I am sitting across from someone who could and should be a trusted advisor. I start to share something I am struggling with. Then realize, mid-sentence, that I am not making eye contact.
This feels foreign to me. I try to force my gaze back, but I am still looking past them. It isn’t conscious. I don’t think or feel ashamed. At least not when I started sharing. Is it how they looked back at me? Was it the question they asked? Was it that I am confessing out loud and hadn’t really even heard myself verbalize what I’m feeling?
I don’t know. I just know that something in me closed.
It’s a bit embarrassing. I am a coach and a therapist. I should be a good client. I’m keep trying to find advice in the world: a human being who can relate, an article that fits my situation, a podcast episode that lands on the right day. I try, and I try.
I always feel a disconnect. And then I beat myself up and decide I am just not a good client.
But lately I have been wondering if it isn’t me. Or not entirely.
The world has an advice problem. You can Google any topic and find every possible vantage point at once. People shift their positions based on what feels comfortable in the moment. A trusted friend sees herself in your situation, and suddenly her counsel is less about you than about her.
And don’t even get me started on AI. It will shift with the wind, mirroring your mood. AI can take fawning to a whole new level.
“You are so right!”
“Oh, that context changes everything.”
“I missed that. You were right to push back.”
AI matches humans in this regard. It is trained on all the ever-shifting human B.S. out there.
Consistency builds trust for me. And I don’t have my crises on a timed schedule. Who does? I want on-demand help. Which means I need someone available at 2 a.m. who doesn’t need sleep, doesn’t project their own issues onto mine, and genuinely cares about where I end up.
At 2 a.m., there is really only one option.
When I journal, I never have the averted gaze problem. I start writing and don’t stop. Thinking about how to tell God something comes natural to me. I can rant if I want, because He already knows whether I am crazy or not. Maybe I can be pathetic…uhm, I mean vulnerable…and I know He loves me anyway. I can say the same thing over and over again, and He has the patience of a saint. Well…I hope He does.
His commandments, His guidance, His will are always the same. When I need help with worry, Matthew 6:26-34 is not going to change on me. He promises to turn all things to good in time. If only it were my timing.
I don’t want to be placated. I don’t want someone to validate my hurt feelings or egg on my worst impulses. I’ll figure a way out of my own mess. That usually looks like conviction, a clearer view of what is actually happening, and enough trust to take the next step without needing to control the outcome.
So why do I keep wandering off, looking for a human solution first?
I think it is because I know He works through people. I am a counselor myself, and I am grateful He trusts me enough to use me that way. Sometimes the right counselor says exactly what I need to hear or helps me see something I cannot see on my own. Okay, so none of us are available at 2 a.m., but I try to emulate His other counseling virtues.
So I keep looking for the right person, and sometimes I find them. And when I do, it is good. Really good. A poor fit with one counselor does not mean counseling does not work. Sometimes it just means you have not found the person you feel safe enough with to tell the truth. The right fit is worth looking for.
But I have noticed something. The times I sit down and write to Him, no outside audience, no eye contact required, no managing of anyone else’s reaction to my mess, I never leave the conversation feeling like I did the other day.
I leave feeling like I can breathe again.
That could be what it means to have a counselor who already knows everything and loves you anyway. You never have to figure out how to say it. You just say it.
Maybe that is also what I am looking for in a human counselor: someone God can work through, someone safe enough for me to tell the truth, and wise enough not to simply tell me what I want to hear. I need that. I want to be that for others. And just in case it is 2 a.m., I still have Him.
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