The untold story of the last 2+ years

Dear friends,

I want to tell a story. A story about the last two years or so, and some things that have been going on that I haven’t shared with a whole lot of people. My prayer in doing so is that:

1. I understand some of the things I’m thinking/feeling right now. As is stated on Lauren Sheldon’s blog, “How will I know what I think until I see what I write?”

2. People get an idea of what’s been going on that I haven’t been telling them. I could call, but that would be a lot of explaining over and over again. Plus, I tend to explain myself better in writing than over the phone. Of course, if any of you has questions/comments, feel free to leave them using the comments link, by e-mailing me directly, or by giving me a call.

3. Some of you may be able to relate and get clearer thought on situations you’re in.

4. And ultimately, that the good Lord’s name is glorified.

To start this story off, you need to know some background. Back in 2003, I went through an almost unbearable physical pain. I had just finished getting my Master's degree and had no job for the fall. Most of that summer, I felt like I was having a constant heart attack--constant chest and shoulder pain, plus tingling sensations. The pain subsided one week while I was a camp counselor, but as soon as that was done, it came right back. After the Lord provided a job teaching at the local community college, the pain didn't go anywhere. I was thinking it was more of a "mental" problem than physical, but I finally did go see a doctor in Sept. 2003. Diagnosis? Anxiety depression. I was put on a prescription for an anti-depressant, which worked great! The pain subsided, my mood much improved, and my doctor had even told me that I would probably come off the medicine sometime around June 2005.

Fast forward. I moved to Boston in August 2004. Find a doctor? Well, I certainly should have, but I didn't. Thus, my prescription ran out in January 2005. What's five months or so? Riiiiggghhhttttt. The anti-depressant wore off, and I've been sinking back into the depression ever since. This time, there was little to no physical pain, but it affected me mentally much more than I care to admit.

In April 2005, shortly after I came off the medicine, I started to take the commuter rail to work, and in doing so, I met someone. I shall call her Jane. She and I quickly got along (not in a romantic sense!), and I found out early she wasn’t a Christian. As many of you know, God has given a strong burden for those who don’t know His grace. So I started to pray for opportunities to share His word with her. When we got together to celebrate her birthday a couple of months later, I found out she was going to a course held by Landmark Education, and as I dug deeper, I found out that she might be searching for a “new philosophy” (not her quote, just don’t know the right words to use.) Sweet! God’s already answering the prayer!
After Jane went to the Landmark course, I asked her what she learned. She talked about how she learned that her actions have much deeper motivation than most people realize. Sweet! God’s working in her! Often, a key step to one becoming a Christian is the recognition that their actions have deep motivations, and those motivations are often, if not always, quite selfish or wrong in some other way. (An example here might be giving at church—one might claim they’re giving because the church needs the money, but in reality, it’s because they want the church to think more highly of them.)

So at this point (August 2005), my mind starts playing connect the dots. I’m praying that she sees this, and she’s seeing this, so God is working, right? And, further, this means that He’ll answer my prayer in its totality, which means she will see her need for His grace and become a Christian soon, right?

Fast forward to June 2006. We hadn’t talked much about Christianity for a while, but I’ve still been praying for her. I continue what’s become a mini-tradition for us by this point, namely we treat each other out for ice cream on each other’s birthday. The topic comes back up—once again, she’s interested in talking further about why she does the things she does, and how she can change. I continue to pray for an opportunity to speak to her about the Bible’s answer to that very important question—how the Holy Spirit enters our lives upon asking for grace through Christ, convicts us of sin, and changes our hearts to want to be more Christ-like. The opportunity comes in August that year, when after a conversation, I take a risk and e-mail her, telling her that while I’m praying for some things she asked me to pray for, I’m really praying that she sees that she can truly change only through Christ’s blood. How does she respond? Well, first she thanks me, then…

September 5, 2006. I get this in an e-mail from her:

“I’ve been thinking and I think I’d like to come to church with you at least once. Let me know what you think.”

Hello! I had invited her generically to church before, but I had no idea this was coming. Awesome!! My response:

“As for coming to church with me…that’s kinda like asking a dog if he wants a steak!”

OF COURSE I wanted her to come to church with me. More proof that I’m doing the right thing, and that God will reward me by using me to bring her to Him, right? We went a couple of times, and she seemed pretty responsive. Then she went to an orphanage in Honduras with some co-workers on a trip organized by a Christian. Upon returning, she tells me how she was affected, and it seemed the Lord had done a great thing in her while she was there. She was touched more than I could have hoped for. She’s so close!!...or so it seemed.

It’s now October 2006, and I go to Sweden for six weeks for work. We keep in touch by e-mail. The first signs of “trouble” came about a week into that trip, when she admitted she had doubts about becoming a Christian. OK, I think, that’s perfectly fine. It’s good she’s thinking deeply about this and not just blindly jumping in. Then, a couple of weeks go by, and I get an e-mail detailing some of the doubts. It’s clear that these aren’t just minor doubts she’s having that have easy answers. “What’s going on, God?” I start to think. Why do I feel something I’m holding onto so tightly starting to slip away? I ask her if the decision is “final”, and she responds with, “No. No decision is ever final, I think.” At that point, we agree to discuss this in more detail in person when I get back.

So we do. The first week of December, 2006, we get together at P.F. Chang’s restaurant in downtown Boston to discuss her thoughts. It boils down to the fact that she’s not comfortable with the idea that God gets all the credit for defeating sin—she wants some of the credit too. We agree that I won’t ask her to come to church again unless she brings it up first. OK…well, God is testing me—right? He’s testing me to see if I’ll have patience to continue reaching out to her, to get through this brief blip—right? After all, I’ve worked so hard, how can He keep this from me—right?

By now, you can see where this is going. As the months go on, it becomes clearer and clearer that she’s not going to accept the message of the Gospel. In fact, she sent me a video called “The Secret” which details what she believes. In short, The Secret puts forth the concept of the Law of Attraction, which basically states that if you think about something enough, the universe will recognize it, and you’ll get it. One example from the video was someone who wanted a lot of money, so he kept thinking about making $100,000. Eventually, an idea popped into his head (I forget what it was off-hand), and by working toward that idea, he got his $100,000. But you need to keep thinking about it; if you stop thinking before the universe grants it to you, the universe will sense your shift in thinking and not give it to you. In later conversations, Jane shares with me examples of where she’s seen this happen in her life, and it’s clear she’s quite fond of this concept.

One thing depression does is it can really mask your feelings. You don’t really know how you feel about certain situations, because you’re just, well, depressed. At this point (April 2007), I had started to get really frustrated, but not realize it. How could something I worked for so hard come so close, and yet not come to pass? Why is God not rewarding me for my faithfulness? Unfortunately, I’m not acknowledging that I’m having those feelings, so I have a conversation with her that I shouldn’t. Without getting into details, I’ll say that I was trying to take out my frustration on her, she realized it, and it humbled me. I realized that I didn’t quite understand how I felt, and that it wasn’t fair to let my depression affect her like that, so I call the doctor’s office the next week and make an appointment for June 12 to get back on the medicine (yes, over a month after I called—go Boston medical system!)

I still hadn’t given up hope. In June, I went to San Diego, and as I was at church there, a question popped into my head: “Am I mad at God?” Definitely a question the Holy Spirit placed in me, and the answer was yes, I was definitely mad at God. How could He let me get so close at yet not let it happen? Well, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but you can see from the account that I had gotten extremely selfish and prideful—I deserve to have her become a Christian, and I deserve to get the credit for it. Ironically, the same issue that helped keep her from becoming a Christian is now one I’m struggling with—giving God all the credit and glory. It’s a good example of James 2:3-4:

“You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

Alright…so at this point, the only question left is do I acknowledge that the situation is dead or not? The depression medicine starts to kick in, and I start to realize just how much I really wanted that answer, and just how angry I was that things didn’t go the way I wanted. I really didn’t know whether I should be continuing to actively pursue this or not. So a couple of weeks ago, to celebrate my successfully joining her team in a challenge at the gym at work and to celebrate her birthday, we agree to go canoeing and then get ice cream. I felt God telling me that I would have my answer by the end of the night. And praise Him, He gave it to me. Jane and I had a long talk about the whole situation, about how both of us felt throughout. It was clear that this is something that I shouldn’t be spending much time or energy on, at least for the time being. One thing she said that really comforted me was something like, “I really don’t think you could’ve done anything better that would’ve made me become a Christian.”

So am I at peace with it? Not really, though I’m getting there. He’s showing me that I need to take the time & energy I spent on this situation, and spread it around, e.g. getting involved at church and in other people’s lives. In fact, He’s shown me a lot through this (in no particular order):

1. That my motivation in seeing others see the grace of Christ is often, if not always, dead wrong. I desire to take credit, to put the feather in my cap, and He simply will not reward that.

2. That if I expect to help others, I really do need to take care of the body God’s given me, especially as I start to get older. Paul writes about how his body was a slave to him. I tend to be a slave to my body. To that extent, I’ve started going to the gym and eating healthier, and I have a goal to run a 5K race by my 30th birthday (August 2008).

3. That my conviction to not date a non-Christian is a correct one. To be clear, she and I were never close to dating, but what if I had started to date her, especially in a “mission dating” sense? (“Mission dating” means to date someone specifically to bring them to Christ.) The result would have likely been the same; I see no reason to believe she would have become a Christian if we were in a relationship. And then when she decided not to become a Christian, what do I do? Break up with her on the spot? Great way to show Christ’s love: “You’ve rejected Christ, now I’ll reject you.” But if I don’t break up with her, then I’m continuing a relationship that would dead end—the Bible is very clear about not marrying a non-Christian (2 Corinthians 6:14, which I believe also refers to dating a non-Christian.) Paul warns us, “How do you know, wife, whether you will save your husband? Or, how do you know, husband, whether you will save your wife?” (1 Corinthians 7:16) That’s in the context of explaining why a Christian is free to re-marry if they’re married to a non-Christian, and the non-Christian leaves them, but I believe the principle holds true for non-marital relationships as well.

4. That I simply cannot control God. He will do as He pleases. I also cannot control other people.

5. That God cares as much, if not more, about the methods as the result. This is counterintuitive to what society says, especially in business—in business, it’s all about whether you hit the revenue target or not. More importantly, it’s counterintuitive to how I feel—somewhere, I’ve picked up the idea that the result is what matters most. But God doesn’t see things that way—having the right motivation but getting the “wrong” result is so much better than having the wrong motivation but getting the “right” result. And just because the result isn’t what we expect…well, it’s always the “right” result. Saying it’s not is saying that God’s not in control.

6. That I can’t deny my feelings. Somewhere along the way, I’ve fallen for the idea that if I think I shouldn’t have a particular feeling, then I can deny that feeling and it will go away. For example, in this case, I was (and still am) mad at God. Of course, a Christian “shouldn’t” be mad at God. Therefore, I denied it—and took it out on Jane. Time and time again, God shows me this concept, and yet I keep doing it.

So there you have it. The untold story of my last two years. If you’ve gotten this far, thank you for reading, and please do be praying for me. The depression medicine is working quite well—in addition to helping me understand the above, I’m also already seeing how the depression has affected me getting involved in this city, and I’m starting to get more involved with activities, both in church and outside. So praise the Lord for that! I’ll finish with one my favorite passages:

“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”—Romans 7:21-25a