The View From The Back Seat

It had been a stressful few months.  Home was too busy.  Work was too busy.  Too many things to be done, and not enough time to do it.  Every night as I climbed into bed I had more things on my list than I’d had when the day had begun.  I could feel the stress.  I knew I needed a change.  But I hadn’t yet figured out how or what I could do differently.

I had a counseling session that week with a man who, now in his 40s, had decided to address his “anger issues.”  He used our sessions to essentially do his own therapy with very little input from me other than to encourage and to be a sounding board, to ask questions, and occasionally to intrude.

In previous sessions he had already explained to me how he’d always been in  trouble as a kid, and that this pattern hadn’t changed much in adulthood.  He had identified numerous traumatic events when he was a child, and now as a 40-some-year-old man he was starting to think that possibly those traumatic events, the ones which still evoked tears in the telling of them, might somehow be linked to his temper.

We had been discussing some strategies he might try in managing his anger.  The idea being to unravel some of the anger before it became rage.  I made suggestions, and he chose which strategies he thought might work for him.  He’d try them out for a week or two and then come back into session to let me know how it had gone.  He held on to the ones which worked, and discarded the rest.

 “So, I decided to ask God to help me with this, this, anger thing,” he said, this particular afternoon. 

I nodded, recognizing that he was taking us on a new path.  I said that I thought this was a good idea, that people’s faith and belief systems play a big role in their healing. 

I’ve heard it said that counselors shouldn’t talk about faith with clients.  And I disagree.  A client can talk about whatever he or she chooses to talk about in session.  It’s the counselor’s job to meet them where they’re at.  If the client chooses to talk about faith, then we will talk about faith.  The client’s experience with faith.   And how those beliefs impact the client’s healing, decisions, and relationships. 

In his next sentence he told me that he’d been “raised in the church.”

I said I hadn’t known that. 

“And I was raised being told that you have to have faith like a child,” he continued, using his fingers to make air quotes around the words, ‘faith like a child.’

I nodded again, letting him know I was on this path with him but he was leading.

“I always wondered what the hell that even means.  Faith like a child,” again with air quotes.  “And how’re we supposed to do that?” he said, throwing his hands into the air in exasperation.

I said something about having also been raised in the church, and having some familiarity with what he was referencing.

He explained that he needed to figure out how to trust God to help him with his anger.   “Do I ask God to just take it from me?  I don’t know how the hell I’m supposed to have the ‘faith of a child’ that God will actually do that.   I’ve heard people talk about ‘letting God have the steering wheel,’ or ‘letting God have the driver’s seat’ and I just always figured what the hell does that even mean?!” 

He paused to take a sip of his coffee and collect his thoughts.  I sat silently, waiting.

“Then the other morning, I’m driving into town.  The weather’s bad.  It’s rainin’ so hard I can barely even see the road.  I got my kids in the car, taking them to school.  My daughter’s on her phone, probably checkin’ in with her friends about what everybody’s wearing, and my son, I don’t know what he’s even doing.

“And right then it hit me, you know?”

He paused again, I think to make sure I was keeping up with him.  I held his gaze and nodded.

 “The kids, they’re doin’ their own thing,” he continued, his voice growing louder as he finished his story.  “They’re not even WATCHING the ROAD!  They know I’m going to get them there safely because I’m their FATHER.  They’re not worried.  They trust me.  They’re not even watchin’ the road.”

He paused to take another sip of his coffee. 

I smiled. 

“So I’m thinkin’ that’s what it means to have the faith of a child,” he said calmly.

I nodded, and said I thought that was a great illustration. 

We talked a little more about his focus on asking God to help him with his rages, as well as trying out a few of the other strategies we had already identified.

He agreed on the course he wanted to take. 

“I’m actually kind of excited to try this,” he said.  “God knows I need to get a handle on this.  I mean, my God, I almost pulled over and punched a guy the other day because he stepped out right in front of my car!  I gotta get a handle on this.”

We both chuckled for a second. 

Our session ended, and I sat thinking about the last few months and how stressful things had been.  I had known that I needed to do something differently.  But I was still looking for the answer within me.  I had forgotten all about what it means to turn something over to God.  To pray about a burden, and actually leave it with God.  To give up some control–which is definitely not one of my strengths.  To trust the Driver to get me safely to my destination.  And to appreciate the view.  From the backseat.