CONSIDERATION​

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO SOLVE A PROBLEM

WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW

WHAT THE PROBLEM IS TO BEGIN WITH!

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I KNOW THE FEELING - I CAN HELP!

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I’ve been there. Early in my life I developed an insecure attachment style, tormenting me with anxieties. I knew some REDemption truths that got me through many things, but I still would have triggered moments. I can remember times where my brain would feel like Jell-O; unstable, filled with irrational fears. These panic attacks would come usually late at night when nothing else needed my focus. Sometimes I would wonder if would make it back into my right mind by morning. Thankfully I always did. 

 

These anxieties affected my relationships, from selection of friends to the forecasting of eventual abandonment. The anger and depression affected my parenting, my marriage and ultimately my dreams. Oh, did I mention my dreams were stalled out. It seemed like no matter what conferences were attended, podcast were listened to, or books were read, nothing could get the momentum moving. I would have to fight for every inch of peace or joy that I could get, as subconscious doubts and torments formed my self-esteem and value. I medicated by comfort-eating, getting distracted with unimportant things and excessively talking painfully about the people who’d left me. As a pastor, that can scar deeply.

 

As a career pastor, this vocation is all I had ever known. What does a pastor do if he/she suffers? The complexity of stepping down and deciding the future of our church without me, or the future of my own calling-assignment, and how it would affect my wife and kids, considering the confusion and disappointment it would bring to our members, along with the fearful loss of our comfortable standard of living, one that we had grown accustomed to, was overwhelming and confusing.

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What was I supposed to do? Thoughts rolled through my mind to stop it all and focus on getting healthy. But I would think, “What job would I even take if I wasn’t a pastor?” These thoughts of helplessness and hopelessness are nuanced things that a pastor has unique emotional energy around, and it is its own suffering. 

 

I’m grateful for the spiritual fathers who had taught me how to connect with God, live by faith, receiving God’s grace, make meaning of suffering, and to make my identity in Christ. These powerful truths helped me, however they didn’t complete my recovery. I’m sure I didn’t understand the truths to the level of “revelation” that I could have. Yet, I needed to understand me better, and why I did the things I did, or why I raged as I raged, or was depressed as I was depressed. 

 

Then the path to recovery turned for me as I gained new light, informing inerrant texts by the color-commentary of psychology and neurobiology. As a doctrinal-fundamentalist, these sciences allowed for a new vantage point behavioral-transformation taught throughout Scripture. Later, my passion grew to help others so I engaged in a training program developed by a pioneer in addiction therapy, Dr. Patrick Carnes. I became a certified multiple addiction professional with the International Institute of Trauma and Addiction Professionals. Since then I have progressed exponentially in my own health and recovery. Through the years I have gained meaningful friendships with these recovery colleagues, Christian psychologist and therapists, who are equally passionate about helping those who struggle and suffer.