CrossCounsel LWC Orientation Testimony

I was given an opportunity to share my personal testimony and experience with CrossCounsel International Ministries at an orientation event held at Living Water Church, and I was honored to be part of the experience. Below is the transcript of my testimony that I shared at the event:

 Shane Buol - CrossCounsel LWC Orientation Testimony

Hi my name is Shane and I’ve been coming to CrossCounsel since August of this year, but first I want to tell you about myself and what brought me here.

I had a rocky start to life, having young parents who both came from broken homes. I experienced a lot of dysfunction stemming from drug and alcohol abuse in my home, sexual abuse at the hands of a neighbor boy, and many other things. As a young man I started using drugs to escape my reality. Eventually, my parents quit drinking and became Christians, which led to me placing my faith in Jesus as well, although the core issues of my past had at this point still gone unaddressed. During my senior year of high school I was listening to some dark heavy metal music that triggered memories of the sexual abuse from my childhood and I suddenly realized that what happened to me was not normal, and I sank into a dark depression. After confiding in a friend that I was thinking about committing suicide, he called my parents and told them he was worried about me. My parents got me into counseling right away, which was my first experience in the chair. Although that method of counseling didn’t address the core feelings I had buried inside, it did provide a way for me to reframe the past and I was able to move forward without wanting to end my life.

As an adult I found myself struggling with substance abuse in various forms. As time went on, I began to realize that this was not a sustainable pattern. In 2018, I had been working long hours at my job, and my mother-in-law passed away from cancer. These events triggered what I consider some form of a mental breakdown, and my emotional walls began to crumble. I knew I needed help, so I set out to find a place that could help me sort through my issues. The first place used traditional talk therapy, and it did help in that it provided a safe space to share some of the things I kept closely guarded, but it still did not address the core issues inside. I eventually stopped going and found myself in the same cycles as before. I found another place that used more advanced methods of therapy, and I saw some wins there. That was the first time I had experience with going back to childhood memories and allowing myself to feel them. I realized for the first time how significant several of those events were and how they shaped my behavior up to that point. After going through the MELT process later with CrossCounsel, I can now see that the insights I had experienced at that place fell in line with the first half of the MELT process (M & E). It didn’t address the false beliefs I had internalized though, so I again found myself repeating cycles of past behaviors.

Around this time, I had begun to hear about CrossCounsel through the Men of Fire group at Living Water. I began listening to the podcasts regularly and couldn’t deny the power of the testimonies I would hear on there. After experiencing a bout of anxiety on a recent camping trip, I knew I had more work to do. This time, I set up my first session with CrossCounsel. To date, I have seen results in some form during each session, but I had a profound moment of truth I experienced in my most recent session just a few weeks ago.

That session was inspired by a situation that happened between my wife and I, where I reacted in my opinion, like an immature little boy. I came into my session wanting to dig at whatever was underneath this event, and I went to 4 or 5 memories from my childhood. Not long after that, I experienced a peace and warmth that came over me and I just started crying. It was as if the Lord drew a line through all of those memories and showed me that I had felt unsafe in all of them. After that, I felt the Lord tell me, “I am safe.” The effect this had on me was immediate. Although I had always known in my head that Jesus was safe, I knew that my heart just believed it for the first time. It felt like a weight had been lifted off of me. When I got home I shared my experience with my wife and my two older kids, explaining how the past memories connected with the present. As the next few weeks unfolded, I noticed that I didn’t feel the desire to guard my heart like I used to. I also wanted to share my experience with as many people as I could, because it was so powerful to me. I shared my story with several guys at Men of Fire, with some friends, and even with my Dad, who was able to confirm one of the memories and offer his own perspective on it. All of these experiences felt like a domino effect to me, like God was showing me how when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and honest, he will use our pain and bring something good from it. I think it was no coincidence that at this same time I was reading through Ezekiel 37, which is about his vision of the valley of dry bones. It was as if He was showing me that it’s not enough to get the skeletons out of the closet, He wants to put tendons and flesh on them and put them to use. He wants to breathe life into the dark recesses of our mind, so we can experience His love in full measure.