Empathy is a gift we give to others. It is a gift for many reasons, not the least of which, is the selflessness required. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Amber Miller flushes out empathy. She helps us walk the fine line of looking within ourselves and accessing the God given skill set to turn outward and connect with another person.

• Empathy is feeling with people.
• Empathy is not fixing people’s hurt.
• Empathy is recognizing, acknowledging, and connecting with another person’s emotion.
• Empathy is not talking.
• Empathy requires selflessness by not making the interaction about us.
• Empathy does not require a shared experience.
• Empathy requires vulnerability on the part of the giver and the receiver.
• Empathy does not require complete understanding of another person’s experience.
• Empathy is built by listening to another’s perspective.
• Empathy is eroded by minimizing another’s experience.
• Empathy is built by prayer.
• Empathy is eroded by ignorance.
• Empathy flourishes when the hurting person gives the helping person grace to try.
• Empathy withers when the hurting person lords their hurt over another.
• Empathy flourishes when the helping person gives the hurting person grace to share.
• Empathy withers when the helping person lords their perspective over the hurting person.
• Empathy is perfectly exampled in Christ, who experienced humanity fully and is now our advocate before the father.

Connection in marriage is possible. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kaleb Beyer shares with us three keys in connecting with our spouse. Accessibility, responsiveness and engagement go a long way in moving us in the right direction - toward each other.

Marriage is far more than a living arrangement. It is a living relationship which meets a core need we each have for connection. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kaleb Beyer exposes this core need and coaches us on how to achieve it.

• Connection in marriage models the connection God desires with us - one in which life flows between us. Christ is the vine and we are the branches.
• Every spouse desires connection. Connection answers “yes” to the questions, “Do I matter to you? Are you there for me?”
• Withdrawal is a poor but common response to loss of connection. It in fact drives further disconnection. Withdrawal is when a person pulls away from their spouse in silence and inattention.
• Aggression is a poor but common response to loss of connection. It, in fact, drives further disconnection. Aggression is when a person pursues their spouse with angst and negative accusation.
• Underneath our withdrawal and aggression is hurt. Hurt is the pain that comes from lack of connection. At the surface disagreement between the spouses is apparent, yet spouses actually agree on this one need – connection.
• Self-reflection is key to navigating disconnection. Learning why we respond in certain ways and assuring our spouse that though our reactions are imperfect, connection is desired.
• Sitting with difficult emotions is key to navigating disconnection. Learning how to face unpleasant emotions and make sense of them with our spouses is necessary.

Connection is made by being available, responsive and engaged with your spouse.

Conflict happens. Some conflict can be avoided. All conflict needs resolve. Sometimes little things make big differences.  In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kaleb Beyer relays three small things that exist in happy marriages.

3 Small Things

Be Purposeful

• Highly happy couples find that when they can’t resolve conflict before bedtime, they choose to sleep on it. If anger remains in the morning, they don’t let it go unresolved; they deal with it.

Be Present

• Highly happy couples treat one another with intentional kindness; they joke and they challenge, but they try to never do it in ways their mate would perceive as disrespectful or hurtful.

Be Positive

• When highly happy couples inevitably experience hurt feelings and conflict, they eventually reconnect by mutually sharing a private signal that says “We’re okay.”

Taken from “The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages: The Little Things That Make a Big Difference” by Shaunti Feldhahn

Uncertainty, unpredictability, unreliability, riskiness, chanciness, unsureness, changeability - 2020.  It’s one thing to have expectations gone unmet.  It’s another thing to be so uncertain that expectations can’t even be set. Those are the days we are in. And yet, there is an advantage these days afford. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Arlan Miller helps us see those advantages.

• We learn flexibility. A lot is out of our control.
• We learn childlikeness. God is our Father.
• We learn dependence. God is our supplier.
• We learn to be responsible in those things we know.
• We learn to shift our trust from those things uncertain to the one who is – God.

It is easy to overlook the losses our kids are enduring these days. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Craig Stickling highlights what many of our kids are experiencing as their lives have been put on hold during these days of COVID-19. Fortunately, parents are equipped with a few helpful tools to minister to their losses.

Some tools for the toolset:

• Acknowledge their loss. Don’t down-play it.
• Kids have had limited experience. Bring perspective.
• Connect with their loss. Resist shifting the focus to yourself.
• They will be fearful. Help them express it.
• They will be frustrated. Help them channel it.
• They will be scattered. Help them focus.
• They will be absorbed in the present. Help them see the future.

What do we do with emotional pain when we can’t make it better? (Hint: David, Hannah, Jerimiah, Job, Habakkuk and Jesus all did it.)  In fact, the example is so abundant in the Scriptures you can’t miss it. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Ted Witzig Jr. will answer this question and make it very accessible to all who endure pain. 

• Lament is a prayer in pain that leads to trust.
• Lament includes four steps:
  • Turn to God
  • Make a complaint
  • Make your request
  • Move forward in trust
• Lament connects the experience of our pain with the reality of God’s promises.
• Some people are afraid to lament because it often deals with raw emotions and difficult questions. However, lament is actually an act of faith as we turn toward God in our pain.
• God has given lament to the individual who is suffering.
• God has given lament to the community who is suffering with an individual.

Suffering nearly touches us all and is a common human experience. Suffering is bad.  Period. Yet, God steps into this badness. Somehow His knowledge of it and presence in it has some redemptive qualities. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian Sutter with Fred Witzig take the topic of suffering head-on and expose the hope that suffering affords.

• Suffering rises from different places. One type of suffering results from consequences from our actions. Another type of suffering results from calamity completely outside of our control. And yet, a third type of suffering comes about when we, by choice, pick up our cross and follow Christ.
• Throughout time, suffering has proven to be a catalyst for either rejecting God or growing faith in God.
• Throughout the Bible we have examples of men and women who, out of their suffering, turned to God and asked “why this suffering?” God is big enough to shoulder our complaints. There is a difference, however, in asking “why” from a standpoint of faith and a standpoint of no faith.
• There are some advantages suffering brings. Suffering gives us a Godward perspective. Suffering helps us identify what matters in this life. Suffering allows us to identify with Christ’s suffering. Suffering helps us rid our hearts of sin. In time, God can use suffering to bring us to a settled place in Him.
• Suffering is often coupled with our loves. Those people and things most dear to us carry the potential for suffering. This risk to love is the risk Christ took and suffered on our behalf.
• According to God’s purposes, He alleviates some suffering while at other times equips us to endure.
• God calls us to walk with those who are suffering yet doing so requires patience and silence.

God has made us to be healthy through the COVID-19 crisis. Sometimes that’s hard to believe. On this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian Sutter helps us untangle our thoughts and emotions so we can walk these days with a healthy mind.

What we need to know about ourselves…

• We each have an emotional reservoir with only so much capacity. The stress resulting from the COVID-19 crisis can quickly overwhelm us. We need to make the effort to process the emotions we are feeling so as to manage our capacity to absorb stress.
• Fear, the awareness of danger, is understandable during these circumstances. Fear left unattended can quickly evolve into ruminating thoughts of “what ifs”. This anxiety can be troubling. Our “what ifs” will be answered in time.
• Our emotions play to our fears. Emotion will “color the story” and very often over-shadow logic. It is important we engage our thoughtful rational processes.
• We do not all have the same roles in this crisis. Medical workers, authority figures, mothers, fathers, community members all have slightly different concerns. Step into your duties and support others in theirs.
• Isolation is most unhealthy when we perceive we have been cut off from supply lines. Forge and maintain connection with others in accord with the given precautions.
• Recreation can be healthy. Having fun is important. Escape has its place. Entertainment should be done with moderation.
• God has created us to be healthy through trial and will very likely, in time, bring good from these trials.

Prayer is a conduit of God’s power, provision and purposes.  Through it God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.  What should we pray for?  And what do we do with unanswered prayer?  Joe Gerber addresses these questions and casts a vision for a culture of prayer.

The Moravians, an unassuming, powerless, group of refugees prayed mightily for one hundred years. The effects of those prayers cannot be estimated and are still felt today. This is no surprise to anyone who understands intercessory prayer. Prayer makes a difference. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Joe Gerber recounts this history and lays a foundation for prayer today. Listeners will be inspired by the privilege and responsibility of prayer.

Sometimes little things make big differences. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kaleb Beyer relays three small things that exist in happy marriages.

3 Small Things

Be Purposeful

• Highly happy couples practice meaningful touches throughout the day, boosting relational and individual health.

Be Present

• Highly happy couples aren’t just spending time together because they are happy; a big part of the reason they’re so happy is that they are spending time together!

Be Positive

• Highly happy couples quickly stop a negative train of thought or action by replacing unhappy or angry thoughts or actions with positive ones to combat negativity.

Taken from “The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages: The Little Things That Make a Big Difference” by Shaunti Feldhahn

The apostle Paul encouraged the Ephesian church to forbear with one another. Forbearance requires a skill set that is growing increasingly foreign in today’s world. A world where individual preferences abound and we have increasingly less reason to endure with those things that do not suit us. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Arlan Miller and Kaleb Beyer flush out the attribute of forbearance and expose it for its Christ-like beauty.

• Forbearance is enduring with someone or something that doesn’t comply with your favor.
• Forbearance is not forgiveness, which requires an offense to be pardoned.
• Forbearance is acknowledging an annoyance but tolerating it.
• Forbearance is not “facing”, which happens when we confront an unfavorable issue and urge change.
• Forbearance is expecting the irritant to exist and not becoming bitter that it does.
• Forbearance is not enjoying, appreciating or celebrating the annoyance.
• Forbearance is receiving people and loving them despite their unfavorable attributes.
• Forbearance is not ignoring or avoiding people or who do not strike your fancy.
• Forbearance is an attribute of Christ towards you.

Parenting kids can tee up disagreement between parents. Why? Parenting styles differ. However, it doesn’t have to drive a wedge in a family. In fact, by working together couples might just get parenting right. In this episode Brian and Alison Sutter finish addressing the four basic parenting styles and expose God’s overarching purposes.

Parenting is hard. Should we scold? Punish? Praise? Or ignore? In this episode of Breaking Bread, Brian and Alison Sutter walk us through the dense undergrowth of parenting kids. To discern the path, they give us two lenses: grace and truth. Together these lenses will help us parent our children wisely. Yet if we fail to use either one or both, we’ll surely lose our way.

Content contained in this episode:

• Good parenting requires a growth mindset. Determine to learn and grow as a parent.
• Jesus was “full” of grace and truth. Healthy parenting is “full” of grace and truth.
• Grace is love that springs from mercy.
• Truth is love that springs from boundaries and regulation.
• Four parenting styles immerge when we vary grace and truth.
• • Low grace and low truth yields a dismissive parenting style.
  • • Characterized by apathy, hesitation and separation
  • Low grace and high truth yields a judging parenting style.
  • • Characterized by rules, authoritarianism and a focus on behavior
  • High grace and low truth yields a permissive parenting style.
  • • Characterized by avoidance of pain and indulgence
  • High grace and high truth yields a “truth and grace” parenting style.
  • • Characterized by a willingness to be influenced while also have clearly communicated expectations
    • Through parenting God intends to shape parents more into His likeness.

Visit our website at https://www.accounseling.org

All of us tend to our physical hygiene. It is important that we do. Little attention, however, is given to mental hygiene. In this episode Ted Witzig Jr. urges the listener to employ four simple mental hygiene tips in the new year. 

Some things we see clearly and yet, other things are blind spots to us. Because of this, the generations can clash in their ideals. Commitment, change and freedom are all such ideals that vary widely among the generations. In this episode, a spirit of hearing and learning is cast by participants Amber Miller (Millennial), Tim Funk (Baby-Boomer) and Matt Kaufmann (GenXer) in such a way that each learns and can appreciate each other.

We are not self-made people. We are influenced. We are molded. Each one of us has been born into a generation and that generation has molded us. In this episode of Breaking Bread Tim Funk, Amber Miller and Matt Kaufmann dialogue about different generations and learn from each other.

The best way to be helpful to an unattached child is to direct them back to their parents.  In this episode of Breaking Bread Craig Stickling answers some direct questions regarding attachment disorder.  His answers are both practical and hopeful.

Critical content contained in this episode:

• Question: How can the believing community be helpful with the unattached child?

Answer: Always direct the unattached child back to their parents.

• Question: Is unattachment unique only to non-biological children such as foster children and adoptive children?

Answer: No. Biological children can undergo attachment trauma in the early months of life also.

• Question: Will early attachment trauma always result in attachment disorder with our children?

Answer: No. Each child is unique. Temperaments play a part. Some children are more disposed to connection and relationship.

• Question: Is there hope for the unattached child to become attached?

Answer: Yes. While healing takes time, positive momentum and difference can be seen in surprisingly short time frames if proper supports are put in place.

• Question: Does God understand attachment disorder?

Answer: Yes. God’s call to mankind, to trust Him and to walk in relationship is exactly the attachment issue. He longs for our attachment to Him as we long for our children to be attached to us.

• Question: What encouragement can you give parents who are dealing with attachment disorder?

Answer:  You will be seen as trustworthy to your child.

• • You will be able to handle their misbehavior.
  • You will be able to remain calm during stressful encounters.
  • You will be able to protect them.

          * You will be an advocate for their healing and growth.

• Question: What resources would you offer those who want to learn more about attachment disorder?

Answer: Nancy Thomas – Families by Design, www.attachment.org

         Matthew and Fawn Bradley, www.beatitudehouse.org

         Lee Anne Cooper, https://www.unplowedground.org/

Description: Sometimes the struggles while parenting is not rebellion in the child, nor is it poor parenting in the parent. Sometimes the problem lies in the attachment between parents and children. This is a brain problem – with answers. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Craig Stickling teaches us about Reactive Attachment Disorder.

Critical content contained in this episode:

•  Attachment is a deep and lasting connection between a child and a caregiver established in the first 36 months of life.
• Attachment is a construct built over time.
• Attachment impacts a person’s self worth, emotional management and ability to build relationships.
• Characteristics of poor attachment in a child can manifest itself in the following ways:
• • detached and unresponsive behavior
  • difficulty being comforted
  • defiant behavior
  • poor boundaries with strangers
  • difficulty trusting parents
• While cause and effect is difficult to tease out, Reactive Attachment Disorder rises from early trauma and stresses and should be understood as an infliction of the brain.
• • While trauma and stresses may be present in the early years of a child it puts them at higher risk of Reactive Attachment Disorder but doesn’t mean that they necessarily will suffer with attachment issues.
• The road to recovery includes reorienting a child’s brain toward their parents. Establishing “mom and dad know best" and can assure safety along with unconditional love is foundational.

 Resource: "When love is not enough” by Nancy Thomas

Sometimes little things make big differences. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Kaleb Beyer relays three small things that exist in happy marriages.   

3 Small Things

 Be Purposeful

• Highly happy couples tend to put God at the center of their marriage. They focus on Him, not their spouse, for fulfillment and happiness.

Be Present

• Highly happy couples choose gratefulness for how their spouse realistically meets their needs instead of longing for something which is difficult or impossible for their spouse to meet.

Be Positive -

• When highly happy couples experience hurt, they extend grace and assume their mate’s intentions were pure and have a reasonable explanation.

 Resource: “The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages: The Little Things That Make a Big Difference” by Shaunti Feldhahn.

Addictions of all kind concern us. Fortunately there is hope. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Roger Gasser walks us through what addiction treatment looks like. Seeing a path through addiction is, in itself, hopeful.

The following questions will be addressed in the podcast:

1. What to do when a family member is addicted but is in denial. 
2. What is an Intensive Outpatient Program and when is it needed? When is it recommended? 
3. What is Residential Treatment and when is it needed? When is it recommended?  What should I look for in choosing one? 

What are the pros and cons of 28-day versus 90-day treatment?

Jesus lived in community. Interpersonal, face to face relationships, with people. In this episode of Breaking Bread, Amber Miller makes a strong case for community, especially for the single. What is community and how is it done? Turns out community is critical for personal well-being and many times requires intentionality on our part.

Brian Sutter and Craig Stickling provide very practical advice on what to look for and how to engage our children with social anxiety in this episode of Breaking Bread.  Be informed.  Be equipped.  Be encouraged.

We are all too familiar with anxiety. We don’t like it. But do we understand it for its finer details? In this episode of Breaking Bread, Ted Witzig Jr. walks through three types of anxiety: spiritual, situational and anxiety disorder. 

Show Notes:

 Below are some of the topics covered in this podcast:

• Is there a difference between worry and anxiety?
• How does God view anxiety? Is all anxiety sin?
• Understanding the nuances between spiritual anxiety, situational anxiety and anxiety disorders.
• What is the role of our thoughts in worry and anxiety?  How does focusing on God’s promises help with worry and anxiety?
• The role of shame in keeping Christian people dealing with anxiety from receiving support. How the church family can help.
• How to give support to someone with anxiety without being overly simplistic or trite.
• Ted shares his personal experience of anxiety and how spiritual and medical support helped him. 

 For more information on types of anxiety click here.