Care & Counseling

Care & Counseling gathers Christian Standard articles that offer biblical hope and practical guidance for seasons of pain, confusion, and personal struggle. Here you’ll find resources on grief and loss, anxiety and depression, trauma, addiction, relationships, forgiveness, and spiritual burnout—along with pastoral wisdom for walking with others who are hurting. These articles aim to encourage healing, strengthen resilience, and help individuals and churches provide compassionate, Christ-centered care.

February 25, 2017

Christian Standard

The Cry of the Elderly

By Bob Mize Their needs are outpacing our resources. But the church can help. Four decades ago, Frances Schaeffer, in How Shall We Then Live?, forecast that the next throwaway segment of our society (after aborted babies) would be the elderly by euthanasia. Physician aid-in-dying, or assisted suicide, is now legal in the states of Washington, Oregon, California, and Vermont. Schaeffer”s gloomy prophecy has become reality. The elderly are becoming viewed as a dispensable segment of society. Christians should work to make sure this doesn”t occur. This devaluation of our seniors is serious, but equally concerning is that their needs

January 28, 2017

Christian Standard

Beauty in the Battle

By Larry W. Timm When the sun rose on Thursday, October 29, 2015, my family hummed with anticipation over our quickly approaching family vacation to Florida. After the sun set that cold night, we were stunned and afraid and gathered together in a hospital room in Illinois. The terrifying journey from happiness to horror started that morning when my wife took our 14-year-old daughter, Jayne, to see a pediatrician. After struggling through a lingering cold, Jayne had noticed a lump on her neck; if she needed antibiotics, we wanted to get the prescription before beginning our trip. Her appointment led

December 2, 2016

Christian Standard

The Gift of Grief

By Daniel Schantz “A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3, King James Version). Sorrow does not take a holiday at Christmas. One of America”s most comforting Christmas anthems, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” was composed by a man fluent in the language of grief. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a popular professor and poet at Harvard in 1850, but he paid a price for his greatness. Although he loved students, he found teaching to be “a grinding mill.” He suffered from stomach distress, arthritis, vertigo, and depression. At one point he said, “I hate the sight

August 3, 2016

Christian Standard

Ending the Shame of Mental Illness

By Jim Tune In the early years of our church plant in Toronto, one of our staff members preached a message about mental illness and faith. He made himself vulnerable as he shared about a season of significant depression in his life. The story he told was courageous and honest. I remember it as a defining moment in our new church”s development. Mental illness was, and still is, a topic that rarely is discussed head-on in churches. In sharing his story, our speaker brought mental illness out from behind the curtain of shame and exposed it to a liberating light.

July 15, 2016

Christian Standard

A Child Named Faith

By Tim Spivey Greg came to live a better story even through the tragedy of losing an infant child just hours after birth. Greg and his wife (who was a Christian) suffered that unspeakable loss. After I preached the funeral for their dear child, Greg surprised me by asking to study the Bible, and I was thrilled to baptize him into Christ a couple of months later. He eventually became a drummer in our worship band, sporting a large, lifelike tattoo of his recently passed daughter on one arm. He and his wife conceived a second child but were told

June 29, 2016

Christian Standard

An Enemy at the Gate

By Jim Tune Paul Kalanithi, a nonsmoking neurosurgeon, was diagnosed with late-stage lung cancer at the age of 36. He chronicled his experiences in his memoir, When Breath Becomes Air. Kalanithi wrote: Death, so familiar to me in my work, was now paying a personal visit. . . . Standing at the crossroads where I should have been able to see and follow the footprints of countless patients I had treated over the years, I saw instead only a blank, a harsh, vacant, gleaming white desert, as if a sandstorm had erased all trace of familiarity. Death makes life seem

March 8, 2016

Mark A. Taylor

Surgery and Other Sickness

By Mark A. Taylor “I have visited and prayed with many sick people,” Professor Sherwood Smith told my class at The Cincinnati Bible Seminary more than 40 years ago. “But never did I pray like I did when the patient was my wife.” For some reason that insight has stuck with me all these years, and now it comes into sharper focus as I anticipate my own surgery Thursday this week. “Lord, heal him,” the elders prayed in December, not long after my diagnosis of prostate cancer. “Lord, keep him in the palm of your hand,” the men in my

February 3, 2016

Christian Standard

Grief: A Solitary Journey

By Jim Tune It was a gray, cold, miserable February day when my father died rather suddenly after a few days of hospitalization for respiratory problems. This month marks five years since his death on February 5, 2011. I miss him and still grieve his loss. It”s a different kind of grief now””not so raw or hard-edged. I miss him on holidays when we celebrated family traditions and rituals. And the February anniversary can still be difficult. It”s possible that the short, dark days of our Canadian winter contribute to my sense of melancholy. Nonetheless, arriving at the five-year mark

January 27, 2016

Christian Standard

No One Recovers Alone

By Jim Tune On December 10, 1996, Jill Bolte Taylor, a 37-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist, experienced a massive stroke. She sustained rapid debilitation of her brain as she lost the ability to walk, talk, write, or recall any part of her life. It would take her eight years to fully recover. Taylor documents her journey in her book My Stroke of Insight. In a chapter called “What I Needed Most,” she says recovery was a decision she had to make a million times a day. In a sense, we are all in recovery””recovery from dysfunctional families, recovery from abuse, recovery

December 22, 2015

Mark A. Taylor

We Do Not Suffer Alone

By Mark A. Taylor Death intrudes into thousands of lives every day. But to each individual losing someone close, death seems like a singular experience. I remember the comment of a good friend whose dad died decades ago. He returned to his job after several days grieving with his family and found everything there decidedly unchanged. “Everyone”s just doing what they usually do, working on their own tasks as if nothing has happened,” he said. Here he was, trying to cope with his life that had been upended. But everyone around him, it seemed, was getting along just fine. This

November 27, 2015

Christian Standard

Unexpected Encounters

Two days in the life of  a volunteer hospital chaplain By Charlie Maloney One way I have served our community through the years is as a volunteer chaplain at our local hospital. When the hospital asked our ministerial association for volunteer help, I gladly accepted. I have the gift of compassion, and the hospital was only a mile from my church. Camarillo is a small, everyone-knows-everyone type of town. So this was a perfect way for me to contribute to the spiritual well-being of the place I have lived for 35 years. Stray Puppy One morning, as I was preparing

October 14, 2015

Christian Standard

Sister Ships

By Jim Tune In Tomas Tranströmer”s poem “The Blue House,” the narrator is a man standing in the woods near his house. When he looks at his house from this vantage point, he observes that it”s as if he”d just died and he now “saw the house from a new angle.” It”s a haunting image””that just-dead man among the trees””and it”s an instructive one too. Sometimes something has to die before we can see from a new angle. This is the posture Tranströmer”s narrator assumes, at once able to see his life for what it”s been while also acknowledging the

July 22, 2015

Christian Standard

Sweet Sorrow

By Jim Tune One of my favorite books (and I like the movie, too) is the classic The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Czech writer Milan Kundera. In his book, the heroine, Teresa, struggles to be at peace with life when it”s not heavy, when it”s too much lightness, sunshine, and seemingly carefree””when it”s devoid of the anxieties that hint at darkness and mortality. She feels the constant need for gravitas, for some heaviness that says life is more than simply the present flourishing of health and comfort. For her, lightness equals superficiality. Most of us prefer sunshine over shadow,

May 22, 2015

Christian Standard

To Comfort All Who Mourn (Isaiah 61:1-3)

By Neal Windham The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners . . . to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion (Isaiah 61:1-3). Jesus loved Isaiah. Again and again, our Lord turned to the trusted old prophet to help orient his disciples in the compassionate ways of the kingdom. For example, he began the Sermon on the Mount

May 1, 2015

Christian Standard

Grace Notes

By Marybeth Bittel As Christians, we often remind each other a key challenge of life is to trust and obey. We acknowledge God is in control, and we know our job is to accept whatever happens with faith, hope, and conviction. Implicit in all of this is the fundamental recognition that life can change at any time, in any way, for any one of us. I”ve spent the majority of my adult life as a lay minister, a small group facilitator, and a worship leader. Music, in particular, has been a cherished part of my life. As a longtime vocalist

April 18, 2015

Christian Standard

Are You Feeling Better?

By Danielle Hance Whether we”re battling chronic illness, mourning a loved one, going through separation, or any number of other painful periods, we all need support. Unfortunately, our efforts to bring comfort often miss the mark. Like the advice offered by Job”s friends, our good intentions can sometimes do more harm then good. Not sure how to support a friend in distress? Here are some bad and better approaches. BAD: “Are you feeling better?” This question practically demands an affirmative response. People expect those who are sick to get well, not worse. This may lead sufferers to feel they are

April 17, 2015

Christian Standard

Helping Through the Hurt

By Susan Lawrence “Let me know if I can do anything to help.” We commonly extend the offer with a genuine desire to help. However, many times, people don”t know what they need, or they”re hesitant to ask. Through many difficult deaths and trials among our church family, I”ve learned a few things that help. Reach out to others even when they”re not reaching out. “¢ Simply be present. You don”t need to have the perfect words. You don”t need to have answers to every question. Sit with someone. Hold a hand. Give a hug through the sobs. “¢ Be

April 17, 2015

Christian Standard

10 Tips for People Dealing with Pain

By Phil Kendon One person walks with dignity and peace through a severe trial that comes upon his life, while another seems to fall apart at the seams. One grows stronger in his faith through the experience, another abandons the faith in anger and disappointment. One exhibits a joy in God despite his circumstances, while another sinks into the dark mists of depression and grief. Death, sickness, financial hardship, or a suffering child””any of these could send us spiraling downwards in a cycle of questions, doubts, anger, and depression. But trials can also draw us upwards in faith, hope, and

April 12, 2015

Christian Standard

How Should Christians Suffer?

By Mark W. Hamilton The Bible helps us answer the question. A good beginning point is in the psalms of lament. Pain and suffering. This word pair names one of the most difficult problems facing Christian faith and practice today. Some Christians seek to dodge the problem by imagining that suffering always marks the presence of sin and that God, because he is good, wishes us to escape pain in all instances. This despite the obvious facts that the pain of Jesus lies at the very heart of the gospel, and that he called us to imitate him as suffering

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