The stones have been torn down & the walls are in ruins

September 11th 2009 was just supposed to be another somber day where I remembered that horrible day, but as the memories of one bomb filtered through our collective minds another bomb blew my church apart. The living stones that make up any church shuttered against the destructive news that shook us to the core. Our pastor, a man we all trusted to various degrees finally admitted what a few of us dreaded. An affair. Worse yet an affair with a close friend's wife and a fellow laborer in the Kingdom. Such betrayal is a bomb that erupted tore through two families, ripped into a church staff, and shot debre of anger, amazement, fear and outrage throughout the rest of us. We all staggered about after the explosion, bleeding from holes in our hearts, wishing that one of those flying pieces would have hit us in the head and simply put us out of this misery. But instead we all sat around with blood oozing out of our ears unable to really hear each other but slowly comprehending what just had happened.

Did our pastor who founded our church and watched our kids grow really do this? Did she really choose that over 4 kids and a husband? Disbelief at first, astonishment came 2nd, astonishment at the stupidity and utter waste. The utter waste is what drove my astonishment. How does one leave a wife after all that time? How does one betray his calling? How does one turn his back on all those years of ministry & leadership? And because no answers came to my stunned mind the next emotion was anger...deep...profound...pure anger. Anger comes when no answer is acceptable. I was angry. "What an idiot" was just one of the more socially acceptable phrases that spat out of my mouth followed more colorful terms that I won't repeat.

As time wore on deep sadness moved into my heart and make itself comfortable. Deep, deep sadness bordoring on depression...no I'll admit it...it was depression. Dark and silent it just filled my inner life like some sort of quick acting mold. It wouldn't leave. It was lurking around my life before this lastest shock so it was like the final blow that tipped me over into that dark pool. My depression usually hits me after a lot of stress and after my financies took a 40% hit because of the economy, my step father is slowly dying, our home lost so much value we can't refinance and then my rents left me after promising to pay the back rent and a 5 foot high pile of garbage on the front lawn...so when the bomb went off I tumbled into the pool apparently lacking enough emotional strength to stay hopeful and positive.

You know what it's like to be treading water and you are slowly getting tired? The fear that you feel slowly growing inside of you because you can't feel the bottom? Thats what it feels like when you are depressed and you know it. But God is faithful. Soon hands were reaching out to me. The lady who called me to talk about how sad she was, the guy who came over to help me fix the rental, the other guy who kindly loaned me his truck, his time and his ears as I cursed my way through a kitchen remodel. My wife who listened to me and my admissions of not being the strong guy I wanted to be.

Our new pastor talked to us today about us being the stones that were scattered and how we will rebuild the walls. I looked around and saw the anger, the fear, the rage, the humilation and the deep sadness but we have each other scattered betrayed and humiliated but we are still stones cut out by our loving Father who at this very moment is looking at one blown apart stone that once was our pastor and He has chissel in hand and that work will proceed. In the mean time, the scattered stones that make up my church are slowly assembling and moving into position some of us are not in the same place as we were before but the master builder is at work and for the first time in some time...I'm not depressed.

Poem "As Good as You say you are"

You don't have to convince me anymore
You are as good as You claim to be
Before the blessings come
and my answers arrive
Before I eat and am satisfied
Before I delight in Your hand and laugh
I am convinced that You are as good
as You say You are.

The food from Your table full & free
The laughter of Your eyes
when I call out to You
When I ponder Your name and all that it means
You are as good as You claim to be.

When pain won't stop
and the sun goes down
When the chill of night creeps through all my best efforts
When I have to retreat from love to find safety
When truth is like a darkness and I'm afraid
You are as good as You claim to be.

Someday when I am gone
and I wake up to a sun that never ceases to warm
When I wake up to a gentle night
when no one wishes me harm
We will laugh beside a crackling camp fire
I will see the love in Your eyes
the longing of Your voice
I'll see how much joy I bring to You
My voice will crack
my tears will pour down
That I ever had to be convinced
that You are as good as You claimed to be.

A price too high to pay

Talked to a broken man today. Seems his life is going well, the addiction has been surrendered, he is overcoming, marriage has been healed, life appears good. But sometimes our sins drag behind us for years and years. Jesus has paid the penalty for them but often times the ramifications of those sins like echos in a canyon can come back at us in time. Sometimes we feel them immediately and other time they take years and when it takes years they return to us in a whisper that screams down our souls.

He fears for his kids. He fears that those wasted years where he was angry, bitter, struggling with his addiction & disfuction that God graceously forgave still effected his children. He fears they sowed deep seeds of fear, doubt and skeptism. Now that his kids are coming of age God doesn't seem to be the hunger of their souls.

That is a price too high to pay. For the first time in his life he relates to Paul's letter wishing that if he could he would be cut off for God for the sake of his people. This man wondered how someone could ever write that. Now he understands...now he would take that deal. He would trade his own soul for the souls of his children. But that is a price he can't pay and a price that he can't control.

Jesus paid the ultimate price but the price of effecting a life down the wrong path can be forgiven but it's too much of a price of a father to pay and forgiveness only makes the blood flow faster down a wounded heart.

Her voice is afraid

She has been a rock in my life for years. That is not always a compliment. Rocks are used in blogs to display a sense of stability but they also can mean they are unmoving. My mother can be both. She has loved me for years and years and I grew up with the great gift of knowing that no matter what I was loved. Yet she still doesn't like it that I'm not attending the denomination that I grew up in and bugs me ocassionally to get back to her particular church...sigh...

But now she is 88 years old. She doesn't hear as well as she used to and I often have to raise my voice to communicate with her. I find it easy to make fun of her in her old age, giggling about her bad hearing and how she gets confused. I'm ashamed of that. I just so often find humor so quickly and sometimes she inspires that laughter but I'm not proud of it. I really think I ought to edit that out of this blog as a matter of fact. But keeping secrets isn't very healthy for me and I can't run my life trying to make others like me. So I admit it.

She called me the other day. Got all confused with her phone, her cell and long distance. She was afraid. I wasn't answering the phone. She called repeatedly and I didn't answer the phone. I'm not sure where I was but I wasn't available. I can't describe how horrible that feels in my heart.

I knew this day would come. Where mom & I finally switch roles. I take care of her and she listens to me. She hands over the complicated, the stressful, the long plan and the tough decision to me and the other kids. I never talked to my father about this day. He died back in 1988. But tonight as I'm sitting at my home office I feel like I can see my dad's eyes, his voice and his love and he is telling me that he and I had an unspoken agreement that we didn't need to express or shake hands with. He is tell me that now is the time that I move up and take my place next to his bride and guide her through these final years.

It's not a duty driven by guilt. It's an honor, a sacred trust motivated by a son's love of his mother.

I won't disappoint you Dad.

-Kelly

You are as sick as your secrets

"Don't tell anyone, keep this a secret, I don't want so & so to know, this will make me look bad, I can't tell you for I'm protecting someone." Sound familiar? Right now there are so many situations where I'm supposed to keep a secret that I'm finding it hard to keep track of them. The best thing I can do is simply be quiet but I won't follow that advise in my own life.

For years I hid myself from others, fearing what they would say about me and how people would perceive me. Then I bled into my marriage and family. I wouldn't say things to my wife for fear of who she would tell & how that might make me look.

Then my own personal life blew up years ago and such secrets were no longer something I could control. Soon both sides of our family knew I was a sex addict which made family get togethers rather awkward to say the least. Soon business associates knew, ministry partners knew, then I blew it all to hell & confessed it before our church.

You know the amazing thing? I rarely was rejected by anyone. It seems a person who is honest about their failings & sins is pretty well received these days...at least that is my case. When I stopped trying to control my image people didn't seem misjudge me or reject me. I was scared that so many would know such intimate details of my life but now I don't really think about it that much.

People think of me as rather safe it would appear. I lost the image of a "leader" and gain the image of a real person. Not a bad trade. Now I have folks coming to me secretly asking for help, seeking to understand from my life experience...amazing. The thing is that I simply give away what I've learned. I don't glean some awesome insight from Kelly's brain but I simply give away what some therapist, some good pastor, good friend, gave me. I'm not sure I'm trying to "help" them but I'm simply being honest with them....big difference.

Occassionally I ask myself, "what secrets about yourself are you keeping?"

The answer to that will determine how healthy I will stay.

-Kelly

Want a marriage?

This week someone came to me and expressed their desire to some day have the love that Robyn and I have in our marriage. I guess I could react with pride & writing it about this here would seem, I'm sure, a way for me to blow my own horn. But I honestly don't feel that way. I was shocked frankly. My readers may or may not know of my struggle with addiction and how close Robyn and I came to divorce just a few years ago.

As this person approached me and expressed their admiration of our relationship, I was quickly reminded how much God has worked in my life, tearing out a worn out heart, a tired mind, and a prideful ingrained mindset. That someone would want my marriage is simply amazing to me and draws me to be simply grateful to a God who refused to abandon me in my sin.

Our daughter Arielle told me about a year ago and she doesn't want to have to go through what her parents did (the fighting, the yelling, the pain, the tears, the disappointments) but she looked at me and said, "But at least you and Mom love each other". That warmed my heart.

I feel like someone who is given a brand new sports car and then everyone who sees me in the car gets the impression that I am successful and smart. I've been given a gift of a healthy marriage. To be sure Robyn & I worked very hard to listen to our counselor and tried to be yielded & honest. But I didn't force Robyn to work on our marriage she did that on her own. All I knew to do was to try and stay in a place of humility, admit my faults whenever I saw them and stay in that place of humility no matter how painful it could be.

So if you see me in my new "sports car" smile with me and wave for I'm a man who was simply given a gift.

Ever feel like God is teaching you to be angry?

I'm dealing with a huge issue where I work. I was asked to take on some large client and now that things have slowed down the client where I was getting more of my work has been taken away and I feel left out in the cold in the middle of a ression. I feel deeply mistreated, disrespected and used. Now the guy who took over for me was fired and they have given the account to another man who has little experience. The logic is that they want their best sales person out on the street picking up new accounts. What angered me is that for my talent they are tossing me out to the street in the middle of one of the worst economic downturns in resent history. I don't like the amazing disregard for my financial security.

But now I have a decision. God has allowed this. They couldn't do this without His permission, this doesn't mean it's His will but He did allow this. This is the second time that this company has made these decision and each time I get very angry and express it clearly and then I let it go. This time my decision is to simply get busy and not train someone to replace me. It is so hard for me to be tough but not get rude, get bitter, get sarcastic. It almost exhausting but wow what a challenge. I seem to be forced back into this corner where I'm being trained to be tough and honest without being rude & resentful. Wow, what a challenge.

I've always been this person who just caves in and does what I'm told or I get angry and childish. I go passive and then steam deep down inside. Now God seems to be teaching me to be angry, express it but then let it go. What a lesson...