Tunnel Vision

My wife and I are in the midst of clearing house.  Its amazing how in 9 years of marriage you can accumulate so much 'stuff'; paper, knick knacks and journals.  We have so many journals, some full and some half started.  This morning I was going through my work journal/to do list book and I came across notes I wrote as I reflected on my driving.  These thoughts came to me as I began viewing how I drive our car and I began to slow down to 'see' others.  What I encountered was frantic people, with tunnel vision.  I had been so preoccupied with where I was going that I lost sight of others, making me a dangerous and unkind driver.  I found that we can take this attitude into ever part of our lives and can be consumed by it.

I was thinking about the human condition of 'self' and how this plays out in our every day lives.  I think this concept is something that isn't necessarily new (what is now a days!)
but still applicable and necessary for us to evaluate on an ongoing basis.

We talk about LOVE, ACCEPTANCE, DIVERSITY but let's look at the fundamental belief that 'I am here on earth to get what I need and deserve!'  

There is this Christian worship song called 'Jesus, lover of my soul' by Paul Oakley.  It's a great song and I love it.  One day as I was singing it, I changed the words to the verse to better fit how we often live out our life.

verse
It's all about me, Jesus
and all this is for me
for my glory and my fame
It's not about you
as if you should do things your way
I alone am God and I don't surrender
to your ways

If we think closely to this verse and how these words speak to our spirit, we can most likely shout out an ouch...that hurts.  Is it really all about me?

Now before you jump all over me with excuses and thoughts on surrender and 'life is to be lived to the fullest', hear me out.

If I truly evaluate my life and examine my thoughts and I keep in mind the statement; 'I am here on earth to get what I need and deserve!'
This will cause me to see life with tunnel vision, narrowing my sight to just me, myself and I.  Our narrow vision may include others from time to time, but deep down, a questions continue to nag at the very depth of our soul: "Who am I? and What am I getting out of life?"

I think of many men that I know who have left their wives or their wives have left them because they came out identified with being 'gay or lesbian' or they left their spouse because they 'fell out of love, or never loved at all' or they found 'love someplace else'.  It's tunnel vision.
We bought into the notion that self actualization, self worth is more important than commitment, respect, honor, love, integrity, hard work, faithfulness, self control, goodness...kind of similar to the fruits of the spirit! We make excuses and tell others what we want them to know which is actually just appeasing our own neediness and brokenness, because we don't want to feel pain.  I get that.  I lived it for years...and if I am honest, I still wrestle with it. 

When I came out gay identified, it was about me!  It wasn't about others.  It was me, realizing that I had to live true to myself.  It was I in the garden, the serpent handing me the fruit saying "Did God actually say that?  He wouldn't hold good back from you, would he?"  I bought into a cultural definition of worth and identity because it felt right and good.  It didn't take into account those who loved me, or people who would be hurt by my 'self actualization'.  I was applauded by society, and yet I left a trail of pain behind me as I plowed off in my own direction.  I was a relatively good guy to boot. I hated injustice (I still do) People liked me, I liked people and I tried to treat others fair.  Yet, life was about me!  I viewed success as how I would prevail and rise above and get more money.  I was busy getting!

I met a great friend in the midst of all of this 'life of self' who challenged me by the ways she lived her life.  To this day, I don't think I have met anyone who is like her.  She challenged me to see others, to value others and to give generously.  We were co-workers at a school and we began to pay things forward (before it was even popular!)  Kindness; how could we be kind?  How could we lighten someone's day?  We tried secret pals, we created events like goody days that went all out in blessing others, and who knows the impact it had on others, but it did something to me.  It began to change how I saw people.  It slowed me down, because I needed to be intentional.

Now as a believer, I have come to realize even more, that life is not about me...and I still wrestle with that.  I still battle my own will when it comes to my interaction with my wife, my daughter, friends and those around me.  I'd love to say that I have laid down all my selfishness at the cross and live totally free of that.  Hardly.  There are still decisions that I mindlessly make that are fully equated to what I get out of it, rather than asking the question: "God, will you direct my decision making so you are glorified and others benefit?" 

This note that I found this morning, came at a good time as I reflect on getting rid of clutter, as I choose to allow God to continue to direct my steps and as I seek to do His perfect will and not live out of my own broken will.

Galatians 5:22-24 (The Message)

But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
Legalism is helpless in bringing this about; it only gets in the way. Among those who belong to Christ, everything connected with getting our own way and mindlessly responding to what everyone else calls necessities is killed off for good—crucified.

Bending the knee...

Today, I read another announcement from a young Christian leader welcoming discussion on "why he is dating men" and that he would do this the healthiest way possible because of his relationship with God.

For many people they would embrace this and celebrate his liberty and freedom and yet for me, my heart grieved.  I felt deep sadness in the statement he made.  There was no rejoicing.  My first words out of my mouth were "Lord have mercy!"  I was immediately drawn to the prodigal story.  My thoughts on all of this are for those who are believers...who have been enlightened to the truth of Jesus Christ and the full Gospel. 

Here we have a loving Father who has a son who wants desperately to go his own way.  The son sees all that he has and wants out.  He wants his freedom.  Maybe he felt too confined within the parameters of his Fathers standard.  So his goal is to get what is due him and leave.  So his father gives to him what he is owed (his inheritance) and he goes his own way.  Maybe to find himself...who he really is.  We may think the father would take a passive response...just get on with life, but he would have continually gone to the road to see if his son was coming back...day after day, month after month, year after year.  Maybe people would have mocked the Father...told him to just get on with it, forget about the son, yet I don't see the Father doing that...he waits for the day of his sons return.

Now the son...wanting liberation tries this and that to see what appeals to him.  Living his life to the fullest.  He no longer lives under the confines of his Fathers standard.  He is able to do what pleases him.  He is able to do everything that feels right.  Why would his father not allow him this freedom?  Such a backwards father, stuck in the dark ages of religion, could well have been his thoughts.  Why would a loving Father not allow me to be who I want to be and express that however I feel like?
Until it all crashes around him...when the money is gone...his friends leave and he is left alone.

As I write this...can we link this with an aspect of God handing us over to our desires and our own lusts?  Slowly and inevitably we begin to bend and accept an even broader realm of sexual expression?  We bend our knee not to God but now to a cultural humanistic expression of "what feels good".

What I imagined in this whole scenario and discussion is this:

The "church" the "bride of Christ" is adopting a definition of grace that allows us to go with our feelings.  If we do this then nothing is unacceptable.  Seriously.  Think about it.

I feel attracted to the same gender.  It's not going away as much as I want and so I'm going to still LOVE God with my whole heart and date those of the same gender.  (bending the knee)

I feel attracted to young children and this has never left me.  For as long as I know I have had this attraction so I am going to date young children.  (bending a knee)

I'm married and feel attracted to your spouse and so I'm going to leave my spouse for your spouse.  (bending a knee)

I struggle with same gender attraction and I still feel that attraction, but I'm married.  So I'm going to leave my spouse and take a position that this is what God had for me all along. (bending a knee)

I'm in love with an animal and they love me.  (bending a knee)

I'm in love with my father's wife and she loves me, so we're going to get together.  (bending a knee)

When does the bending stop?  When we begin the dialogue of one issue, we begin the dialogue of another.  We begin to lose the foundation set before us of Godly, healthy sexuality.  Designed and created by God.  Because inevitably, we stop the dialogue!  We stop being generous and gracious!  Because we will view those who hold a standard of faith and a value that sexuality is a sacred and holy expression only in the pastures of a monogamous marriage between one man and one woman as hateful and archaic and unattainable to those in the margins.  That we are being mean and unsympathetic to those who face something different as their reality.  If we welcome the bending of the knee we actually have to lay something down, I have to sacrifice something.  What we lay down is the standard set before us, not from an archaic God who is just out to get us, break us, pound us, enslave us, but one who knows the good of what is best for us in a broken and sinful world.  Who calls us into the fullness of life with Him and to live within the boundary lines that have fallen in good pasture.

Can we use the theory that because we live in a fallen and broken state, if my sexuality is broken than it's okay to embrace my broken sexuality and that God will bring it glory.  We can make license by saying the Church has a double standard, accepting divorced/remarried people to the church but we won't allow gay Christian's there.  These are all excuses to follow our own desires and place ourselves before God.
We proclaim  "God...it's messed up down here, and since you're not doing anything, I will take matters into my own hands...and oh ya...can you bless me too?"  Can you bless my idol worship?

That goes contrary to who God is.  God won't bless idolatry!  Or can he?  You might say...Kenny, that is a hateful thing to say.  But you know what?  If I don't fear God and holiness...I will seek to sooth people.  To pat them and say...ya...that's okay, keep living in the mud and mire and keep saying it's okay and keep saying God will bless it.  But in all honesty can we say that he hands you over?  Things get more muddled and more welcoming and pretty soon, everything that feels good, is good.

I saw this in my own life.  I began believing that same theology.  I listened to the feel good messages of humanism.  Since I always struggled with same gender attraction and God never took it away, I must be gay and I then cannot deny these feelings anymore.  No one had the right to speak what I didn't want to hear.  You needed to bend to my view and if not...you were hateful and unloving.  "Keep your opinion to your self...you self righteous Christian...who excuses all other sin...but mine..."

Some of that was truth...because the bride was looking pretty messy and bending their knee to easy answers and solutions.  Why stay with your spouse after they had an affair?  You have every right to divorce them?
Falling out of love...this is too hard...okay, lets part ways and find our true love and remarry!  Hard realities of truth?  Maybe!

Yet...I saw for myself a different picture of a loving Father who waited for me...but he also released me to go and live contrary to his heart for me.  He never once blessed my actions and said..."Oh Kenny, what you are doing is great!"  He did say this though "I love you with an everlasting love, can you hear me Kenny?  I have so much more that I want to you show...don't settle for this, because this isn't my best for you!"

I see the end result of the prodigal as the young man sitting in the filth and mud of his own making.  His decisions and actions brought him to the mud and mire and he realizes where he is and what he is doing.  He recognizes that even the servants of his father are treated better than this.  Was he remorseful?  Was he repentant?

I think in the loving arms of his father who ran out to greet him with arms full of compassion, tears washing away the mud and mire, soothing the young mans hurt, a father extended grace in the midst of the sons repentance, now being offered much more than he deserved.  How much more is our Father who calls out to us..."My son...My daughter...I love you...come home!  Don't settle for less than what I have for you, which is so much more than what you deserve...COME let me show you My mysterious ways...I'm waiting!"

a side - b side = forgiveness

Oh there is this buzz in the air...a hum of activity. People reading, searching out blogs that have any reference to the latest Gay Christian Network Conference recently held in Orlando.

The comments have been flying as to why the President of Exodus was asked to be on the panel discussion. This has raised a lot of concern on both what people term side a and b.

I was sent the audio of the panel to listen to. I spent a couple of hours digesting what was said, the feelings that came across as I listened and then afterwards let it rest for a while as the thoughts began to "percolate" around my mind. A few days later, I began reading responses and comments from various people.

I won't expound on any one person, as there is just too many people writing on this event. (I do want to remind readers and I have to remind myself as well, that we can get caught up in various arenas of thought and expressions that we lose sight of getting out there and serving. There are many people in need and we are called to cloth, feed, comfort and take care of people...so lets do it)

I came away from listening and reading with a couple of thoughts.

For me, I had some serious trauma growing up. If we study brain science (Dr. Karl Lehman is doing some great work in this field) we can see that many people have some form of trauma in their lives (trauma can be described as some form of event that caused us to record/interpret an event falsely due to varying factors (this usually happens in childhood), it can be from not receiving legitimate emotional or basic things, and it can also be severe abusive experiences, emotional, spiritual, physical or sexual).
For myself, it was many of those factors, which caused me to begin to interpret all the things that I saw and experienced around me. To an outsider, we all looked pretty normal but on the inside, I was pretty messed up.

What I am getting at here...is that we will walk in relationships, talk to people out of our experiences in life. We can hold on to deep wounds...we can use that to whip or hurl anger at another person, we can hold on to unforgiveness while holding a placard up saying...we deserve an apology!! All of this within the body of Christ.

For myself, I've had to lay a lot down. I have had to continually walk out forgiving others...and letting go. Sometimes, in my humanness, I pick it back up, carry it again, but it becomes toxic and I am reminded...oh ya, this stinks. So back I go again, forgiving.

A few thoughts flew around as I listened.
1. Does culture owe me an apology for saying to me "once gay always gay?"
2. Does culture owe me an apology for saying to me "you're just lying to yourself"?
3. Does culture owe me an apology for saying to me "you're in a mixed orientation marriage"?
4. Does culture owe me?

When I broke up with my gay partner (because our relationship had fallen apart) and then met the Lord who drew me out of a gay identity paradigm...calling me to walk authentically in my faith...and then my ex partner took me to the cleaners and ultimately, I was left with almost nothing financially...DOES HE OWE ME?

WHO OWES ME? When I think about all the hurt and the unforgiveness that I listen to and hear, I think...no one owes us anything...but rather...we owe Jesus... EVERYTHING!
This isn't to just pat people on the back and tell them to get over their pain. On the contrary...it is saying...your pain is important and Jesus is able to carry it and allow you to let it go and to not carry it again. Because it becomes smelly and stinky and you become the very thing you can't forgive.

No ones life is free from pain or sorrow, some type of grief or wounding. When we hold on to unforgiveness...we begin to tell...yell...proclaim that the other person needs to STOP, the other person needs to pay...the other person is horrible. We begin to paint a picture with broad strokes putting everyone who may be associated with that person on the same canvas. If I can be so bold as to say, this is true for those on SIDE A and SIDE B. (and I kinda hate that whole side a and b descriptive...or the us vs them)

Another thought that came was "we are all human...and to human is to fall short and hurt others...we will do that...it's inevitable! But to offer grace and mercy to others is a great blessing, something that we don't do well, when entitlement and unforgiveness is holding us hostage."

I've also been described as being in a mixed orientation marriage...the fact that I am still same sex attracted, but married to a woman...who also was at one point same sex attracted (who by the way...isn't anymore), this descriptive isn't fair nor correct. I would rather say it as I am in a mixed gender marriage...I am a man, married to a woman. My orientation...is no longer defined by my sex drive. My orientation is now defined by my creator, and in him, I am a new creation, the old has passed away. That is one reason I no longer hold the descriptive that I am gay. That isn't who I am anymore. I mean no disrespect, but I stand on scripture and who I am called.

In the end...we have all been wounded...and we have all wounded. None of us is perfect, and none of us will be perfect. What we do with that is up to us. We can continue to carry our placard...pounding our fists...or we can lay down the stink...and get on with it. Forgiveness begins with a simple statement, and then a lifelong journey to continually lay it down at the cross.

So side a...and side b...it's all up to you! What are you doing to do?

Through My eys...thoughts on the documentary

Through my eyes:

A documentary of individuals who have come to understand their gay or lesbian identity. They share their experience within the church community and their struggle prior to embracing themselves as gay and lesbian Christians.

My heart went out to the individuals sharing their stories of how friends and the church reacted to them when they inwardly struggled with their feelings, and how they reacted when they outwardly embraced their gay and lesbian identity.

I too experienced that within my years of inwardly struggling with my same gender attraction. Silently praying and pleading with God to take away these feelings. Crying out to him…endless prayers and petitions. Saying I would be a good Christian if only I did not have these feelings. I told God that I would do anything for Him if he took ‘it’ away. Since the age of 10…till I was 29, I struggled. The last few years of that struggle, I opened up and began to share the issue with others and sought help. I received good support in certain areas, but I thought the feelings would go away…why didn’t they?
I was in a healing community…what was wrong with me?

I could sympathize with each person…and yet…what was missing? Was it the environment that the movie was played in? Was it the people in the audience? Was it the facilitator? Was it just because I was at a different place that it somehow, felt hopeless and sad? Was it because at the end…there really was no hope? They had found hope in embracing their gay and lesbian identity, but is that hope?

I wondered and began to ponder?

Are we cheapening grace when we welcome people to stay in their captivity? I realize that someone who is identified as a Christian gay or lesbian no longer views themselves as being held in captivity but, as someone who holds a traditional Biblical Sexual Ethic does this make me unloving and unkind to say they are still in captivity? Jesus loved radically. I heard many times this week that Jesus walked in the market place, he ate with tax collectors, prostitutes…the down and out…those called ‘sinners’, if we use that analogy when we talk about Christian gay and lesbian people we are placing them in the same category as those called ‘sinners’, and Jesus never ate and walked with people so they could stay in the same place in their sin…he walked with them so they could rise out of that and live in the fullness of who He had desired for them from the beginning.

We cheapen Jesus’ love when we water down truth. Jesus isn’t this hippy love guru, who said only nice lovely things about love…and only challenged the religious leaders. He challenged all of us. He does not define us by our unmet needs, our brokenness, or even the ways we label ourselves in sin. He calls us out of that, into generous spaciousness with wonderful, healthy, safe boundaries for our good.

Having walked out of the struggle when I was 29…into the arms of the gay community (and yes, there is a gay community out there). I hung up all the guilt…and lived gay identified for 8 years and partnered for most of the 8 years. I walked out of the boundary lines that God has given his children to walk in for our good. I was angry at the church, and to those who spoke negative comments…about me…within hearing. So those were the last people I would associate with. Hmmm, yet God had other plans. God brought two people into my life who were in relationship with me. Both of them Christian. I find it interesting that we did not talk about God a lot but rather talked about our lives.

I was an activist. I wanted to change people’s minds. I wanted them to stop saying I was going to hell. I wanted them to stop saying that homosexuality was a sin. I read small booklets on what the Bible really says about homosexuality…and to my surprise…I was told those verses were taken out of context…and because man wrote the words, they interpreted it all wrong. Wow. I couldn’t believe it. Finally it was true. Yet…it still didn’t add up for me. I still could not believe that those verses did not mean exactly what they said. It did not make sense to what the rest of the Bible said about marriage, or how God created us as distinct genders. So I hung up the Bible too. Away, so I wouldn’t have to think about that. I prayed, I did good things, I tried to be a good person…and when I wasn’t I asked for forgiveness.

The last year of my partnership our relationship wasn’t going all that well and I had grown in who I was as a person, as a man, and I realized that this wasn’t healthy for me. That the relationship that I was in wasn’t good. So I broke it off. For me that took courage and guts. I began to work out how my life would look and what I would do. My plans were to begin again. Get a condo, keep working, maybe begin dating and life would continue on.

When we step out of the boundary lines of God’s design for our sexuality and who we are as gendered men and women, we invite distortion into our lives. We begin to be deceived by the world’s view of homosexuality and we believe that we are finally being true to ourselves when really we are being lied to and deceived. The enemy comes to kill and destroy and he is like a thief in the night…quick and silent.

I had silently and quickly slipped into the gay identity yet, God is the author and finisher of my faith…and He always has the last word. Not because He is controlling and unloving, rather He is our Father…who is kind, loving, a Father who painfully lets us go our own way.

God spoke to my mom in a real and powerful way one day. It didn’t impact me until later but she heard the holy spirit speak to her and tell me one day that I did not have to go back to Egypt. I was thinking this meant my ex partner…so I continued to make my own plans.

I know the plans I have for you…plans that are for your good! His plans for me. Not my plans for myself. Whenever we leave God out of our plans…and I mean, laying down our sinfulness and then ask Him…What are you plans for me God?...we enter into being our own god.

A few weeks later, I was out for a run. Troubled by legal issues regarding our separation and the dividing of the property…I called out to God and just said…I could use some help here, if you are there, I need you.
I heard God say to me immediately… “You do not have to go back to Egypt!”
I knew at that moment, that God meant my gay identity.

Do we wait for our lives to hit rock bottom before we need God? Do we become so successful that we do not hear him? Do we ever allow God to evaluate our lives in every area? Are we willing to lay down our gay or lesbian label at the cross of Christ? Does God really affirm us in our gay and lesbian identities?

God did not affirm me in my attempts to be my own god as I lived gay identified. I spit in God’s face. I cheapened His creation. I changed the Bible to suit my needs. I read the Bible with bias and could not allow the holy spirit to convict me of that sin.

I walked out of the wilderness…still same gender attracted. WHAT!!!! Not totally healed? Free of the attraction?
Nope. That was never God’s intent. I had to come to a place of understanding why I felt this way and I had to submit this to the Lord and begin to walk in relationship with others…of both genders. I had to begin to stop lusting after my own gender. I had to begin to love myself, and learn about who I was really created to be.

This weekend, someone labeled me as being in a mixed orientation marriage. I was offended by that. I do not label myself by my issues in my life. Do I still have same gender thoughts? Yes, but they are submitted to the cross of Jesus, nailed there, not being held by me, rather Jesus holds the issue. For I am dependant on Him, to be my strength when I am weak. For when I am weak, He makes me strong.

Being married to a woman, has been one of the greatest gifts I could ever imagine. I can’t imagine life without her. She is my best friend, my lover, my companion, my partner, and she is Christ to me and I to her. Her femininity welcomes my masculinity. As I take initiative, she is able to receive and we walk life out in love and respect, honor and trust.

Both my wife and I are not defined by our struggles or our weaknesses. I do not label myself gay…just because I have a feeling every once and a while. We are born again…washed clean, set on a new course. My label comes from Christ who bore my sin and shame. My label comes from my heavenly Father who calls me his beloved son…whom he is well pleased with. To call myself a gay man would call God my father a liar. He deserves much more glory and honor than that.

In all of this reflection over the movie. My hope is that each person in this movie would come to the full knowledge of God’s plans for them. To bring them into the fullness of their true identities.

Why I stayed...

I recently read Gayle Haggard’s book “Why I Stayed”. It is a powerful account of the emotions and experience that she and Ted went through in 2006 onward. Reading how various people especially the Church community handled the situation brought me back to my own experiences with the Church, yet mine paled in comparison to what happened to them. I wasn’t a Church leader mind you, but still, how do we restore someone back to health and wholeness.
There were a few things that struck me as I read and I want to share those insights that I found very applicable and honorable in the book.

Gayle describes how she coped with the news, after she just found out from Ted that the allegations have some truth behind it. Shock hitting her, fear overwhelming her, specifically regarding health issues brought waves of emotions.
I quote from page 67:
“Ted had already climbed into bed by the time I came out of the bathroom. I slid between the sheets and let my head fall to the pillow. And then I felt Ted reach for me.
My heart broke in that instant. I knew the importance of physical touch in a marriage. I knew its power to bring comfort, healing, and validation. And I knew the damage rejection could cause. Broken people need to be touched, and by reaching out, Ted was pleading for my help. I wanted to help him; I didn’t want to reject him – but what was I supposed to do with the anger, revulsion and pain that were warring in my heart?
I had coached other women through this. Now it was my turn. I would have to press through my feelings and not lose this important opportunity, because it might not come again. And so that night I began my journey of choosing…choosing to love. I chose to press through my feelings of anger. I pressed through my feelings of revulsion and took the hand I had held so many times, the hand that had brought me such comfort in the past. And in that moment, I realized how much I still loved my husband.”

She goes on to explain that at she slid into his arms, sorrow overwhelmed her. She describes the sobbing as waves sweeping over her, over and over again. They both clung to each other, sobbing out their sorrow. Not comforting each other, but being in a space to let everything go, in the safety of the marriage bed, together.

I broke as she described how she felt and I wept as I read about her fears and the ways she still felt comfort with the strength of her husband’s arms around her, even in her pain. She had every right to tell him to sleep on the couch, in another bedroom, heck, even out of the house, but she chose something different. She chose to cling and allow her emotions to come out, in the embrace of the very one who broke trust, honesty and dignity. How often does my mind go to offense and what I deserve in a situation? How do I choose to walk in a way that goes past my own rights? Especially when it comes to being married and walking with my wife?

One thing my wife and I learned through pre marital was to always sleep together, no matter the situation or feelings that are there. No matter the situation, always sleep together. We have held that dear to us, even when we aren’t getting along all that well. When we love each other, but don’t like each other very much. It has caused us to still touch each other in the midst of our brokenness. Choosing to always sleep with one another has drawn us together and kept us moving together as a couple, through the hard stuff.

Gayle goes on to talk about listening to people share their stories. How everyone has a story and everyone wants someone to hear their story.
She states that she usually responds to the story in this way (quoting from page 121)

“Thank you for telling me what they’ve done and how you feel, but now you have a choice. Who are you, and what kind of person are you going to be in this story? You can’t do anything about the other person, but you can decide who you are going to be and how you are going to react. All of us have that choice.”

There is that word again… “choice.” We all have a choice in how we respond to circumstances and how we deal with the things in our life that rage within us. I have a choice to be faithful to my wife, to walk in wholeness. Being aware of my brokenness gives me the opportunity to make choices in how I respond out of the broken places. I won’t do everything perfect. On the contrary, I need Christ as my anchor and my supply. I need him to lead me in the way everlasting.

Gayle states a question mid way through the book, “So how did I get through those darkest hours in my marriage and family? I made a simple choice – to love. To cling rather than separate. To bring everything out into the open, as opposed to remaining sheltered. And I remembered something I’d learned long before: Love isn’t a feeling, it’s a choice – a choice we make every day, sometimes every hour.”

Here we are again at the word choice. She goes on to state again the importance of touch. How often do we as the offended one respond by abstaining from touching the wounder or allowing them to touch us? Our human response may be the opposite of the godly response. She goes on to say that Ted and her clung to each other and out of that choice, they both felt safer. She states that this wasn’t easy, but she was willing to go to that place together with Christ and with Ted.

What a beautiful picture of the body of Christ and how Christ draws us in, when we are wounded or when we have wounded someone. Christ is no respecter of person. He draws both parties unto himself, wanting to bring both people to greater healing and wholeness. Especially in marriage, I know that my wife and I as we walk together in the realm of culture, we mirror the image of God and we are called to be Christ first and foremost to each other. Does Christ tell me to sleep in another room? Does He say, cast away…or does he say…draw close, even if it hurts and I will draw close to you in your pain.

Forgiveness is key as we move to walk with our spouses in redemption. I love it when Gayle describes when Ted asks her again to accept his apology and that he realized how much of a jerk he’s been to have treated her in the way he did. How many times did she hear his apology…countless times, yet at this stage, she got it. She felt it deeply and waves of forgiveness flooded her heart.
Forgiveness will cost you something. It doesn’t mean you won’t hurt or you will forget the wrong, it does mean that you are willing to let go of the wrong and you don’t hold the wrong against the person.

I remember well when I released the one who violated me sexually. When I no longer held that wrong over him and released the wrong to the Lord. I had a visual picture of myself holding on to his neck…screaming the words, I forgive you and yet I was still holding on to his neck. The Lord was asking me to let go. It didn’t happen right away, but I saw myself let go, and this peace encompassed me and flooded me with mercy rather than justice and hate. I could actually release the person to the Lord knowing the Lord loved us both.

In the book, commitment is talked about in ways that go past our cultural thinking or even Church values. So often we feel validated to end the marriage because of adultery and yet is Jesus asking more from us, and what if the wounder is repentant? Is he or she worth fighting for? Is the marriage worth fighting for? Is the family worth fighting for?
Gayle states “This was the hill I was willing to die on.”

Romans 8:28
“We know,” Pauls writes, “that God causes everything to work together for good of those who love God and are called according to his purposes for them.”

I am amazed at the journey of Gayle and Ted Haggard. I am amazed at the Lord’s hand in leading them through the darkest hours and bringing them into the glorious light. Despite the emotions, the feelings, the rejection, this couple chooses to walk differently. Did they walk this out perfectly? I would think both of them would agree they didn’t, because they are human and no human is perfect, yet they were honest and made choices in how they walked this out with each other and with their family. What a testimony that God has written in their lives. May the Lord continue to use them, protect them and guide them, may they not turn to the left or to the right but keep their eyes on the prize set before them.

Psalm 90:13-17
O Lord, come back to us!
How long will you delay?
Take pity on your servants!
Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.
Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery!
Replace the evil years with good.
Let us, your servants, see your work again;
let our children see your glory.
And may the Lord our God
show us his approval
and make our efforts successful.
Yes, make our efforts successful!