This weekend we had the chance to drive down and meet up with my whole family. We haven't all been together in a while, so it was long overdue and loads of fun. There are 6 kids relatively close in age and so that was fun to watch as well. It was great to see everyone, and to catch up.
Where we all met up is in a place that Sherry & I lived for a short time not too long ago. It was great to be there, but we both sort of associate that season of our lives with frustration, difficulty, and general feelings of failure. It was an especially tough time for me, a time when I felt very angry and isolated. I battled against fear and uncertainty a lot. The first day we were back this past weekend it was a great time being with family, but the second day for some reason this heaviness and feelings of doubt and failure seemed to overwhelm me. It was the same fog I lived in the whole time we lived there and the one I've battled on and off for a long time. I can't really explain it, but every memory of feeling like a failure and like I was in exile or something rushed back in and settled in my gut like a heavy brick. As much as I tried to fight it all, it was just there like it used to be. I hate it. I hated it then, and I hate it now.
But as the days went on I prayed and prayed. I prayed that God would lift it and I could let the past be the past and enjoy the present. I wish I could say that it just went away, but I carried it back home with me and it wasn't until this evening that genuinely I feel free of it. Tonight we went with the youth to the beach and spent some time just being together. It was the first real away from the building thing I've done with them.
It was liberating.
It set me free of the heaviness. It was like in some way being with the students and other leaders made me feel whole and put things into perspective. The feelings of self doubt and fear were pierced and the strength that I think only the Spirit can bring flooded my soul. We sat together, threw sticks into the inlet, ate cookies, sung a few songs, read some scriptures, and prayed. In this I realized that God is still leading me and that I am not defined by the hurts of the past. It was very healing to return to the perspective of today. It's so easy for me to get caught up in old stuff that I thought to be dead & buried, forgiven & forgotten.
I'm not naive enough to think that all will be rosy from now on, but I am running forward praying for the Spirit to lead & guide. We are blessed and I feel so thankful for our new context & season. I'm so thankful for the opportunity to serve in this way. I'm so thankful that I don't have to live in that fog anymore, and that when it tries to creep back in I can know there is more to life and the Spirit is able to conquer the heaviness. It's not always easy, but I believe God is bigger & stronger than the past.
I believe that God is bigger and stronger than the past.
God truly is bigger and stronger than the past.
3 comments:
Luke,
I am so glad for you. I went through that fog myself when I left my job at the church. I talked with Sherry about this, but didn't mention it to you when you were here, but it is so good to see you back, back to the passionate, full of life person that you are! I am so glad that you are all in a place that is taking such good care of you and Sherry. God's timing is good.
Ditto on what Toby said...by the way, is that a picture from one of your beaches on your home page? It's cool.
That picture is from good ole Pike's Peak. A rock cairn, it be.
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