According to U.S. Government statistics, more than 25% of Americans are seeking mental health therapy each year (National Center for Health Statistics, National Health Interview Survey, 2019–2023). My simple internet search for the question, “Mental health therapists near me” reveals more than 320 advertised therapists in the Grand Junction area, roughly two-thirds of whom are younger than 35 years of age. Talking to people about their emotions is big business, and it is big among the faithful as well. More than a third of those therapists listed “faith-based” or “Christian” in their curriculum vitae.
Many of these therapists are fine people, and I hope that most of the faith-based therapists have their clients’ well-being at the center of their therapy. When I counseled for a living years ago, I always set our goal at eight sessions. If I could not help you find footing in your move forward within eight weeks, I felt like I was not helping people to overcome their issues. I would suggest that some folks were paying me for friendship. Simply put, I detested the idea that we were not getting anywhere.
Of course, some issues are complex and surely require extended time, but to a large degree, therapy and therapy needs are often nothing more than rumination. Rumination is a biblical word (in some translations) which refers to animals that “chew their cud.” These animals even regurgitate their swallowed food from their stomach back into their mouths to be chewed and swallowed again. And again. And even again. Yuck. This delightful thought should inform our thinking as we consider the therapeutic context of rumination. Rumination refers to repetitive negative thoughts that create stress and emotional discomfort. It primarily involves replaying past scenarios or considering problematic emotional issues without resolution.
Rumination keeps therapists and their clients busy but produces no real and lasting change. Continual forays into the painful past, where we may have truly been victimized stops being helpful very soon. Digging up every unpleasant experience and understanding the cause of every bit of pain often does little more than validate victim status. Digging through the roots will eventually kill the tree. We do not need excuses so much as we need freedom from the past, which includes the painful hurt imposed by others, and it also includes our own stupid failures.
Philippians 4 is the emotional health passage of the Bible. Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7 ESV).
The peace of God surpasses all understanding. That means that we should shoot for God’s peace rather than ruminating on the past to understand our pain. Am I suggesting that we should never look to the past? Absolutely not! But our look back must include a resolute belief that there is nothing in our past that is too big for the peace of God to cover. If our hearts and minds are guarded in Christ Jesus, we are okay!
In my recent book, Understanding Emotional Victory 101, I shared a story of victory over ruminating thinking. I like this story because of the suddenness of the victory this man experienced. I did not know John (not his real name) when he called me late in the workday, but he was panicky and needed to talk to a preacher. He told me that he was suicidal but had teenage daughters he struggled with leaving orphaned. Through sobs, he told me that he had been on a hard spiral for about 15 years since his wife, Amy (also not her name), died of stomach cancer shortly after delivering their youngest daughter. She had sacrificed her cancer treatment to give the baby the best chance and never recovered enough to even go home with the baby.
John and his wife had been youth leaders in their church, and he could not fathom the abandonment he felt when God did not save Amy after her sacrificial act. She was young and beautiful, wonderful with their little girl, faithful in church. John never attended church again. He started drinking and eventually gave the care for his girls up to a sister and his parents as he worked the oilfields. He still supported the girls financially and was planning his suicide around a car accident so they could have his insurance. He was tortured by dreams of Amy staring sadly at him. He interpreted her stares as condemnation and felt that he had somehow failed her. A decade and a half of this misery had ruined his life and he was finished.
I asked him to come to the church to pray. God was already in the midst of John’s heart, and as he walked into our church, he saw the large cross above our baptistry, and he fell on the floor and began to weep. He was crying out his apologies to God, but at the same time he reiterated the sense of unfairness, abandonment, and failure that had consumed his life. I talked to him about his dreams of Amy. I explained to him that his nightly visages were not Amy. Amy was gone. It was simply a figment of his imagination. I told him he needed to let her go, because the sad image of his beautiful wife was not anything more than a ruminating thought that he had held for 15 years. I lit a candle while he prayed to God that he might release Amy fully to the Father. He blew the candle out and said, “Amen.” He sat for ten full minutes and finally said, “I feel better.”
He called me the next morning. He was on his way to Texas to make amends with his brother. He had gone to an AA meeting in Grand Junction the night before, and then he went to his hotel, and had the best sleep he had experienced since Amy died. He said he dreamed of her, but this time she was smiling. In his dream, he told Amy that he loved her, he missed her every day, and that he was going home to the girls. He said goodbye to Amy and felt peace as she faded from his dream. He woke up with a million plans. I have spoken to John multiple times in the past few years. He does not dream about Amy anymore, but he remembers her in his new walk forward. He tells the girls stories about their mother and has completely restored his relationship with them. Fifteen years of wasteful rumination gave way to the peace of Christ Jesus that guards John’s heart and mind. His journey away from alcohol was eased because his depression was no longer there to fuel him.
John’s story is extreme, but extreme things can happen when we surrender to the truth of God’s love and work in our lives. If I can use John’s story as a metaphor, so much of our therapeutic work is often centered on keeping Amy around, trying to discover what she wants to say to us, seeking insights from the dead past to give meaning and reason to today. Jesus even tells us to, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:60 ESV). This is the spin-cycle of rumination, and it is wasteful.
Please, give up the need to battle with your past. Allow it to inform you, protect you from continued wounds, and teach you lessons about touching stoves and being friends with harmful people. Do not be chained to it.
Darrin Crow has been the lead pastor of HEART of Junction Church since it was planted in 1998. He has used his M.A. in Counseling Psychology throughout his ministerial career, and continues to counsel with individuals and couples as a key part of his pastoral duties. Darrin recently authored his second book, Understanding Biblical Mental and Emotional Health 101: A starting place for finding peace by thinking biblically, available online through multiple book sellers.
