There is some fear in writing this. Some for the humility of it, some for hoping I can give it justice.
Here’s the reality of it. Facts. No sugar coating it and just being honest as an observation of what has occurred.
About 3 months ago (my timing may be a little off) we had some circumstances arise. We found out our insurance had lapsed. All we had to do was renew it, but that process has taken over 2 months. With it, our SNAP funding – which was helping us with groceries, etc. Kailie lost one of her bigger clients on one of her jobs, resulting in about a 1/3 loss of her income. I had closed out grant funding from a project we were running with the schools for the last year, which dropped my income by more than half. Between SNAP, and our business income – we dropped by half. No more doctors, no more of the biologic injections/ medication. All in the same month.
Around the same time, my health issues (now a mix of the “auto-immune” disorder not only with the colitis, but also attacking my nervous system) in continued decline forced the awareness that I had to surrender something at a deeper level. It’s a bit hard to describe, but essentially between my pancreas, my guts, the nervous system, the deterioration and impact on my spine (right arm atrophy and slowly losing function), along with the mental beat down of dealing with this for 14 years had finally taken a new level of toll. I realized if I keep going, I was only causing the symptoms to worsen. I had forced myself to continue to come up with creative ways to support the family financially – and I was running on adrenaline the whole time to do it. And all it did was keep our lips above water. I knew it wasn’t sustainable…but making a decision at this point to recover in the midst of all our circumstances seemed almost impossible. The beauty in it all, the choice was all but taken from me as the deterioration to my body was building so much I knew I had only one choice.
It was inevitable.
There was a series of days that led up to this, and a decision that was made as I prepared to visit the psychiatrist (who allowed me to come for an appointment regardless of insurance). As we talked, it became clear where the source of the stress was coming from.
I was torn between believing that I had to sustain my family, even in my condition…or that I let that go and trust God fully. The two were warring so deeply in me, I believed that it was cellular and maybe causing a lot of my illness. I could feel the conflict.
In this moment, a flash… all of my success, all of my hard work in sports, schooling, investment into a career, the meltdown of that and switching to a non-profit where I could manage my own work around my symptoms and stay in recovery, my work, my efforts, being a good husband to my wife, a provider to my kids. Everything down to putting food on the table. I must still have pride left in me, and part of my identity was tied to being as strong as I could be for my wife and kids. There has been a long battle with the recognition that from a worldly standpoint, my failure in all of it had made me a burden to my wife, and a ghost of who I was to my kids. At least that is how a big part of me saw it. I felt immense shame, and somehow it was going to get worse? Thoughts of losing our home (forbearance process had already started), our vehicles, the horses, the businesses, etc were on my mind. We have equity in our home, so it wasn’t the financial burden with a sale…it was that our life, the kids lives may need to be pulled up and into something else. A big unknown.
Still. Decision was inevitable.
So I prayed.
Talked to God and turned it over. All of my ambition. My “backdoor” efforts to bring in income, to ask for help, much of what felt like begging at times at the expense of friendships. I didn’t have it in me anymore to do it anyways.
I know I let it go. This was real this time. And I knew that I was led to this.
I thought things may now change, that God would somehow miraculously change things like all the stories in the Bible…I thought we would have one of those amazing stories to share with people that would blow their minds and show that faith in Him would be so compelling from our story that it would bring Him glory. Even that is annoying…and prideful in some weird way.
And the opposite happened. I declined further. I went from having 2 “bad days” a week to about 4 or 5 “bad days” per week. My body shutdown almost completely. Barely making it out of bed most days. Waking up with immense anxiety, and depression I hadn’t felt in years came flooding back in. Not the kind you distance yourself from…but the clinical, take you out – kill your ambition, create absolute apathy, rob all of your energy and turn you into a shadow of the personality you once were kind of beatdown. Coping mechanisms that are always swirling around came flooding in. I still feel a lot of this (yesterday for example…and the majority of the week before that).
While swimming in this…an opportunity to build out our facility, put in a round pen possibly, and engage in a contract to help a local tribe and their recovery programs with our equine experience came up. Lifeboat? I knew I wasn’t capable and that making a commitment to it would be a nightmare of forcing it. I knew it was a no. I got so angry.
What the hell? Now Broken Arrow was done too? Did I not hear God and watch Him lead that for the past 6-7 years? Was it all selfish ambition? WTF!
The conversations Kailie and I had weren’t always pleasant during this time, but by the grace of God we were able to recognize this is not US, this is not who we are, this is something we needed to stay united in and fight / stand together on. Thank God for her.
Family support financially was the only way we have been making it. Huge blessings, at the perfect timing…while immensely humbling…have been a blessing like no other. Friends, supporters…I could give you probably a hundred stories how provision has come in…and this has been for years. No shortage of miracles in the past 2-3 months.
This could be the story. This is reality. Is what it is. Just keep rolling and things will go the way they go.
That’s not the story.
Here’s another reality. That is just as real, and has more authority and power over the other than I could have ever imagined.
Another place. Right here with us, that we see with different eyes and experience with different senses…but just as real.
It came through a decision. Being led to a set of circumstances where a choice had to be made. Only in the spot we were in could we make this choice. The word “yield” comes to mind.
That moment where I knew I had to let it go, that it was yet another “end of me”
Kailie and I get up every morning, drink our coffee and tea and get into the Word. Sometimes it’s a book pointing to the Word and then we dig in. Sometimes we are pissed off or scared or full of anxiety and we have to help each other through it. But one way or another we are in the Word. And it is in us.
We’ve been in John chapter 6 where Jesus, talking to his disciples in some big field…asks one of them “where will we buy bread so that these people may eat?” We’re talking thousands of people. Then he got some boys 5 loaves and 2 fish, gave thanks, and distributed it to the thousands.
Right there. Two realities intersect. They ate, but the food came from where?
Then the people follow him to the “Village of Comfort” and they want a “free lunch.” He then drops a bomb on them and says…you just want the food…not me. I can understand wanting the food. The provision. And choosing it over Him.
Then he says, “eat my flesh and drink my blood. Don’t work for the food that perishes but work for the food that endures to eternal life”
This is where I see most people get soft and say…”well…this is where you believe in Him, and then he provides the food.” It’s a figure of speech.
I wasn’t in a spot to deal with figure of speech. We needed the food, but we were exhausted and battle weary from the war to put it on the table every day. From switching back and forth from the “real world” to the Word and “spirituality” every day.
This was no joke to me.
Did he mean it? We have to eat…right?
Could I only work for the relationship, the fullness of me seeking only Him? Do I really believe he supernaturally fed thousands of people? I found myself believing it. I’ve seen Him do it in our life. Over and over…and it’s so simple yet so unexplainable at the same time.
When I was faced with the decision in the office with the Psychiatrist (which seems to be a place and conversation where “which reality” do you choose becomes a part of the discussion) I had to choose whether I believe Jesus is real, that He IS the provision, and I couldn’t fake it. It had to be as REAL of a choice with the heart as anything. You can only make this choice when you are in these kinds of spots, where you know when reality presents it, which way do you go? Follow what he says? Or go and try and make it work again any other way. There is no gray area when you are in these spots, nomatter how many people bring in religion and watered down bullshit…this is where we decide what is real.
Our situation, and the repetition for the past years…brought me to surrender.
“This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” They were asking what they were supposed to do for work, to feed themselves. If they followed him, how would they provide for themselves and their families? An honest question. And a clear answer. It just wrecks our thinking, our dependence. Our view of society, and economics, and our systems, and money and how we barter and trade to get what we NEED, not just what we want.
Which reality is more real? Are they both real? Which has more pull? Do we have to live in both? In the bible, after Jesus beat death and came back to life…he then went back to heaven, sat at the right hand of the throne IN ALL AUTHORITY over heaven and earth. And then he sent his spirit, himself…to be IN US, and he gave us all of that authority to live out. Key is, we live IN HIM, which means we need to give him all of us.
That’s a lot, I know.
But I am starting to see that He is here, we live IN him, and the world and it’s dictates starts to fade. The influence it has on us starts to fade. We start to live by different rules, much of them we find we are living against the systems of this world, it’s slavery and its prison. Much of it today, especially for us in the US, it is tied to economy, finances, and money as security. Jesus not only says don’t do that, he is adamantly opposed to it (you cannot serve two masters). Get to the “land of zero” sell everything you own, buy the field and see what he reveals. It will blow your mind.
And here is the thing that seals the deal for me:
When he died on the cross, his last words were “it is finished”. Tetelestai.
This was a term used a lot in Jesus day, and these examples are good ones to put it in perspective (see Rock Point Church sermon on June 28, 8:30 service, youtube about 26 mins in):
In business: it was a receipt that was written saying all debt has been paid. Finished
In legal matters/judgment: The sentence has been served, you have been set free. Finished
In the military: when an enemy came to steal kill and destroy, a unit would be sent out to fight on behalf of the city. Whoever won – that would be imputed to the city. The “evangelist” would be the person who would come back and tell the outcome of the battle. Victory has been won. Finished
To me, this reality is more powerful. Has more authority. Impacts my life here on earth more than following the worlds systems. He finished his work. I am free. I can live like it, in the face of all of our circumstances.
No wonder we keep making it through.
He won. It is finished.
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