Rounded Rectangle: The Birthing of Agapé Christian Counseling By: Ann Noonan, Founder and Executive Director Change, although planned and desired, can at times be very difficult. As I anticipated our move to Charlotte in the summer of 1995, I was certain God was going to “bless” me in a definite way for my obedience to follow His leading. Surely God and I had the same “vision” about His will for me and my work for Him. Of course, He e would want me to duplicate what I had been doing, and I would simply slip into a similar position here in Charlotte. I never realized that God wanted to reveal to me. One of the things God wanted to teach me was that it was His plan, not my plan that was significant. In When God Interrupts, Craig Barnes says regarding his parishioners’ spiritual journeys, “I have observed that they always experience the light and hope at the point where they succumb to their darkest fear.” Jesus put it better when He said, “those who want to have their live will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it (Luke 9:24).” One of my darkest fears and least desired tasks was starting a private practice. I just knew God never intended for me to do that, so He and I wrestled for quite a bit until I acquiesced. When my friend and former Director read the following at a going-away party, I remember thinking, “That’s nice! She has chosen a devotional from one of my favorite authors.” (Oswald Chambers—My Utmost for His Highest, p. 224, August 11). “And he saw Him no more (2 Kings 2:12). . . It is not wrong to depend on Elijah as long as God gives him to you, but remember the time will come when he will have to go; when he stands no more to you as your guide and leader, because God does not intend he should. You say—‘I cannot go on without Elijah. God says you must.’” Little did I know what was ahead. My Elijah was gone and I stood at my Jordan with only God. Another tremendous influence on my thinking was an independent study of Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God, by Blackaby and King. As I let the truths of God permeate my soul, I became aware that I was experiencing a crisis of belief. Did I truly believe God had a plan for me, that He loved me and desired only a love relationship with me? For years I had been teaching people these truths in therapy, but now I was undergoing my own desert experience. Again and again I struggled and came to the same conclusion—God and His son do not lie. Jesus said, “Apart from me you can do nothing. I am the vine; you are my branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear fruit” (John 15:5). My conclusion almost on a daily basis was and continues to be that God wanted me to be moldable, available to Him and allow Him to set the agenda. My job was to trust, obey and not expect to get the complete picture before I started to follow Him. I had to get to that place of. . . “not my will, but thine will be done”(Luke 22:42). From my struggles to know and do the will of God, He birthed a solo practice, which has grown into the existing Agapé Christian Counseling, Inc., with five therapists who truly believe it is God’s truth that sets the captives free. Each of us desires to yield our skills to Him as a conduit of His grace and mercy in people’s lives. Today, I am convinced that it is the lessons learned from God along the way that are often significant. We at Agapé are trusting God in our participation with Him wherever He directs.