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Well, here I am trying my wife's,(Jackie, some of you may know her) therapy out. She says Diaryland and the abiltiy to just express herself here has helped her over the past two years more than anyhing. We have need the help over the past two years as we are recovering from a very traumatic situation. Ok so it was traumatic to us. No cancers, life threatening-illnesses, and as far as I know not even that close to divorce or anyhting like that-Thank God. But to us it was traumatic b/c it was the death of a dream and the crushing of all we had built in our lives and sadly all we had built our lives around. It some ways for me I think it was the equivelent of losing a child perhaps but I don't mean to diminsh that experience for someone who has lost a child. Simply my misdeeds in life caught-up to me. You see I was a youth pastor and I loved it. As I said my wife and I had built ourlives around it. We ate, lived and sleeped emersed in the youth culture and the lives of the teens we tried to reach and support. Somehow though I let myself get sidetracked in more way than one which will be discussed a lot in all kinds of future psting I am sure. This is starting to sound more like a novel than a posting but I just want to catch the diary up! The diary can't be behind! The main misdeed which oddly came to be known as crossing professional boundaries was basically being too flirty or friendly or touchy-feely with a couple of females in the church, one a teenager. Anyway the whole thing in someways was legit and I needed corrective action I am sure of it but in others was just way blown out of proportion and reactions were just way over the top. I know, imagine that in the church-culture a reaction over the top especially to sin, wow, bet that's never happened before. There is tons more that has happened and that I have waded through as far as freinds deserting me, mentors adanoning me, questioning the religion etc. but all will eventually surface in some entry or another for you dear, Diary, just wait.Anyways, here I sit two years later still processing the whole thing, still fighting internal guilt battles, still depressed, still imbittered, still so very very very unsure of so very many things.Some conclusions I have come to lately not all I am happy with are:
1. That I still have a great faith/ belief in God just not much of a relationship with Him
2. That no matter what I do people from that situation will always be somewhat the same and somewhat judgemental- I can either try really hard to not step on their toes, ignore them completely, show up from time to time at their events and show support, or drop of the face of the earth and no matter which choice I pick somehow someway someone will still be offended!
3.That almost everyone else from that situation has moved on and hardly ever thinks about it yet somehow it plagues me daily. I want to shake that so bad. I want so badly to go a day and not think about something from my past experince or some kind of guilt or some kind of whatever that is not a good feeling that all stems from that. Then I want to go a week without a reminder of it. Then maybe a month a nobody mentions it, nothing makes me feel guilt at not having finished well or that I am not in "ministry" now.
4. I have realized that I am just letting life happen-not really living it. I am not enjoying the fact that I am still breathing, married to a great woman, have a terrific job, good family support, and chances to do all kinds of things if I wish to. I must get back to life. The mental, emotional, spiritual state I am in is destroying me in all those areas and now physically. It is time to live life that is what I came to this town for to live life not to let it just happen all around me or to me or to let it live me but to LIVE life! After all the One I worship said He came to give me LIFE to its FULLEST!
So here I go to live this day! I'm sure I have more rambling and rantings including some funny comments about big ed's phone call last night but it will wait.