I grew up as a pastor’s kid, which means I learned early what it looks like to give your life to people while quietly wondering who’s taking care of you. I gave my own life to ministry as a young girl, and I’ve spent the years since pursuing that call in different forms — through ordination, through mission work, and eventually through counseling, which turned out to be the shape ministry took for me.

My path here wasn’t a straight line. It started with walking alongside a minister’s child through something painful in their church — watching up close what it costs a family when the calling that gives them purpose is also the thing exposing them to a level of scrutiny, isolation, and pressure most people never see. Since then, I’ve walked with a lot of PKs and MKs processing who they are apart from their parents’ calling, and with young adults wrestling with whether they’re called to ministry or missions themselves — several of whom are serving in the field today.

That background shapes everything about how I practice. I’m a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor — Rachel M. Leonard, MA, LPCC — and an ordained minister, and I built Lionheart Counseling for people who give everything to a calling and rarely get asked how they’re actually doing.

How Faith Shows Up in Session

I don’t assume what your faith looks like or how you want it in the room — I ask. Some clients want scripture and prayer woven through every session; others want their faith held quietly in the background while we do the clinical work. I meet you where you actually are, not where I assume a Christian client should be. When it’s welcome, I offer prayer and scripture directly, and when a client is open to it, we integrate biblical principles into the deeper work — not as an add-on, but as part of how we understand identity, suffering, and restoration together.

Three passages shape how I think about this work:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) — Most of the people I work with have been carrying weight far longer than anyone realized, including them.

“The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.” (Psalm 34:18) — Nearness, not distance, is what healing actually requires.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” (Proverbs 4:23) — This is where the name Lionheart comes from. Guarding your heart isn’t the same as hardening it. It’s protecting the place everything else flows from.

Who I Work With

I work across the full age range — children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families — which matters a lot for ministry and missionary households, because the toll of the calling rarely lands on just one person. I’ve worked with pastors and church staff carrying compassion fatigue and burnout, missionary families navigating reentry and the particular grief of leaving a field behind, spouses holding the household together while their partner is consumed by the ministry, and PKs and MKs figuring out their own identity and faith apart from their parents’. Whether it’s the whole family system or one exhausted person in it, I want to help your household function like a family, not just a support structure for someone else’s calling.

Intensives

For ministry and missionary families especially, weekly therapy doesn’t always fit the rhythm of the life you’re actually living — sabbaticals, furloughs, transition seasons, or the reality that carving out an hour a week for months isn’t realistic when you’re the one everyone else depends on. I offer therapy intensives: extended, focused blocks of time built for families and individuals who need real movement in a compressed window, whether that’s processing a hard season in ministry, working through reentry after the field, or finally doing the family work that’s been waiting for a season when everyone can actually be in the room together.

The Practical Details

I’m based in Louisville, Kentucky, with telehealth available throughout Kentucky and Ohio, and in-person sessions available soon. Intensives are in-person in Louisville. Sessions are self-pay; many clients use HSA or FSA funds, and a superbill is available on request.

If you’re in ministry, on the field, or holding a family together through someone else’s calling, I’d be glad to talk with you.