It’s not always a positive experience, and the counselors at Biblical Counseling Center know it. Dr. Tim Allchin, BCC Executive Director, shares three important truths about God and encouragement for your family this week.
In the week after Easter, the counselors at BCC often encounter an interesting mix of emotions in our counseling sessions. For Christians, Easter is supposed to fill us with joy — but for many families, it doesn’t always work out that way. Maybe Easter meant sitting across the table from a family member you haven’t spoken to in months. Maybe it meant managing tension between your spouse and your parents, or watching your kids pick up on the stress you were trying to hide. Perhaps it reminded you of the empty chair where someone you love used to sit — lost to death, divorce, addiction, or estrangement.
Sometimes the hardest part of Easter isn’t the world outside your family. It’s what’s happening inside it.
Three Truths for Your Family This Week
Even if Easter was hard for your family this past Sunday, what it represents matters — not just on one day, but every day. The resurrection speaks directly into the places where our families are struggling. Take a few moments to reflect on these truths. Say them out loud. Let them settle into the specific situation your family is facing right now.
God is alive and powerful enough to change your family
The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is at work in your home. That means no family dynamic is too entrenched, no pattern too deeply rooted, no relationship too far gone. The husband and wife who can’t seem to stop the same argument. The parent and adult child who haven’t had an honest conversation in years. The siblings who only speak through obligation. God is not watching your family from a distance — he is actively able to do what none of you can do on your own. Real change in a family almost never starts with the other person finally “getting it.” It starts when one person trusts that God can do something new, and asks him to start with them.
God has overcome evil and will set things right — in his time and in his way.
Families carry wounds. Some of you are living with the consequences of someone else’s sin — abuse, betrayal, abandonment, broken promises. Easter tells us that evil does not get the final word. God sees what has been done to your family, and he is not indifferent. But his timeline and his methods rarely look like ours. He may not fix your family the way you’ve been asking him to. He may do something deeper — healing you even before he changes your circumstances, giving you the ability to forgive when forgiveness feels impossible, or slowly drawing a wayward family member back over years rather than days. The resurrection means that God is committed to making things right. Your job is not to force the outcome. Your job is to trust the one who has already defeated the worst thing that could ever happen.
God has given your family hope to endure — even this.
Some of you are not looking for a miracle right now. You’re just trying to get through the week. The kids are struggling. The marriage feels thin. The relationship with your parents or your in-laws is exhausting. Easter gives your family something the world cannot: a reason to keep going that doesn’t depend on your circumstances improving first. Hope, in the Bible, is never wishful thinking. It is confidence that God will finish what he started. That means you can take the next step — have the hard conversation, extend grace one more time, show up for your family again today — not because you’re strong enough, but because he is.
A Word from Our Counselors
The counselors at BCC were praying for your family on Easter. We know the day wasn’t easy for many of you. But here’s what we’ve seen over and over again in our counseling rooms: the families who experience the most change are not the ones with the least pain. They’re the ones who decide that God’s power is bigger than their problem, and they take one step of faith — often an uncomfortable one — to pursue something different.
God has important things for your family this week. Trust him. Keep moving forward. And if you need help taking that next step, we’re here.
