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Tag: Faith And OCD

149. Writing an Alternative Story to OCD’s Default Narrative with ICBT

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie gives you an exclusive sneak peek into the upcoming Christians Learning ICBT live training launching in January. She takes you behind the scenes as she explores the process of writing alternative stories, sharing a personal experience that illustrates how she crafted an obsessional narrative and transformed it into a healthier perspective.

Episode Highlights:

  • How to rewrite your obsessional stories by crafting alternative narratives that empower you to see situations from a different perspective.
  • Practical tools to stay grounded in reality and navigate the uncertainty that OCD often magnifies.
  • Examples of stories including Carrie’s personal experience with a car accident and how she used alternative story to reshape OCD’s narrative. 
  • A sneak peek into the ICBT (Integrative Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) training modules, including a breakdown of how they can help you or someone you know struggling with OCD from a Christian perspective.

Episode Summary:

Are you tired of battling OCD? Maybe you’ve tried exposure therapy or sought help from a Christian counselor who didn’t fully understand your struggles. If that’s you, know that I’m here to support you. 

I’m thrilled to announce that starting in January, I’ll be teaching through the 12 modules of ICBT, diving into one module each week until the end of March. Can’t make the live sessions? Don’t worry! Everything will be recorded and available in an online course. If you’re even slightly interested, join the waiting list at carriebock.com/ocd.

Now, let’s talk about alternative stories. Often, the narratives we tell ourselves about our obsessions can become our default. The more we dwell on them, the more ingrained they become. But remember, your brain can change! We can rewire those patterns and explore new possibilities instead of just following the old, anxiety-ridden trails.

I’ll be sharing my own obsessional story related to a car accident Steve and I had shortly after buying a new car. While the actual event is true, my initial thoughts were full of obsessional doubts. I questioned whether I was being greedy for buying the car or if it was a sign from God. But after reflecting, I realized these thoughts were rooted in anxiety rather than reality. My faith reminds me that sometimes things happen for reasons we might not understand right away.

Through this training, we’ll learn to identify and replace those obsessional stories with healthier narratives. It’s important to understand that we’re not arguing with OCD but rather acknowledging the uncertainties in life and leaning into our faith.

I’d love for you to join us on this journey of healing and discovery. Let’s create new stories that lead us to peace and freedom from OCD.  Sign up for the waitlist today!

Explore Related Episodes:

148. Your Obsessional Story: Christians Learning ICBT coming Jan 2025! 
133. Looking for an Alternative to ERP? Find out if ICBT is Right for You

Transcript

Episode 149. Last week, I gave you a behind the scenes sneak peek into my self teaching Module 3 for our group this fall, where I taught all 12 modules of ICBT. This is happening again in January, and I want you to get on board. But today, we’re talking about Module 9, which is writing an alternative story to OCD. I can’t wait for you to hear a snippet of this training.

Hello and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother, licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you.

With practical tools for developing greater peace, we’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you.

So let’s dive right in to today’s episode. Brothers and sisters in Christ, OCD warriors. Are you sick and tired of fighting with OCD? Have you tried exposure therapy or tried finding counseling from a Christian perspective and just have come up short? I know so many people have told me that they have a Christian counselor, but that person doesn’t know about OCD or they’ve gone to OCD counseling and something just didn’t feel right because the person didn’t understand their faith.

I want you to know that I’m here for you, and that’s why I’m excited to announce that in January, we’re going to be teaching through the 12 modules of ICBT. We’ve talked about ICBT in more depth in episode 119 and episode 133. I will be teaching one module per week from mid January to the end of March.

If you can’t make the live trainings, everything’s recorded and put in an online course platform for you to access. If you think you might even slightly be interested, or you’re interested in being interested in finding out more information. Please join our waiting list at kerrybach. com slash OCD. About three fourths of the way down the page, there’s an option for you to put in your name and email address.

The obsessional story does not have to be your default narrative, and you can consider an alternative story. These stories that you’ve been telling yourself have been rolling around in your brain, and like, the more that we focus on them, like, the more that they’ve grown, the more that they’ve solidified, the more that they’ve become a automatic, right?

Your brain can fire very quickly, like with all those neurons kind of wired together related to your OCD. And so much of this process has been slowing down your thought process, really slowing things down to get into like, what is the obsessional story. And so now what we’re trying to do really is rewire that pattern.

And recognize, like, okay, my brain’s default is to go down trail A. And I’m starting to retrain it to go, well, I could go down trail A, and I know where that’s going to lead. That’s going to lead to more compulsions. That’s going to lead to more anxiety. That’s going to lead to being stuck. Or I could, like, go down trail B or C, even.

And recognize, like, maybe this story that I’ve been telling myself isn’t valid. And maybe there’s an alternative story. You’re drawn in with this really believable story. It’s sensational and OCD is causing you to fear you’re going to become this version. You don’t want to be. I don’t want to be that person.

So then I do these compulsions and that obsessional doubt. It comes from the imagination and that makes it irrelevant. Not actually based on sense data of what’s happening right now. And once you cross over into that OCD bubble, remember our little bridge, it’s difficult to get out. It doesn’t feel good in there, but it doesn’t feel good outside of there, and kind of the more like you get sucked in further and further, the harder it is to get out of there.

But we can use that sensory information in the here and now to stay grounded in reality, stay on that, that different side of the bridge or to get out of the OCD bubble. Important things that we need to know that the alternative story is not the following. We’re not trying to argue with your OCD. We’re not trying to say things like, Oh, well, you know, it doesn’t look like I’m going to die because I went to the doctor last week and I got a clean bill of health and they said all my any health conditions are like managed in a healthy way, blah, blah, blah.

We’re not trying to argue back with it. It’s not to be used as a compulsion, so it’s not like, Oh, okay, OCD is telling me this story, and I’m repeating, like, compulsively the alternative story in my head. Not what we want to do there, either. It’s not really a true versus a false story, because sometimes there are uncertainties of life that we have to accept.

We don’t know, sometimes. It’s not a, oh, this is the right story and the OCD is the wrong story, or this is, like, the true narrative and the OCD is completely, like, false. We know OCD, like, the obsessional doubt, right, is based in the imagination. And so in that sense, the obsessional doubt is false and is not relevant.

Here’s what we are trying to do with the obsessional story. We’re trying to dislodge it as a default narrative, just like I was talking about before, where it’s the thing that kind of has made the loop, it’s made the rounds in the brain and like it’s become that well worn neural pathway. So we’re trying to introduce a different neural pathway into the brain so that we can say, You know, like it could be this over here.

What do we think about that? And if we’re talking about possibilities, you know, we also have to talk about if we’re going to say that that’s a possibility, then we have to open up our minds and our ideas to other potential possibilities. It’s a possibility that I could get in a car accident on the way home.

It’s also possible that I could have a normal, everyday life, you know, drive home that happens on a regular basis. You know, takes me about 15 minutes to get home. Could be just completely normal. It could be that there’s an accident on the interstate and it takes me an hour to get home. Like, there’s many different possibilities here.

When you’re writing your alternative story, as you’re going through this process, it’s a tangible OCD thing, it might feel a little bit easier to do that one, but if it feels like, okay, it’s something spiritual, or it’s something more existential, it might be, if you can write like a potentially different alternative of that story, if there’s multiple alternatives, that might be a good process for you.

For this next snippet of the training, I’m going to be going through an obsessional story that I wrote about a car accident that Steve and I got into. You may have noticed last week that when we write obsessional stories, they have reasons for the obsessional doubt. There’s a variety of those in ICBT.

rules, hearsay, personal experience, and all the way down to it’s possible, which is a pretty much catch all category because OCD tells you that anything is possible. We then spend some time examining the obsessional story and then going into the alternative story. Here’s my story about the car accident.

This first part of the story is completely true, and I wrote an obsessional piece about the next part of the story. Steve and I received some money from my parents passing away, and after some consideration, we decided to buy a newer used car. After two years of squeezing a walker, stroller, and other things into a sedan, we decided to look at a Honda CR V.

Everything went smoothly through the selection and buying process until we went out, went to pull out of the dealership lot. A man driving a truck was in a hurry. He thought I had pulled off when I had only slowly moved up to survey the traffic. He accelerated and hit us in the back. This is a now kind of a funny story about being hit on the way out of the dealership, which who does that happen to except for my crazy life.

All right. Here’s my potential obsessional story related to the accident. This part is made up. Surely, this is a sign from God that I was not supposed to buy this vehicle. Maybe I was being greedy in doing so. What if this was a sin, or God is angry at me, or punishing me in some way? There’s a whole lot of things that we could potentially break down there, but I’m going to call that the obsessional doubt.

My treasure should be in heaven according to the Bible rules. I could have spent this money on feeding starving children in Africa. That is a fact. I watched this YouTube video warning against greed and how the wrath of God is going to come on down to Americans. That’s completely made up, but we’ll call that hearsay.

And I shouldn’t have been greedy last week when I ate that piece of pie instead of offering it to my husband. Personal experience, I’m going to repeatedly repent and confess the sin of buying the car and then ruminate about whether I should sell it or not as a sign of true repentance. That’s the compulsions there.

We had gone through the potential obsessional story. These were some things that came out of it. Like felt positive about buying the car. Maybe this was some kind of like vulnerable self, like maybe it was my fault, distrust, a connection with God. And so this was what we had originally wrote, like, something bad happened.

I don’t have any evidence in the present to support this obsessional doubt that I’m a greedy person who shouldn’t have bought this car. I don’t have any spiritual sense data to support that God is upset with me. Like, I’m not sensing anything from the Holy Spirit. In fact, this decision was made prayerfully and carefully.

My recent personal experience of being greedy and the YouTube video is irrelevant to this present moment experience with the car. This is actually this last paragraph here that I’m going to share with you. The next paragraph is actually something, my genuine feelings about the car accident. And. It’s interesting because it’s very vague of like, why does God allow certain things to happen in our life?

Like, I don’t really know, you know, sometimes we don’t always have a clear answer. Sometimes we have the answer when we look backwards like, oh, like, it makes sense that I went through this because then I met that person or like, yeah, why God led me here and then here makes sense. But some things don’t always make sense like that, or we can’t always see it at the time.

I got into a car accident, I’m not really sure why God allowed it to happen right after I bought the car. I wonder if the accident was a wake up call to the guy driving the truck to be more careful. He saw our car seat and recognized that our daughter could have been in the car. This seemed to bother him.

We’re very thankful to God that no one was hurt. In faith, my daughter was not in the car. Maybe it was a reminder to me that my family is much more important than things. Maybe it was an opportunity to show grace to the other driver instead of freaking out on him as he expected us to do. I understand that i’m not going to have all the answers and this gives me the opportunity to trust god in face day by day.

And obviously, you know, this was not a huge issue. Everything got fixed, you know resolved and it’s fine And we didn’t have to pay for it because it wasn’t our fault. But you know when we go through situations in life Um, you may have been through something a lot bigger where you might be questioning like some of these things like why Is God allowing this to happen or you could even be having this thought process maybe about your OCD?

You want to think through like going back to that acceptance piece that we were talking about earlier The piece that I’m having to accept in the uncertainty is I’m not going to have all the answers or I’m not going to understand everything that happens in my life. And that may be something in a mindful space that’s really hard to sit with.

Just like if you’re having an obsession about death, it may be really hard to sit with not knowing when that’s coming. Or if you’re having an obsession about Something spiritual and maybe there are some things that people get stuck on spiritually start obsessing about like Calvinism versus Arminianism is one of them that people can get really stuck on or how do we explain some of these things that happened in the Old Testament where the Israelites were told to wipe other people out?

Like how do we reconcile with our faith and who God is? When you look at all those things, like, there has to be this level of acceptance of faith, and that faith, I like to say, faith requires faith. So, it means that there is some element of trusting God outside of yourself, and that you’re not going to have all of the answers, or understand everything.

I wanted you to hear the connection between the obsessional story, and the alternative story. However, in ICBT, these two are taught weeks apart as the obsessional story is module three and the alternative narrative is module nine. In between, we’re learning a lot more information about how to stay grounded in reality instead of moving towards the imaginary outcomes that OCD is telling you will happen.

I would love, love, love for you to come and join us. There is going to be a huge Black Friday sale on these trainings happening in January from mid January through the end of March. Please go to karybach. com slash OCD to get on the waiting list and you’ll receive all the information about ICBT, these trainings, and the sale.

Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode? If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review. This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show.

Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By The Well Counseling. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.

140. Help! I Don’t Feel Close to God

Written by Carrie Bock on . Posted in OCD, Podcast Episode.

In this episode, Carrie explores the feelings of spiritual distance and how to navigate those times when you don’t feel close to God.

Episode Highlights:

  • Understanding the connection between OCD and feelings of spiritual distance.
  • Insights from Elijah’s story and how it relates to modern struggles with faith.
  • Practical steps for reconnecting with God during times of doubt and anxiety.
  • Encouragement and biblical wisdom for Christians dealing with OCD and spiritual uncertainty.

Episode Summary:

Welcome to Christian Faith and OCD! I’m Carrie Bock, a Christ follower and licensed professional counselor committed to helping Christians struggling with OCD find healing and peace. 

Today, we’re diving into those difficult seasons when you don’t feel close to God—when life feels chaotic, and you’re left questioning His presence in your struggles. Many of us, especially those battling OCD, have been there, wondering if our faith is faltering because we don’t feel that initial “on fire” connection with God anymore.

I discuss how sin can create a sense of distance between us and God—not in our standing with Him, but in our relational closeness. Yet, through confession and repentance, we can restore that intimacy. The story of Elijah, who, after a significant victory, found himself in despair and needed God’s gentle care, serves as a powerful reminder of how God meets us in our lowest moments.

I also share some personal reflections on times when I believed lies during difficult seasons—whether it was thinking my life was over after a divorce or feeling the deep sense of loss after my father’s passing. In each of these moments, God gently reminded me that He sees the bigger picture, even when I can’t. These experiences have taught me that our feelings, no matter how strong, don’t define our faith.

If you’re struggling today, I hope this episode brings you comfort and reminds you that God is with you, even in your confusion and pain. You’re not alone, and your current feelings don’t determine your relationship with God.

 For more resources and to stay connected, visit my website at carriebock.com.

More Episodes to Listen To:

2. Unanswered Prayers for Healing with Pastor Troy Powell

Transcript

What do you do when you don’t feel close to God? Maybe you just feel like you’re praying and your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. We’re going to look at one character from the Bible and try to apply some biblical principles to our own lives when we feel this way.

Hello, and welcome to Christian Faith and OCD with Carrie Bock. I’m a Christ follower, wife and mother. licensed professional counselor who helps Christians struggling with OCD get to a deeper level of healing. When I couldn’t find resources for my clients with OCD, God called me to bring this podcast to you with practical tools for developing greater peace.

We’re here to bust through the shame and stigma surrounding struggling with OCD as a Christian, sharing hopeful stories of healing and helping you replace uncertainty with faith. I’m here to help you let go of the past and future to walk in the present abundant life God has for you. So let’s dive right into today’s episode.

If you have not checked out our new website, carriebock.com, I am so So proud of this thing. It has been such a big process combining my By the Well counseling website and the podcasting website into one after we went through this rebrand from Hope for Anxiety to OCD into Christian Faith and OCD. For those of you who maybe haven’t been around that while or are just now tuning in, that’s where you can find all things about my counseling, the Christian Faith and OCD podcast.

Click on the podcast page for more information. You can also leave comments there and let me know that you’ve been listening and what you think about the show. Any guest suggestions or topics you want me to cover. I love to hear from you guys. One of my favorite things. I’ve definitely had times like this in my life, I don’t know if you’ve had times like this in your life, and if you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you probably have.

You probably have said, I’m going through a season and I just don’t feel close to God right now. I don’t know where he is, I don’t know what he’s doing, everything seems chaotic or a mess. Maybe you’re feeling lost, going through a grief and loss process. So if you’re feeling that way right now, I just want you to know you’re not alone.

Anybody that’s been a Christian for a while has probably experienced this. And also sometimes we just feel this in general in our long term relationships, right? OCD is going to use that as evidence, like, oh, well, you’re not a Christian because you don’t feel close to God, or you don’t feel connected to Him, or you don’t feel the same way you did when you became a Christian.

This is something I hear from a lot of Christians who struggle with OCD. Well, I don’t feel as on fire. As I did when I first became a Christian. Well, that’s an emotional high time in your life. Just like when you get married, that’s an emotional high time in your life. You ask anyone who’s been married for five years, do you feel the same exact way that you did on your wedding?

They’re going to tell you, no, I mean, your love grows and it shifts and changes and that’s not always a negative thing. Sometimes that can be a really positive thing. We may not get the butterflies in our stomach over our spouse. But we can be very committed and devoted and caring and show concern for them.

So hopefully that parallel helps give you a little bit more of a glimpse or make sense to you that our feelings can change over time. That doesn’t mean that they’ve gone away or have dulled or that we don’t really love God anymore because we don’t feel the same way that we did before. I’m going to say just a short piece about sin, but this is not the main focus of this particular podcast in general.

We know that sin separates us from God in a relational sense, not in a positional sense. So you can still sin and you’re still going to be God’s child. You’re still going to be in the family. Now, OCD may tell you otherwise, OCD may say, Oh, well, because you messed up over here, God doesn’t love you, you failed, you’re going to hell, that type of scenario.

That’s not the case. What sin does is it does create a level of separation, just like if you hurt someone’s feelings like family member or friend, there’s going to be some relational distance possibly between you and that person until you come back together, reconcile, talk it out, forgiveness, and so forth.

This is how it is in our relationship with God. Sin separates us from Him. Isaiah 59 1 says, Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save, or his ear dull that it cannot hear, but your iniquities, that’s sin, have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.

We also know that 1 John 1, 9 tells us that if we confess our sin, He’s faithful and just to forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So just as sin has that ability to separate us from God in a relational sense, that confession of sin brings us back into right relationship with God.

Today, I want to talk to you more about those times where you’re in the midst of your sanctification process. You’re doing your best to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, as it talks about in Philippians 2. 12. You don’t feel like God is there. Maybe it’s a confusing time in your life, maybe you’ve been going through suffering.

Why is God allowing this situation? You might be really struggling with your OCD right now. Like, why in the world is God allowing me to go through this process right now? Why is he allowing this to torment me? And sometimes in life situations, we understand things better on the other side of the suffering or on the other side of the situation.

But sometimes we don’t. Sometimes there are things that we may never understand until we get to heaven. And that’s okay. We’ve got to live in that wrestling. Paul talks about, we look through the glass dimly, but one day we’re going to see face to face. We’re not going to understand everything from our position here on earth.

But how do we get through these situations where we don’t feel close to God? We don’t know where he is and what he’s doing. We’ve We pray, but it feels empty, or our spiritual practices, we’re just going through the motions. I want to talk to you about Elijah, who’s an Old Testament hero of our faith, and how he made it through a similar situation.

So Elijah was a prophet during a time where Israel had a wicked king and queen. And his story starts out in 1st Kings 17, if you want to look that up later. God calls Elijah to prophesy about a drought that’s going to come on the land. And this really makes Ahab and Jezebel, that wicked king and queen, quite mad.

He ends up having a showdown in 1st Kings 18, amazing chapter. with the prophets of Baal to prove to Israel that God’s real and this false god that you’ve been serving, Baal, he’s fake. He’s not real. God prevails, sends down fire from heaven on the altar, and Elijah goes and slaughters the false prophets.

Jezebel’s not happy about the prophets of Baal being slaughtered, because remember, she’s not following Israel’s god, she’s following these false gods. So she threatens to kill Elijah, and Elijah ends up fleeing for his life. So in 1 Kings 19. 4 it says, But he himself went on a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a broom tree.

And he asked that he might die, saying, It is enough now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my father’s. He was serving God, but he felt like he couldn’t go on, and so if you’ve ever had a time where you felt like you couldn’t make it anymore, I mean we did an episode a while back on suicide, there were people that struggled with this in the Bible, there were people that cursed the day of their birth.

I think Jeremiah did that. I know Job cursed the day of his birth. I mean, look at this. The people in the Bible were just like us. They had struggles. They had human emotions. We need to stop acting like they didn’t have struggles, or they were somehow superhuman people. They were wrestling with some of the same stuff that we’re wrestling with today.

It’s how we handle it and what we do and how we bring it to God. So interestingly, here’s how God handles it. Elijah ate and drank and slept, basically was fed by an angel in the wilderness, which shows us that God cares about our physical needs. And that our physical needs are connected to our emotional experience.

If Elijah was eating, drinking, and sleeping, and he goes through a process in verses five through eight, and this happens about three times, to me that says that there was something in his physical body that was lacking. He needed physical nourishment, he needed water, he needed food, and he needed sleep.

Some of y’all would be feeling a whole lot better if you could just get some sleep. I have been sleep deprived. I know what that feels like. It’s horrible. I know what it feels like not to be able to fall asleep because you got emotional stuff going on. It’s not fun. And I also know that when I’ve been relieved at points, that when I’ve been able to get that sleep, it has impacted my mood profoundly.

So keep that in mind as well. Going down to verses 9 14, God corrects Elijah’s thinking. This is the next piece. So he meets his physical needs, and then he corrects his thinking. And the word of the Lord came to him, What are you doing here, Elijah? He replied, I have been very zealous for the Lord God Almighty.

The Israelites have rejected your covenant, torn down your altars, and put your prophets to death with the sword, and I am the only one left, and now they are trying to kill me too. Elijah says, I’m the only one left God, I’m the only one here serving you, they’ve killed everybody else, and the people that are still around are the people that are not following you, and they’re killing the people that are trying to follow you.

And interestingly, down in verse 18, God says, Yet I reserve seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal, and whose mouths have not kissed him. So God says, Elijah, you’re wrong. You’re stuck on this thought that you were the alone in serving me, that you have worked so hard and you’ve done all the things I’ve asked you to do, and now it’s over.

But Elijah’s mission was not over yet. So my question is, are you thinking something right now that’s not true? Are you stuck in a lie? I wrote down just a few times in my life where I believed a lie. I’m sure there are more than these. But these were times where I was really low and I was convinced during these times that something was true when it wasn’t.

So back in 2015 when I went through a pretty rough divorce, I remember having the thought, My life is over. And I was just so fully convinced of that. I was like, this is it for me, Lord. I now have this scarlet letter on me. Divorce gal in the church. I’m not gonna have children. I’m not gonna be able to get remarried.

Nobody’s gonna want me. I mean, the whole multitude of thoughts that went past just that thought of my life is over were not true. Not one of those things was true, but I was so down and I was discouraged and felt like, Hey, I have tried to do the right thing here. God, I tried to marry somebody in the church.

I’ve tried to serve you. I’ve tried to read my Bible and pray and do the Christian thing. Right. And it just didn’t work out the way that I wanted it to, or the way that I hoped it would. I remember being a single woman for several years and saying, Lord, there are no good Christian men left in this world.

I don’t see them. They’re not on the pews of the church. Nola, we have photos. I should pull one up. Where we had like a row of single women at my church is like, where were the guys? And there were maybe a few, a handful, but it was mostly single women who were there, who were devoted, who were trying to serve God.

And I thought, where are the men? Where are the good Christian men? I don’t see them around. And I think about this time in my life and how I’m telling God, right? God knows the future and he knows his plans for me. And I’m telling him. Lord, you’re not going to be able to find me, a Christian man, I don’t think you can do it.

And there isn’t one around here. And God’s like, hee hee hee hee. I don’t know, God’s just like chuckling over there going, Carrie, you have no idea, I got one saved right up for you. You just don’t know yet. He hasn’t been brought into your life, because it’s not the right season for you. I remember when my dad died just really thinking I am alone in this world.

I’m just alone. I’m an orphan. I have no parents left. Losing my mom was hard for sure, but when I lost my dad six months later, there’s something about losing that second parent that nobody prepared me for this, probably because most of the people I’m around hadn’t lost both parents. When you lose that second parent, you go through this, like, lost moment where you’re like, Who am I?

Like, I know who I am. It’s very strange. I don’t know that I’m doing it justice, but you do feel like an orphan and like, I don’t know, someone pulled up your roots or something and you have to kind of re find them. It’s like, you go through a little bit of an identity crisis, I think, almost. Even if you have a good sense of who you are, it’s just like, Man, I don’t have any parents anymore.

Like, I had parents my whole life and now I don’t have any parents. It was a strange thing. I felt very isolated and alone because even a lot of my grandmother on my mom’s side is still living. Well, I was like, my aunts haven’t even lost both of their parents. I was like, this is a really weird phenomena situation here.

Like, who do I talk to about this? It did feel very isolating alone, but God got me out of that pretty quickly because he brought just supportive people around me to let me know, like, I’m not alone. I don’t have to go through this alone. But I do remember feeling very isolated and alone during that time, even though I was married, even though I was in church community, I was just felt very lost when we’re going through hardships, tragedies, traumas, whatever it is.

We can’t always think clearly. Elijah fled for his life. I’m sure that that was a tough experience to go through. Having this evil, wicked woman who’s in charge of the country tell you, I’m gonna send somebody to kill you. Obviously, that’s scary. He ran from Jezebel. He’s not thinking clearly. He’s saying, I’m the only one left.

And sometimes God needs to come in during these times and correct our thinking. We have to be open though. We have to be willing to say, God, am I believing a lie right now? Can you show me in my life what I am believing and let me know, is that the truth about my situation or do you have something that you want to speak into this situation that is the truth?

Sometimes, we can’t sense God or know what he’s up to because he’s not where we think he is. I’m going to show you. In 1 Kings 19. 11, the Lord said, Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. This is after Elijah stated his complaint initially. Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind.

And after the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of a cave. God is not always where we think he is.

We want to look for God in the big moments of life. Sometimes people will even say, I want to see a big move of God, but you don’t realize all the small little pieces, the tiny interactions. If you are having an interaction with another human being, that can be incredibly powerful. You don’t know if you’re the only person that is going to smile at that person today, or maybe they’re in a difficult customer service role and you have a way to just bless them or speak kindness to them.

You might be the only one that handles it that way. You don’t know. And we can’t miss these opportunities that God gives us, but also in the hard times when you’re in the valley, look for the flowers because there are usually some type of small bright spots that God gives you. I’ll give you a little bit of example.

I don’t know if I’ve shared this before, but It was during that single season where I was struggling, I was having a hard time because of just the lack of touch in my life, for lack of a better way to say it, but I think physical touch is just an important human need that people have, and when you don’t have a built in husband at home, it’s hard to get those needs met, right?

So I was just talking to my friends about buying this. Pillow. It was almost like a pregnancy pillow that like wraps all the way around you or something. I was like, maybe I should buy this pillow. Maybe that will help me. And was just talking about some discouragement over still being single and not being able to find anybody.

They were like, yeah, maybe you should get pillow, whatever. You got to figure out ways to get your needs met in a healthy way, right? And I went into the grocery store. This is going to sound so weird, but I’m going to say it anyway, because somebody is here. So I went in the grocery store and there were like the first pomegranates of the season, and I was like, Oh, this is just so great because pomegranates have just a short season that you can get them in the winter, and it’s like they’re really good.

And I love pomegranates. It’s hard to find a good one sometimes, but I was just so happy, like, that I had found these pomegranates, and it was this little flower in the midst of my desert, or like, a flower in the midst of the valley. It was something beautiful, and I was just like, thank you, God. Thank you, God, the pomegranates are back.

It just kind of made my day in such a small way, and it was just this glimmer of God’s love for me and God’s grace. So I would encourage you to look for God in the small pieces. If you can’t see him in the big puzzle pieces of your life, know he’s working behind the scenes. But look for him in the small, good pieces.

There was a period of time where I wrote down one good thing about my day. And let me tell you, if you practice that exercise, it’s not always an easy one. Like some days, it’s easy. Oh, wow, this thing happened, it was so great. There’s other days that are rough, and you have to really search, like you have to really put your magnifying glasses on to find something good about the day.

But if you’ll do that, what it does is it creates more thankfulness in your life, but it does, it causes you to start to look for those small things. That are God’s goodness all around you that oftentimes we don’t recognize. That’s another exercise for you that you can do if you think it might help you.

One good thing about your day, jot it on the calendar somewhere, or one area that you saw God that day. Back to the story of Elisha in verses 15 through 17, God gives Elijah directions and next steps about where to go. So if you’re feeling a little lost, maybe you’re praying about wisdom, about a decision, you don’t feel like God is pulling you one way or the other, just know that God will give you directions and next steps about what to do.

And in that way, God was saying, once again, your life’s not over. I’m not done with you. Keep moving forward. So, what do we learn from this? What do you do if you don’t feel God in your life? Is there a blatant sin? This episode is not mainly on sin, but what if there is? I’m not talking about OCD telling you that you didn’t confess that you stole your third grade teacher’s pen.

Okay? That’s not what I’m talking about. Are you living in a pattern of sin where, that you have not repented from, that you are not working on getting right? Get that right first. See if there are any physical needs you need to pay attention to, like sleep or eating or exercise. Diet. Continue to spend time with God.

Look for God in the places where you might least expect Him. Talk to Him about how you feel. Be submissive to God in correcting your thinking. Sometimes when we’re going through hard things, we’re just not thinking clearly. You may need to go to counseling to bounce some ideas about what’s going on in your head with somebody else.

Or you may say, I know I’m not thinking right about this, but I don’t know how to shift it. It’s okay to get help for that. Reflect on the past things that God has done for you. So important. Just remember, remember, remember areas where you’ve seen God show up for you. If He’s shown up for you in the past, He’s going to show up for you again.

He’s going to do that again. And keep moving until God steers you in a different direction. Elijah had done the specific things God called him to do, but he didn’t know quite yet what his next direction was. Until next time, may you be comforted by God’s great love for you. Were you blessed by today’s episode?

If so, I’d really appreciate it if you would go over to your iTunes account or Apple Podcasts app on your computer if you’re an Android person and leave us a review. Thank you. This really helps other Christians who are struggling with OCD be able to find our show. Christian Faith and OCD is a production of By the Well Counseling.

This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be a substitute for seeking mental health treatment in your area.