The View From Here

I smoked a cigar tonight.
It was the smoothest tobacco I ever tasted.
Still, it was tobacco. I wouldn’t do it often.
I certainly wouldn’t tell my son about it.
But I just stepped outside and walked VERY slowly tokin on this stogie.
I found I suddenly had a bit more time to pray.
And, by God, I had something to say!

Mostly, it went like this:
Lord God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,
WHAT in tarnations am I doing HERE?!!!

I found myself walking in the glen on an overcast, moonless night.
The woods are peculiar at night in the dark.
The lines between flesh and spirit seem thinner.
“What was that rustling over there?”
There was a sense of pent-up history calling out from the wood.
But the boogie man can’t get me in the shelter of the most high.

And THAT is my point.
There is a fruit of this time of trial for Elizabeth and me.
Liz is emerging from depression
into the strength of her true identity in Christ.
I am being freed of (perhaps lifelong) fear of calamity.
(to use another word favoured by Yosemite Sam)

That which I have greatly feared has come upon me.
It seemed like our marriage was bleeding arterially.
Ministry options threatened to come to a grinding halt.
I was alone and without recourse;
until reality presented itself in light of faith in God.
To quote Led Zeppelin “You are never alone”
Better to quote God: I will never leave you or forsake you.
Christ specifically: Lo, I will be with you, even to the end of the age.

My hands dropped to my side at some point over these last two months and I was as good as dead. Apprehended, it seemed. Busted for being so scared; and so stressed; and so desperate to control the course of MY life.

So I am still here.
We are still separated.
It still sucks.
But it is getting better.

We share a mutual hope, Liz and I.
And I am happy to report that God is faithful to hear our prayers and we see that He is at work on each of us during this time. We are again encouraged to trust that ‘one’ has genuine good will toward the ‘other’. And God is building us back up to ‘choose to’ honour the covenant rather than ‘have to’. This language is less peculiar to me after this ordeal.

It’s like we were frogs in a pot and Liz was the first to say “wait a minute, this is freakin HOT” and jump out. We have some bad habits and some lame 25-cent psychology worming through this process, but God seems to be sifting through insult and injury to bless us with humour and the joy of life.

I just wrote this email to the course moderator for this class in Pastoral Care to let him know I will miss the final project submission deadline; because his class didn’t make the cut when I was setting priorities right over these last two months. Maybe I will get to submit my case study another time; maybe I just crashed and burned. Maybe this tanks my accreditation as an approved minister with the Baptist Union of Scotland. But God has watched me face the fear and choose the wife of my youth and refuse to roll over in the face of external pressures and ‘curse God and die’.

So... I smoked a cigar to celebrate (like we just had a baby).

I think ministry was the gift of grace through all of this.
People came alongside of each of us.
The fellowship here in Alva is completely supportive.
You came to both of us together and separately.
We made new friends and heard from old friends.
We have been ministered to by God almighty
through faithful servants.

No one abandoned us or sniped at us.
Everyone who deemed it appropriate to respond was gentle, with few words and offered to pray; and followed up to affirm that they were praying.

I was embarrassed that we were in real trouble.
And now I am mostly proud to be God’s;
and to call you all friends.

We’ll need to get Liz to blog on the same subject,
when she is up to it.

Please keep praying and lifting us up
and please don’t let our plight and testimony be wasted on you.
Keep marriage from degrading over time
and never give up in the midst of the storm.
“He is able” “He is faithful”

We came over here to ‘call Scotland back to her First Love’ (arrogant)
God has given us ourselves as a gift
and called us to Him first, in love.

How bout that?

PS Cigars are kind of nasty, after the fact.