we all get that way sometimes...

As a pastor, you have plenty of opportunity to have conversations with people who are in really difficult situations. conversations with people who are hurting, a lot. People dealing with sickness, family brokenness, consequences of poor choices and on and on and on. I have had days where I have had a conversation about late stage cancer, another conversation about overwhelming financial burdens, another about a family that is being destroyed by chemical abuse, all within a three hour span. Its difficult. It weighs on you. At times it can seem like there is just to much hurt for any of this, anything to be worthwhile. 

I had a professor in college who i really enjoyed, he was a really interesting guy who was a psychiatrist and served as a pastor at a church as well as taught at the college level.  I had him for a couple classes over my time in school, the one that stood out was a class called "Counseling for Pastors". The class was primarily people who were going to be entering into full time ministry. He said something in class one time, and I will never forget this, it was one of the most amazing lines I have ever heard, and I went out of my way to use it in any essay response I ever needed to give on an exam. He said "Counseling is an unending chain of human misery parading through your office."   

"Counseling is an unending chain of human misery parading through your office."

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