Been a While Pt. 3

Laura was needed back in CT immediately to help prepare for a ministry trip the upcoming weekend. So she packed up the next day and headed back north. She was going to stay with a friend for the month of Feb, while I would stay in FL and work to make some money rather than return to CT in snow season. So for the next month, I just worked hard and stayed in the apartment with the dogs. In the meantime, Laura was getting acclimated to the new season in CT with KRM, and she found us a house to move into in the beginning of March. Things were looking like they were starting to get into a settled rhythm with a season in CT for the foreseeable future. I was still not in the 2010 internship, but we had a place back with the ministry family, and that is where we felt we were supposed to be. The internship was still a sore wound in my heart, and my soul in general from the past season was still in a state of sickness. Actually, while I was looking forward to what God was going to do in the next season of our lives, at the same time I was not really looking very much forward to returning to CT. As much as I knew it was in my heart to be there in the middle of things, the amount of disappointment and hurt, rejection and hope deferred that I had endured there caused me to feel quite shaky to say the least. So when I got there in March, I had a very hard time getting back into the community. I was struggling with isolation and rejection, and was caught in a swirl of emotional chaos that was leaving me feeling at a loss for vision. The enemy was very much involved trying to derail what God was doing. Even my marriage during that first period was challenged, because here I was in CT without knowing my place, and my wife was smack in the middle of the day-to-day operation of the ministry that I knew I was intended to be a part of during this season. And even though she was a part of things, still there was no real place for me. Not that I needed a job or something, but KRM is very community-focused in the staff team, and they do a lot of relational development stuff within the team, and despite Laura wanting me to be involved, there really was no way for me to be a part of the team. So that only served to drive me more into a place of isolation, and this time I was drawing further and further from Laura in my heart. The enemy was trying to sabotage my life and destiny during that time.

Eventually, over the intervening months, I was able to have some restorative connections with various people in the church, and that was a beginning toward getting settled. Then I began to get more involved in the life of the KRM family, beginning to participate in the different activities and events that they hosted. Then, finally, after some months of being here, I got the opportunity to communicate with Jason about all that I have gone through over the past year, and my various challenges along the way with the internship, the ministry, and my family. That talk was very important because it enabled me to verbalize some things that I needed to get out in the open. We were able to connect on all of that, and after that talk it was like a whole new season began.

Even after that talk with Jason, still I have been wrestling with some areas of shakiness in my soul. Some of it is residual stuff from all that I have gone through over the last year, but much of it is stuff that I have begun to realize has been laying dormant in my soul for a long time, and just had not been put under enough pressure to surface until all that I have gone through over this past year. So suddenly I find myself in a process of soul healing that is taking me deeper and deeper into places in me that I have never been before. I have been in a process like this for a long time, but over the past few weeks I have begun to learn about elements in this inner healing/restoration of foundations process that are deeper than anything I had ever seen. I feel like I am just now beginning to chip away at the real heart of some of the issues that I have dealt with for all of my life. It goes into identity and core places in me that speak of real true transformation. I will go into more detail in a further post. This is just an update.

So over the past month or two, we have begun to see a budding connection with Jason and his family that God is beginning to birth, and we don’t know exactly where it is leading all of us, but we are starting to see that it goes farther than we saw at first when we came up in Jan. Some amazing things have happened and come forth, with the Lord birthing Laura into areas of her destiny and identity that had not been touched before. And many other amazing things have occurred. We are just beginning to try to sort it all out, and we know that we are just at the beginning. I think we will be here a bit longer than we originally thought, which is exciting. I knew God had some things here for us, it just took running up against that wall again and again in perseverance until it gave in. Wow, what a journey. I feel like we are in a process in every area of our lives of ripping up wrong foundations and being built on a right foundation. There is so much to say on that, so I will do that in the next post, maybe. Bless you all!!!!

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