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...

Forgiveness a misused knife

Being a recovering sex addict there are a few words that have become very precious to me. "Surrender" is right at the top. Lord only knows how that word has opened up a world of victory for me. Another word is "grace" my most misunderstood piece of theology. Jerry Bridges' book "Transforming Grace" is among my favorite. I've taught that book to many other addicts and have never failed to see God move in their hearts as they grasp the wonderful news.



But there is one word that remains another favorite: "forgiveness" How I have longed for that word in my own marriage. I never heard that word for years and years. Even after I had painfully confessed my sin to my wife she found it very hard to say that word "forgive". Thankfully we were spared from over zealous believers who would urge my wife to forgive me without clear understanding of what that means.



For many "forgiveness" means forgetting. For hasn't God said that he will bury our sins in the sea of his forgetfulness? Yet forgetting what has been done to us is not something that most women can pull off. They can't make their minds forget what has been done. I would argue that it might be dangerous to forget pain that has been inflicted or she will allow it to happen again.



But many believers will rush to tell the wife to forgive and one of the reasons is that a confession of sin by a husband is painful for everyone...the family...the church and embarrasses people as well. What pastor loves to learn that his worship leader is addicted to porn? Or one of his elders had an affair? I wrote of one pastor who is hiding the sin of his youth pastor and I suspect that if he exposed it...it would reflect badly on his ability to choose good men to work in the church.



So it seems everyone wants the wife to quickly "forgive & forget" and the wife feels often that her pain is overlooked, generalized or even minimized which breeds a rage that bubbles beneath her tired body. Ah but that isn't a blessing for many might tell her that anger is wrong so she silently eats those emotions until an unsuspecting husband stumbles into it and once alone she releases her rage & bile on him. It doesn't make a good afternoon discussion.



Forgiveness is simply the act of giving up trying to take revenge, to punish & bring ill towards that person. Forgiveness is not a call to trust. Forgiveness is commanded of Christians but blind trust is not. Jesus forgave everyone but even he did not entrust himself blindly to them (See John 2:4). Neither should a wife of a sex addict.

Longing for a legacy

Something happens to men. We may start early or we may stagger through life until we realize that time is slipping away. We start to look around to see if what we trade time for is or was worth it. If we look at our job often times if not always it comes up short. I think I became a pastor because I thought when I had these thoughts I could point to my role as a minister and I would be satisfied that I "counted" and I was significant. What a sick reason for wanting to be a leader.

But tonight while watching a movie with my 14 year old son I had those thoughts again. My daughter is nearly 18 and I will actively remind myself that she is an adult and my role with her must dramatically change. I was tempted to look to my kids as my legacy. Have I love them enough and will they remember me as a good father? But really that is just another act of self interest. I will not use my kids to ramp up a historical issue with insecurity.

What is my legacy? What am I going to leave behind? Funny thing is that I can't hold on to anything and I will leave everything behind. The only thing I can give away of value is Jesus and the love that He has shown me. What is more important? That my name is remembered fondly or if my kids follow His heart? My longing for a legacy is nothing more than the emotional response to insecurity...if my kids follow Jesus that is enough.

Facing those doubts...

I've been a believer since I was a child. Never really had issues with doubting. Never. But I had a major change in my life about nine years ago when I was diagosed with an addiction and entered into recovery. Most folks "find God" in recovery. For me, I found doubts. I was angry at God for several years, I resigned my ministry, I was confused.

My love for God wained and I just attended church for the sake of my kids. The farther I got into recovery the more honest I tried to be and eventually I began to see why I had my doubts. I had signed up some nice contracts with God that He never agreed to. Several times I said in frustration "But you signed this agreement with me" and His loving patient response was "actually, I didn't".

So my raging, angry doubts slowly went away but I must confess that my passion and my zeal for the Lord is not where I would like it. I try to do a bible study everyday especially during the week and I just finished up a study in the book of 1 Peter. In verse 14 &15 I came across this verse: "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect..."

It wasn't too long after that study that I was at a job site (I sell fire alarm systems for commercial buildings) and one of our best installers was there. He and I have a love/hate relationship. I'm the sales guy who doesn't know how to bid jobs properly and he is the installer who wastes time and doesn't work fast enough (laughing). We joke about our "friction" for it is an age old problem that most sales guys and installers struggle with.

Then as we sat in a pub and were talking he asked me "so you were a preacher right?" and the converstion took off. Turns out he is an atheist and feels religion is just a way to control people. I smiled and we talked for about two hours. I didn't have a good answer with gentleness & respect. I had some answers but they were not well organized & thought through.

So I'm on a journey to have those answers, a reason for the hope that is within me. I downloaded 10 hours of Lee Strobel's book "A Case for Christ" so the journey has begun.

Now I just have to mix it with gentleness & respect...

Questioning my theology

Ever been questioned that your view or thoughts somehow are not supported by scripture? Not fun. My first reaction is usually shock for my pride tells me "I'm always right" and then shock is replaced with some degree of irritation or anger. I usually think "how dare you question me or who do you think you are?"

If I talk with others it's amazing how angry they get almost right away. They don't even ask me what the issue is about they just seem to jump right to anger. They defend me aggressively and yet often they have no idea what I stated...that troubles me. It seems we live in a time where no one is support to "judge" someone else and it seems it doesn't matter what was said or even if it indeed violates scripture.

This reflects the attitude of our day. Truth doesn't matter. It's "your truth" and "my truth" after all. The big taboo is "don't judge" just accept that others are different than you and have different opinions...or different truths.

I still don't like be questioned. I don't like that someone might think that my view on an issue isn't scriptural. It bugs me. But questioning someone's beliefs isn't unscriptural. Paul commended the Bereans for doing just that. Accepting anyone's truth as "truth" is what is unbiblical.

But when you question my beliefs, do it with gentleness & respect...I'll listen more. I promise.

Sigh...the cycle of shame continues...

He is a young man, probably 22 or 23 years old. I met him about a month ago. He seemed reserved and quiet yet I could tell he had a good mind. Later he was assigned a mentor who is a friend of mine and he began the long journey of sexual addiction recovery.

My friend called me up with a question "Kelly", he began, "I have an interesting case. Our young friend has never formally cheated on his wife but he is addicted to pornography. He is also an active youth pastor. He promised his church and his wife that he would never mess up with this issue again and even signed an agreement stating that. The church leadership also agreed that if he did mess up he would have to confess to his wife, the pastor and then get up in front of the whole church and confess and then resign. The problem was that he did indeed mess up. He accessed porn and was tore up inside on what to do....what do you think" He asked me?

My advise was to confess. He made a promise as unwise as that is, he made a promise and agreed to face the consequences. So my young friend confessed. What was the response of the senior pastor? "Shame & cover-up" The senior pastor was angry and exasperated. Expressions such as "I can't believe you would do this again" or "why can't you just say no?" were bantered about. Then he told my friend to not say anything to anyone. "The church board is dealing with a building program and is stressed I don't want to burden them with this issue" he even told him to hide it from his wife at least for now.

What is the message there? The message is that the building program is more important than the spiritual health of his youth pastor. The message is that the senior pastor is probably embarassed and knows that this might reflect badly on his ability to attract and bring on "good" youth pastors. The message is not grace & forgiveness but guilt, shame and cover up.

Not surprisingly my young friend somewhat is relieved. He doesn't have to face the consequences of his sin. He can put it off for a while and enjoy the fantasy that God is ok with this arrangement and the fantasy that his wife will be ok when she ultimately finds out. What will happen when that wife hears that a senior pastor helped hide sin from her? What will happen when she figures out that the pastor cared more about a building than her family?

What I suspect is that there is coming a day when this senior pastor will quietly fire this man to avoid embarrassment and get him out of town so he can look for another youth minister. My friend will learn a hard lesson that sometimes church folk are not very wise, not very safe and not very understanding when it comes to sexual sin. My hope is that as long as he is with our ministry, he can continue to learn healing, learn honesty, and learn forgiveness something that he is not...at his local church.

So I sound angry? Perhaps. I just have little patience for what seems so obvious to me. You don't hide & cover up sin, you confess and deal with it. There is a ticking time bomb now. Can you hear it? Tick, tick, tick...some day it will explode and this senior pastor will have a bigger mess to deal with than he thought.

-Kelly

Smart & Worthalot

Her name is Maddy. She was the last mutt in the litter, just a common blackish dog. I had picked out a nice brown & black sister of hers and we named her Muffen because she looked like a chocolate muffen that I loved. Maddy was named "maddy" for no apparently reason other than in her silent look way she seemed like a "maddy".


At one year old, Maddy got knocked up my almost every horny dog in our neighborhood before I could get her fixed and my irritation with her grew. One rainy night we heard whimpering on the front porch and I peered outside to see a wet puppy in the rain with a wide-eyed Maddy looking her it like it was some strange piece of poop that was alive or something. Nothing had come out of her before that made such strange noises and Maddy looked confused. She was a crummy mother, within a month she was done with those puppies and we had to make sure they were getting enough milk from her. I had never seen a dog be so careless with their offspring and around that time I started calling her "a dumb worthless dog".


Soon that adjective seemed to associate her name whenever I had to deal with her. When I stepped in her poop I proclaimed "Maddy, you dumb worthless dog, quit pooping in my front yard!" When Muffen disappeared one day I sadly commented "great my favorite dog disappeared and I'm stuck with this "dumb and worthless dog". It seemed every time I was irritated with Maddy I would state "dumb and worthless" along with her name.


One day Maddy actually ate our roast beef dinner, I mean she climbed up on the table and ate the meat. I must confess I lost my temper grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and the base of her tail and flung her out the front door into our yard she spun like a frizzbie and rolled across the yard no doubt scared but otherwise unhurt...with the words "dumb and worthless dog" ringing loudly across the front lawn.

Arielle, my daughter who was probably around 9 years old looked at me horrified and ran out the door to make sure the dog was OK. For the first time in my life I saw the look of disappointment on my little girl's face concerning me. Arielle gave me a tongue lashing that went on for several minutes...I didn't feel like I could yell back for I had lost my temper after all...and I didn't like that disappointed look she was giving me. Arielle ended her speech with some sort of statement "and she is not a dumb and worthless dog" and proceeded to hug Maddy as if my insulting words would be squeezed out of her black coat.


I decided after that to change the adjective associated with Maddyf from "dumb and worthless" to "smart and worth a lot" which then would eventually be proclaimed rather quickly to "smart and worthalot" to which my daughter would grin at me approvingly. As the years went by Maddy began to change. She accepted me as the "alpha male" and didn't seem so moody. One day when we were camping I had to leave a day early. My wife reported back to me that as soon as I drove off the camp site Maddy changed. If anyone she didn't know came near the camp site she would growl and bark warning my wife that a stranger was near. "Wow" I thought to myself "she really isn't dumb and worthless after all".


The change continued...she became this sweet loving dog...guarding our home when I'm not there and sticking her nose under my arm when I'm watching TV so I'll pet her. She flops over to have her belly scratched when anyone comes near her and makes those funny noises when she is sleeping and apparently dreaming of chasing squirrels. She is over ten years old now and slowly is showing some grey around her muzzle. She still anoys me especially when she has gas and chases us all from the living room. But she is a great dog. Some time between her flying out the door and a rebuke of truth from my daughter and a decision to change from "dumb worthless dog" to "smart and worthalot" my dog did change. I will not shed a few tears when she finally is done with this life, I will bawl quite a bit for I would have lost a good friend.

She went from "dumb worthless dog" to "smart andworthalot"...I wonder how many people I have labeled in such a fashion that simply need someone to change their label? Worthless addict to troubled child of God. Cheating wife to desperate woman? Smart ass jerk to a lonely man? Am I simply trying to overlook faults & sins, white washing guilt? No. Truth is not always pleasant but always useful. What I am saying is that it takes very little effort to see the wrong in people but it takes God to look deep in the eyes of a person and see what could be.

A label can start that process. A comment of worth and be the first blow against years of neglect and even abuse. I try to watch the labels that go out from my life. One of them can end up biting me or becoming a dear friend.