3.14.2005
A Lesson In Humility
I had a really eventful weekend. On Sunday, I spoke in both services at church about my journey out of the wilderness and back into the light of a relationship with Christ. I was asked to do this because of my involvement in the 12-step ministry there and its role in my reconciliation with D.
I was going to decline to do this initially, because of my recent depression and really poor behavior. However, with the help of some medication and the decision to eliminate TV from my life, I have been able to re-focus what energies I have towards living the life to which I believe God has called me. I had been given about three weeks to decide, and went from an outright "NO WAY!" to asking D. if she thought it would be OK -- thinking that she would just tell me that she wasn't comfortable with having me tell the whole church our business.
To my surprise, after the morning service last week, she told me that she was ok with me doing it. I needed to give an answer that morning, and I asked her to pray about it and tell me what she thought at the end of the service. She did, and came to the conclusion that God was doing something in my life which was bringing me all this attention. She decided that there must be a reason, so even though she wasn't comfortable with it -- she felt I should do it.
Well, I agreed and was asked to put together a draft of what I would say for the pastor's approval. I put together a first draft on Monday, and emailed it to the pastor, the church's Director of Congregational Care, and D. D. was the first to give me feedback, and it was not positive. I was confused, so I sent a draft to a trusted friend, who felt that it was right on target. Then more positive feedback from the Care Director, my therapist (a member of the church), and finally, the pastor. D., however, was very unhappy about what I had written and threatened not to be in church that day.
I was very upset about this situation. I looked over the draft and prayed and asked God to help me ensure that I was going about this in the right way. I found a few sentences where the wording could have been construed as blame. For instance, the original draft contained the phrase "D. left me", which I change to "D. and I separated". Another paragraph contained the phrase, "D.'s conviction that our marriage should end strengthened...", which I omitted completely. I became sensitive to her discomfort over having her business aired publicly. Yet I knew that I needed to tell MY story, even though part of it -- the best part -- included her and her humanity.
I continued to pray to God to bless my efforts and to keep my prideful and approval-seeking tendencies at bay. D. and I got into a fight over stupid stuff Saturday morning. I withdrew and prayed -- hard. Then we got back together and did something constructive in getting the kids (mine were there for the weekend) on board with our ongoing battle to housetrain our dog.
When Sunday came, I got up early, made some final tweaks to the speech, prayed really hard again, and got everyone out the door on time. The experience was amazing. When I had finished speaking after the first service, I actually got a standing O. One guy I barely knew came up to me and hugged me before I got back to my seat. I was overwhelmed and kinda embarrassed. Then I looked over at D., and that brought me down a few notches. But I was also OK with it. I mean other than telling the world that we were separated for almost five months, I said nothing that could possibly reflect negatively on her. I realized that this was her problem, and that all I could do was be there for her.
In between services, I was virtually besieged by people coming up and thanking me for being so 'brave' or 'courageous', but I think it was D. who had the real guts to sit in the service and face her own fears of exposure. Although she did bail out of going into our small group during the second service, not wanting to face our friends on the heels of the big deal that was being made over me. In fact, she shared with me later that one of the single women in our group came up to her and started to tell her how great it was and the whole I'm so brave thing. She couldn't get out of the building fast enough after that. I really did feel bad for her.
As for me, I felt very humbled and even frightened that people were making too big of a deal over me. I also felt a release, a freeing of my soul, that allow me to find all that much more passion and joy in the worship yesterday. I pray that I can continue to be as free inside as I felt yesterday. There is a saying in the 12-step community that "you only as sick as your secrets." I think I may have taken a very important step towards wholeness. As people kept coming up to me after both services and thanking me, I began to say that I was hoping that this event would help to break down barriers to open confession in our midst.
While I don't advocate just spilling the beans on every sin in your past or present, I do believe that judicious confession opens the door to true fellowship. One of the fears we all have is that our confessions will be used against us to hurt us. I believe that is one of D.'s biggest fears. However, it's been my experience that no hurt that another human can do to you as a result of knowing your past sins compares to the hurt that you can do to yourself by hiding from them.
- posted by The Drake @ 12:49 PM
Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home
<< Home
