Remnant Counselor Collective

Resilience, Dysfunction, and Community for Therapists

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Andrew Wichterman Andrew Wichterman
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Resilience and Dysfunction: A Personal Reflection

My grandfather was a Ford executive. Despite never graduating from high school, he rose to lead an entire drafting department at one of the most powerful automotive companies in American history. He met Henry Ford. He knew Henry Ford Jr. and Lee Iacocca—not deeply, but enough to mention them with a nod of familiarity. Every year he was given a new Lincoln Continental, free haircuts, and complimentary shoe shines. As a child, I saw him as larger than life—like the kind of man they build statues of. He had made it.

But his path to success was anything but easy. As a boy, he lived on the streets—abandoned for weeks at a time in places like Lima and Toledo, Ohio. His mother was married five times, and one of her husbands once tried to kill him with an ice pick. He told me stories—raw and unfiltered—about sleeping under bridges, fishing to survive, stealing from gardens, and collecting spilled liquor from bar floorboards to sell to the town drunk. His grandparents eventually rescued him and gave him work delivering blocks of ice before most homes had freezers. He became a champion swimmer, a marble champ, and a natural athlete.

At age 17, he entered a shotgun wedding. His in-laws moved in and lived off his hard work. Eventually, tired of supporting them, he confronted his wife. She warned him that if he threw her parents out, she would go with them. As he put it, "I picked her dad up by the back of the pants and threw him out the front door." His wife followed, leaving him to raise his son—my mother's half-brother—on his own.

Later, he met my Grandma Mary at a bar. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was real—and it lasted. Both of them had already endured so much, including the trials of living through the Great Depression. That era shaped their worldview, their marriage, and their relentless drive to survive and provide. They built a life together and had three children, including my mother.

Later in life, he made significant money in the stock market, and even jumped into the AOL boom—I was there the day he made $10,000 before lunch. But behind all the success was deep, formative pain.

A Complex Legacy

My grandmother—his lifelong love and partner in resilience—had also suffered. She lost her mother as a child and raised her five younger brothers alone. Later, she became a nurse and helped provide for them. When I think about their life together, I don’t remember arguments or bitterness. I remember moments in Boca Raton where their most intense fight ended with, “Knock me down, Mary, knock me down,” followed by playful kissy faces. They didn’t live easy lives. But they learned to thrive.

My mother, their middle child, experienced her own challenges. Their family came to faith when she was nine years old, and it was a fresh, imperfect walk. Over time, their Christianity became tied up with cultural and political conservatism—sometimes legalistic. I don’t think they intended it that way. I just don’t think they knew any different.

My mom endured a tough home environment. Her relationship with her older brother was strained. Their home wasn’t always safe. Yet despite her trauma and challenges, she emerged as one of the most loving, consistent, and compassionate people I know. Her love for Jesus, I believe, is what carried her—what formed her into the mother I still cherish today.

Sometimes when I’m low, I feel her arm around my shoulders or her gentle hand scratching my back like she did when I was a child. Her tenderness did not emerge from ease but from a place of grace, grit, and deep love. She didn’t become kind because she had been treated gently; she became kind because she chose to allow Jesus to shape her heart over time (John 15:4-5, English Standard Version).

Anxiety, Resilience, and the Work We Must Do

On one side of my family, there is grit and anxiety—tense nerves and generational worry. On the other, there is grit, dysfunction, and unbelievable resilience. And in the middle of it all, here I sit.

I’ve talked before about the importance of knowing our histories (Thompson, 2015). This is mine—love for Jesus, close family bonds, gentleness, kindness, self sacrifice, hard work, grit, resilience, and an inheritance of survival, of heartache, of and of contradiction. And it still affects me today. Even after therapy. Even after growth. I still carry parts of both sides of my family—anxious tendencies, yes, but also determination. The human soul is complex and multi-layered. It carries stories in its bones.

But knowing our story is only the beginning. We must also choose to do the work. Therapy is one tool. So is community. So is prayer and confession and walking closely with Jesus. The point is not to pretend we’re healed. The point is to be in process—to become more like Christ through it (Willard, 2002) and when we show our brokenness, to accept and offer grace.

The Call to Community

I believe Christian community is one of the most essential tools we have for healing. Not just therapy. Not just journaling or inner work. Community. It is in community that we find the kind of mirroring and sharpening that changes us. It is in community that we learn to belong, to confess, to be shaped.

What I’m asking you to do today is this: don’t just talk about community. Build it. And don’t just build it—be the kind of person that others feel safe with. Show up for each other. Bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2, ESV). Be kind without expecting anything in return.

This is especially true for therapists. We give this gift in the therapy room—but we must live it out in our actual lives. And we must model it in our professional communities. In places like Remnant Counselor Collective, this is not just an ideal. It must become our practice.

Support each other. Check in. Show up. Love well. Build something so beautiful, so selfless, so saturated with grace, that others want to be near it—and near Him.

Join the Remnant Counselor Collective

If you’re a Christian therapist looking for authentic, Spirit-led community, come join us at the Remnant Counselor Collective. We’re building something different—a place where professional excellence meets spiritual formation, where mutual support replaces competition, and where Jesus is at the center of our calling. Whether you're in private practice, agency work, teaching, or training, there is a place for you here. Come be part of a community that heals, equips, and sends. Sign up today at: https://www.remnantcounselorcollective.com/

Conclusion

My story is not unique. It is specific, yes—but it echoes the stories of so many. We are all shaped by our pasts. But we are not bound by them. Resilience is not the absence of pain—it is the result of hope practiced over time. May we continue to practice that hope in community.

May we remember that our legacy is not only what we come from, but what we choose to create.

References

Thompson, C. (2015). The soul of shame: Retelling the stories we believe about ourselves. InterVarsity Press.

Willard, D. (2002). Renovation of the heart: Putting on the character of Christ. NavPress.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. (2016). Crossway Bibles.

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