"You've got to do something, Or else..."

Have you ever been in a group setting and been asked to open up to the group and share sensitive and sometimes unnecessary personal information; all in the name of Group Edification, Openness and "Personal Healing"?

I'm sure that if you have been in any "Small Group" sessions at a Church, Alcoholics Anonymous, Jenny Craig or Goat Burners Recovery Group - you've probably been confronted in one way or another by a group leader or fellow-sufferer to "Share your feelings" and "Tell the group what you think about this or that or how or why"...ad nauseam.

I was in a situation, such as the one I've described, a few years ago that I'd like to tell you about in the hopes that in the telling you can draw some...(I don't know)...something from it that would enrich you...

So, there I was sitting cross-legged on the carpet like a good little Indian, waiting patiently for my turn to share something about myself that would show how willing I was to open up to this new group of friends; when I realized that the bit of info that I was preparing to share seemed to be a little bit more explosive than what the other 25-30 people in the circle were talking about...

Let me give you some perspective on the scene before I continue...

It was a planning and retreat weekend for the ministry team of a brand new church; the crowd was eclectic in a SoCal/College kind of way...
The question that was asked of everyone in the room was this "Name one instance in your life where you knew you would never be the same."

Somebody once told me that we all answer questions in three phases of honesty, depending on how comfortable we feel with our surroundings. Those three phases are Honest, More Honest and Most Honest...Honest will earn you a sympathetic look from across the room, More Honest will earn you a hug or a hand squeeze, Most Honest will earn you a slobbered on shoulder and a snot-encrusted upper lip...

Everybody in the circle seemed to be giving very honest answers and seemed to be letting every one else get an intimate glimpse into their lives and thoughts...granted some of the answers turned inexorably toward subjects like first pets, lost teeth and drivers permits; but some people were truly reaching deep and taking out the trash.

I chose the easy way out.

When it came my turn to show which level of Honesty I was prepared to divulge; I opened my mouth and found myself saying something about writing songs that expressed my soul and how I felt...Ralph-Splat...I accomplished nothing...I was less than Honest, I earned a few raised eyebrows and a golf-clap.

Now, that's what I said. Not what I wanted to say.

I don't know that if I had opened up completely and made myself vulnerable that anything would have been different in how anyone else saw me, but I know that I would have seen myself differently - Maybe better - More confidant.

What I wanted to say...

In the last few months of '99 I found myself faced with a decision of some importance...
I could rent a room from a Star-Trek-Loving-Ex-Hippy in Rohnert Park and continue being anonymous amongst the people I grew up with...OR...Take my chances and move to one of two locations in the US where I could start fresh and make my own way...It was going to be either Colorado Springs, Colorado to take a job as a youth pastor for an evangelical ministry where a place had already been carved out for me - OR - San Diego, California where I knew exactly one person, no prospects, no opportunities and no niche prepared for me...

I chose San Diego and gave everyone I knew a few days notice that I was leaving. I packed everything I owned into a 1967 Chrysler Newport Custom and left town on September 1st 1999 at 4:00AM in the morning...I was scared shitless.

To summarize the next few months I'll say this...I slept on my friends bedroom floor, searched for a job for 2 months and ran out of money before the gay assistant manager at the local Starbucks took pity on me and gave me a job...sufficed to say; by this time I had lost quite a bit of weight from my poor-person diet and my health was on the decline...I was also as lonely as I'd ever been.

I'd been living with my friend for several months now and I could sense that I was cramping his style in a big way, things were coming to a head and I was not prepared for the outcome.
We had a blow-out, the kind of blow-out where Choice-Suggestions and "F-You's" are handed out liberally...At the end of the blow-out I was faced with an ultimatum...Move out.

With the money I was making at Starbucks I could barely afford to feed myself and keep my gas tank full - let alone pay rent in San Diego...I just wasn't ready for this yet, not even close.
The date was February 16th.

A few days prior I had asked a girl out on a date...Yes, on Valentines Day...She never showed.
I felt extremely lonely, rejected and altogether...a loser.

At the same time that I got rejected I was also told that my hours were being cut back at Starbucks and that I was lucky that my bosses liked me so much because if they hadn't - I wouldn't have had that job anymore...Apparently the regional manager had found that too many people were working at this one location and that many of the people had to be let go...I was one of those on the chopping block and by the grace of my gay assistant manager; I was spared...but just barely.

By this time it must be easy for you to see that things were not going my way...in fact it's fair to say that I was devastated...Personally, Emotionally and increasingly; Spiritually.

You see, I'd been so busy focusing on surviving that I'd forgotten who gave me the strength to go on...don't misunderstand me, I don't believe that God is all that concerned with my every-day actions, he's more concerned with my soul...this is probably the reason that I felt a tug on my sleeve that evening after the blow-out and final slap in my face...

It was after the argument that I was sitting in my '67 Chrysler in the parking lot of a Denny's restaurant, I had less than $5.00 to my name, it was one week till payday when I would get a paycheck of no more than $300.00, my car was running on fumes and was about 10,000 miles overdue for an oil change.
I was starving, tired, hurt, scared and utterly alone. And it was raining; hard...which is rare for San Diego - but fitting for the circumstances...

I remember sitting there in my car and thinking to myself "What am I going to do?"

I also remember being mad at God.
I remember yelling at God and crying, a lot; I didn't understand how I, the second-born son of Godly parents, beloved worship leader and devoted servant of God and Man, could suddenly find myself in a situation that was beyond my control - perhaps for the first time.

I remember now that in my desperation I had cried so bitterly and cried out to God that I was "Tapped-out", "Done" and "Tired of living" - I realized even as I was saying it that I was saying that I wanted to die rather than feel afraid and alone. I was thinking about suicide as an alternative...I think that that realization scared me more than the circumstances that had brought me to that place of despair...

It was then that I cried out to God for a new reason, altogether different in desperation..."God, I'm worn out and I'm talking about dying here, I don't want to die but I'm so tired of this life, I'm desperate for something, anything that will make my life make sense...You've got to help me! - You've got to do something or else..."

I'm not sure if God responds to our ultimatums and I know that I didn't feel any better after ranting and raving like a lunatic in my car, in the rain, in a Denny's parking lot for several hours...but I did realize that I was made of tougher stuff than I'd previously realized and that encouraged me.
It didn't change anything though. The rain didn't stop, my gas tank didn't fill up, my wallet wasn't suddenly full of cash and I was still screwed...But at least I was ready for whatever was going to happen...with that in mind; I slept in my car.

Would you like to know what happened next?

A red-necked, hill-billied, fat-man from Alabama called me out of the blue and said "I heard through the grapevine that you need a place to live...I just moved into town to help a local youth ministry get off the ground and I'm renting a two bedroom apartment that I can't afford on my own; if you can afford $450.00 a month I'd like it if you could be my roommate..."
It turns out that this guy from Alabama was going to be working with the same youth ministry that I'd been thinking about working with too, and we did end up being roommates and it made all the difference in the world...

The youth ministry that my new roommate and I were involved in took a drastic turn and decided to become a Church; we called it Mission Gathering and I've been a part of Mission Gathering pretty much since that beginning and I've been the leader of worship ministries for the Church for about 3 years now - Mission Gathering Christian Church will be 6 years old this October.

Soon after I moved into that new apartment and started going to my new church; I met a girl named Lindsay while working at my Starbucks job one evening...

I flirted with Lindsay intensely and asked her out on a date a few weeks later.
Our first date was on March 3rd of 2000, we went to the Hard Rock Cafe in La Jolla where she challenged me to a beer chugging contest, I lost, the beer went all over my shirt and she thought it was hilarious - Yes, she was a keeper. We got married 3 years later.

Now, I've never seen God, I've never heard a small, still voice telling me that every thing is going to be OK and I've never felt the touch of God's hand...at least not in any way where I could point it out to you and say "See, I told you so!"

But, I can say that I have yelled and screamed and cursed at God...And I can tell you that he saw the tears rolling down my cheeks in that '67 Chrysler, he heard my cries for help on that rainy night and he felt me reaching out to him in my darkest hour...

And maybe that made all the difference.