn 30. I think I’m supposed to be experiencing some sort of conflicted feelings about this, but honestly, I’m not.  People keep saying things like, “Oh. How are you dealing with that?” in a tone that indicates I’ve just shared that I have a terrible illness instead of that I’m turning 30. Maybe the freaked out feelings will come, but so far they haven’t. Maybe it’s because I feel good about the things that happened in my 20’s and for where I am in life in general. I feel immensely thankful for this to be the case. However, it does feel strange to think of being such an age. How did this happen?

I was grocery shopping a couple of days ago at my local Kroger. All the college kids are back in town and they just look so young. Like children, really. Which is strange, because I’m supposed to be their age. Like in my heart, I’m supposed to be 22 still. I saw a group of girls standing in a circle, obviously seeing each other for the first time since getting back to town.  They were so young and tan too, probably because they just returned from some grand summer adventure. And I felt like saying, “Hey! You girls! I just wanted you to know that I used to be young and fun! I had this group of best friends when I went to MC and we were so fun! And I had the most fun summers! Just wanted you to know!” But I didn’t, because turning 30 doesn’t mean I have to turn into a creeper too.

During my senior year at Mississippi College I was a part of this group of students called the Executive Council.  We did all sorts of things on campus, and I still feel lucky that I had the chance to belong to that group.  We would meet for hours on Monday nights, and I would always walk part of the way back to my dorm with my three good guys friends. We would part ways in front of the cafeteria and I would walk the rest of the way back by myself. Because I was a very sentimental 22 year old, I would spend the rest of the walk thinking about how much I loved going to school at MC and how I’d better live it up because I knew it wouldn’t last forever. 

It didn’t last forever, and I was sad when it was over. But more good times came, then I was sad when those were over too. But then even more good times came. That’s the thing about happy seasons—they don’t last forever, but we can always be sure another good one is just around the corner. When I think about it, I guess I’ve always been pretty good about trying to enjoy today and not chasing tomorrow or yesterday. Maybe that’s why I’m ok with turning 30.

To commemorate this big day I’ve rounded up some pictures of past birthdays. I do hope you enjoy them.

This is a birthday beach trip that we took during our senior year of college. I had only just met Will and we weren't quite dating yet, but somehow us girls came to the conclusion that the fate of our relationship rested solely upon whether or not he had the foresight to call me at exactly midnight on my birthday. I know you'll be relieved to hear that he called. Whew. 

This is a special surprise Mexican fiesta birthday during which my friend Megan read a delightful card in an unidentified Latino accent. I located this card during my garage clean out, but no worries I saved it. It's available for viewing in my garage closet. 

Imagine coming home to find yourself in icing on a cake, dressed up as a cowgirl. I really think this speaks for itself. 

To wrap things up, here is a pre-birthday confession. People have always thought I am  younger than I really am, but it seems never so much as they do now. And just in time too, because I really can't think of a better time to speak to a lady about her youthful appearance than upon the approach of her 30th birthday. It's not at all uncommon for a client to find out my age and say, "Oh, I thought you were like 22." And I think to myself Bless you precious child  and put a happy face by their name in my head. So here is my birthday prayer-Dear Lord, please let me grow as much and have as many happy times and friends in my 30's as I did in my 20's. Please help me look to you in everything that I do and in every decision I make. Please, PLEASE don't ever let me lose my counseling license because the licensing process is not something I can survive twice in a lifetime. And please let me look 22 forever and ever--or at least until I turn 35. At that point I feel it will be reasonable to increase it to maybe 26.  Amen. 

Whitney 

The Big Sale

It's going to be a big day around our house tomorrow. We are having our first ever garage sale, which I like to refer to as The Big Sale. The idea started this summer when we spent a lot of time cleaning out various areas of our house, including the boxes in the garage that have been sitting there for an entire year. Will and I both have a slight tendency towards hoarding, and some of these items that we cleaned out included, but were certainly not limited to--every single invitation to every single event of my friend Sara's wedding weekend (she's been married 7 years), the directions that Will's dad wrote out for him when he was making his original pilgrimage to Mississippi College for orientation, and cards to commemorate every life event 2008-2011. 

Anyway, we are really making an effort to fight our hoarding instincts in this house, so when I saw how much stuff there was to give away I started wondering if we could sell it. Thus The Big Sale was born. My official partner in The Big Sale is my good bestie and college roommate Sara. I want to stress that we were potluck roommates who roomed together all four years of college. Clearly we work well together in all endeavors. Here we are our senior year. I want to publicly acknowledge that I know there is a way to crop this, but I'm tired and I don't feel I have the energy to figure it out at this time.

What? You mean you don't have a professional portrait of you and your college roommate? Here's another of the whole group.

Just think girls.  One day you could be frolicking together in coordinating black shirts taking friendship pictures and 8 years later you could be hosting your very own Big Sale together #fancylife 

I heard rumors that such a sale is a lot of work, so I started doing some research. And it turns out that there is a whole culture of people who love nothing more than to run about in the wee morning hours hosting/shopping at garage sales. These people had a lot of very specific tips to share via the internets, and I am greatly appreciative for these words of advice from the professionals.  

I am weirdly fascinated by the idea of a neighborhood garage sale. I grew up in the country, and though I'm sure people must have had them, I don't recall ever seeing a garage sale sign out by my house. So I'm fascinated with them in the same way that I'm still fascinated with trick or treating on foot in a neighborhood. I love the idea of being at a garage sale visiting with neighbors and people from around town. It all seems very quaint and early 90's to me.  I suspect these ideas are naivety on my part and that they will die a slow, sweaty death tomorrow morning at 8 when I've already been up for 4 hours.

If you live near me I do hope you will pay us a visit tomorrow.  We have lots of good stuff and I might even make some cookies. Sara and I had an official lunch meeting this week about The Big Sale (which her mom pointed out we should write off for tax purposes--I like the way she thinks) and we decided that our criteria for success would be making a profit--any profit, no specifics to bring us down--and having a general good time. Please come help us make all our dreams come true!

Whitney

Discontentment

Do you know about the book Jesus Calling? It's a book of short devotions with something written for each day of the year. The thing that makes it unique is that it's written as if Jesus is talking to you (which perhaps sounds odd if you've never read it but I promise it's not). I would say some of the major themes are trust, thankfulness, and peace. A special friend gave me my copy a few years ago when I was going through a hard time and I can definitely say it's my favorite devotion book. 

Something I really enjoy doing is going back and looking at what I highlighted or underlined in past years. It makes me remember things that I've gone through before and I feel so thankful for God's faithfulness.  Yesterday I was reading and something stood out to me:

"Accept each day just as it comes to you. Do not waste your time and energy wishing for a different set of circumstances. Instead, trust Me enough to yield to My design and purposes. Remember that nothing can separate you from My Loving Presence; you are mine."

In my book I had underlined the part that I've underlined here.  I bet I underlined that two or three years ago, and oh boy, did I need to underline that back then. I also needed to write it on 500 sticky notes and post them all around me and tattoo it to my body. And I still need to remind myself of it often. 

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's gone through a time of discontentment. There are some circumstances that we can reasonably make an effort to change, but I'm thinking of situations that we can't necessarily control. We can find ourselves feeling discontent about a huge variety of things and it can lead to lots of different feelings--frustration, sadness, impatience, helplessness, comparison, and loneliness come to my mind.  

And certainly we are right to not be ok with our circumstances sometimes. There's nothing wrong with doing our best to make a negative thing better. But after we've done that and things still haven't improved, well, if we're not careful the discontentment might come. And it seems to me that if we hang out in the land of discontentment too long, it's easy for resentment to set in. After resentment comes bitterness, and being bitter leads to nothing good. The worst thing about all these negative feelings is that they don't change a thing. They don't improve our situation at all--they suck our joy, keep us feeling bad, and might even cause us to miss out on something that we need to learn.

This isn't a fun or easy idea, not at all. But I think sometimes we have to make a decision to try our best to take our eyes off the bad and refocus them on the good. To remember God's faithfulness and count our blessings.  Here are a couple of verses that I think can be especially powerful in a season of discontentment:

"And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6

"I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your wonders of old." Psalm 77:11

"For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth." Job 19:25

On days when we're not sure of anything else, we can be sure that God is always good, is always for us, and that He will finish the work He started in us. And that is a reason to be thankful indeed.

Whitney

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